Why Steven Beitashour is a great signing

Steven Beitashour made all of $49,612.50 last season playing for San Jose. He is set to make a sight more than that in 2014 playing for the Whitecaps ("upwards of $200k", says MLS writer Ben Jata), and deservedly so.

Some people are questioning that amount, and in a salary cap league, all salaries should be judged on their value (though not necessarily on their replacement cost - the contract/trading system in MLS renders that difficult at best). So let's take a look at what the value of a good right back is in MLS. Or rather, in the Western Conference, because it's easier, quicker, and within my realm of knowledge.

Team	Player	Games	Minutes	G	A	Salary
CR	Marvell Wynne	28	2315	0	2	285,000.00
LA	Sean Franklin	33	2736	1	4	248,333.33
VW	YP Lee	32	2747	0	6	231,100.00
PT	Jack Jewsbury	26	2240	0	1	194,750.00
RSL	Tony Beltran	25	2230	0	1	166,800.00
FCD	Zach Loyd	25	2132	0	0	136,997.50
CHV	Mario de Luna	30	2637	1	0	120,000.00
SS	DeAndre Yedlin	31	2710	1	2	53,500.00
SJ	Beitashour	27	2426	1	3	49,612.50

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Notes:

1. Salary is the guaranteed salary as published by the MLS Players Union. 
2. I apologize for relying on goals and assists, but it's the most accessible data.
3. Kellyn Acosta took over for Zach Loyd in Dallas, but Loyd had twice the starts on the season.

So a fairly wide range of salaries for starting right backs, but in general those are likely a higher wages than many people would guess at. Basic conclusion seems to be that a good starting right back in this league is going to cost you $150-250k, and the player acquisition mechanisms and restrictions mean you'll likely have to overpay (one way or another) to get one in the first place.

What jumps out at me when looking at that list is that the quality of fullbacks in this league is not that high. Is Beitashour one of the best right backs in MLS? Well, yes, but that's mostly because there isn't a ton of quality in the league. He's certainly very good at this level.

Beltran is the best of the group, and deserves a higher salary. Both Beltran and Beitashour are solid, very good players, nothing too spectacular, but smart, organized, athletic, etc. Franklin is a little flashier at times, but I rarely notice him when I watch LA - I wondered at his salary when I first noticed it last season, and LA was probably smart to let him go. Yedlin shows promise, and in a couple years I think he'll be the best right back in the league. Expect him to get a significant raise soon.

Lee was a joy to watch in 2012, but his drop-off in 2013 was significant. Jewsbury is not a natural right back, but is smart and effective, and knows his limitations. De Luna, we barely knew ye... Wynne has has phenomenal recovery speed, but $285k for a fullback with