Life Gets In the Way Friday will supersede Friday Stat Dump this week. We'll return next week. Enjoy the weekend games.

This is so, so weird, and cutting Caleb is dumb, dumb, dumb.

MLS Goals Added (g+) and xG Leaders ⬇️ (as of: 2025-09-23) 🤖⚽️ | #mls

Late to this, like I am everything these days, but Catalina Bush covered Avg Def Action Height in a little more detail with other contextual metrics in an article for Backheeled last week. In it, she noted MLS teams with a balance between defensive actions and line height. bsky.app/profile/cata...

A year ago I did a research project for a class. Using some basic linear modeling, I checked to see whether there was a significant relationship between avg height of def actions and xG/xGA — there wasn’t. Even deviations from a team’s norm didn’t matter. Jamon does a great job of explaining why 👇

Friday...er...Saturday Stat Dump: Using the new ASA Viz Hub to look at Average Defensive Action Height. Quite simply this allows us to see how high teams are getting defensive actions. For event data, this is an alternative method to seeing typically how high defensive lines are set. 1/

This is amazing. I really have missed work like this. Thank you, @harrisoncrow.bsky.social!

I've been out-of-pocket for a couple of days, but here is a great explainer thread from Catalina on the new ASA VizHub app. I'm still running around today. Hopefully I will fit in a Friday Stat Dump (or maybe tomorrow instead). We'll definitely use this tool, though. viz.americansocceranalysis.com

MLS "Lowest G+ 11" this season: ST - Jovelic, KC (-3.9) W - Sofo, RBNY (-2.3) W - Carmona, RBNY (-2.1) AM - Bassi, HOU (-2.6) CM - Servania, DC (-2.1) DM - Loturi, MTL (-2.1) FB - Cannon, COL (-1.2) CB - Svatok, ATX (-3.0) CB- Fofana, NE (-1.6) FB - Petrasso, MTL (-1.2) GK - Bond, HOU (-6.6)

If I’m proud of one thing at ASA, it’s that we have done a really good job of making data accessible to people without the tools to meaningfully engage with it otherwise. This is the next big step in that! Shoutout @cata-bush.bsky.social who has done a stupid amount of work on this.

Catalina is the most talented publicly-facing data viz creator I've seen in years and this app is extremely (a) comprehensive and (b) fun to play with

I got to talk to @cata-bush.bsky.social about this project at the outset and review some of the early charts. Check out all the basic charting abilities in the article below. I'm so excited for this, and we'll definitely be taking it out for a spin in the next Friday Stat Dump!

Over the last 5 months, I've been working on building an app that allows *everyone* to generate data visualizations using ASA data. From match-level action plots to season-long radar charts, VizHub lets you download tons of different graphics with ease. It's 100% free and public, too. Enjoy!

remember 3 months ago when @jamonm.bsky.social, @cata-bush.bsky.social and I told you San Diego Wave were actually not good 🙃

Friday Stat Dump: Shots on Target In 2022, @eliotmckinley.com, @tiotalfootball.bsky.social, and Sean Steffen, as part of the ASA series The Replication Project, took on the question of predictiveness of core shooting metrics. www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2022/7/... 1/

fwiw: at Austin, Seb had a fairly unique combination of defensive output and ball progression (+ exemplary work ethic, obvs), even if that didn't exactly add up to being a good player yet. There was definitely a reason to take a chance on him (for 50k GAM at least).

A play in three acts

Friday Stat Dump: Expected Goal Differential (xGD). Yep, we're going really basic today but hopefully with some useful data. For anyone new here, xGD = Expected Goals For - Expected Goals Against. Since 2017 (- 2020), it's nicely correlated with Goal Differential in MLS. The averages are 0. 1/

If anyone ever tells you that you can't do something in Shiny, don't believe them. You can do anything with Shiny.

No Friday stat dump this weekend due to the holiday. Enjoy the holiday weekend and the games!

Friday Stat Dump: This week we are looking at "Positive Possessions". Positive Possessions are those which end at a point further up the pitch than they started. Seems simple enough? Let's get into it. Possessions by themselves are neither good nor bad. It matters more what you do with them. 1/

Padraig looked at the schedule and said: let's make the playoffs *and* make some money. #Rapids96

Is it Friday somewhere in the world still? Here is your belated Friday Stat Dump for this week: "Where Goals Come From's" Individual Play shots. In short, Individual Play shots are open play shots that don't have a key passer. (primer here: www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2025/4/...) 1/

Having some database trouble tonight, so Friday Stat Dump will either come later tonight, or I'll shoot for tomorrow morning.

And by "LOVE it" he means he hates it. As do I.

Friday Stat Dump: Put it in the mixah! We have talked about penalty box entries already this season, but as a part of progressive pass and progressive carries topics. Let's go a little deeper at the request of one of my followers. You see some good and decent attacking teams at the top here. 1/

You saw the NWSL analytics tiers yesterday, here’s what the analysts had to say when we actually spoke to them a few months back: www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2025/8/...

Check out our latest, as promised: www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2025/8/...

Jumping on to send this reminder: Friday Stat Dump returns next week. If you'd like me to consider sharing a specific metric / statistic next week or in the future, let me know in the replies. I focus more on MLS league-level and teams than players, at least for now.

I wrote something a little different: statesidestats.substack.com/p/sharing-is...

No Friday Stat Dump this week and likely not next week, either. Apologies. Life sometimes gets in the way. Enjoy the games this weekend.

We had our say on the state of analytics in MLS. Now the staffers get theirs'. Here's the 2025 MLS analytics survey: www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2025/7/21/2025-mls-analytics-survey

The annual MLS Analytics Staff Survey drops tomorrow with a new top 2 teams seen as most analytically advanced. The least analytically advanced teams remain the same with one Loony exception.

The MLS analytics tiers for 2025 are out! Survey results coming soon.

Friday stat dump: Clearances. Are they good or bad? Well, my preference is do them as little as possible, but the real answer is a bit complicated: it depends. There are good, bad, and meh teams on both ends of this spectrum. 1/

* Maniacally laughs in probabilities *

Minnesota United became the most aggressive set-piece team on the planet with old-fashioned tactics backed by new analytics — and now they can’t stop scoring from it. My first for The Guardian:

Tanner Beason doing his best Messi impression but can he now score a brace to follow that up?

Now that the 2nd round of Euro games is done, there's finally enough to data to analyze. I built a shiny app that lets you view Atomic VAEP for Euro games + players. (All modeling/data processing credit goes to @chloesainsbury.bsky.social) Lmk what you think: catabush.shinyapps.io/vaep_tables/

While I was out-of-office, @paulharvey.theoutfield.nyc released this gem. Be sure to check it out. I wonder how important those progressive passes and carries are? 🤔

We dropped g+ sub categories last week, and here is how we use them from @paulharvey.theoutfield.nyc @mimburgio.bsky.social and @beninquiring.bsky.social www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2025/7/... Using Goals Added Subcategories for Player Evaluation — American Soccer Analysis

No stat dump this week. I’m off the grid essentially until next week. Be safe this weekend.

xG Tableau is updated! public.tableau.com/app/profile/...

The three most entertaining players of my adult life: 3. Ronaldinho 2. Messi 1. Calvo

Francisco Calvo doing Francisco Calvo things.

Beau Leroux. Remember the name. Nice banger at Stanford, but the kid could be special. But the Galaxy just can't keep giving that kind of space in Zone 14, either. I mean, they can. They've been doing it all season.

The race is on to see if the underlying numbers catch up to the Timbers quickly enough to knock them down a ways in the standings. As I saw live, they didn't look good against the Quakes, and today was horrendous in Toronto.

FC Dallas took two home games this week and played them like two away games against San Jose and San Diego. This was the GameFlow on Wed. That is not a team playing at home in MLS. bsky.app/profile/game...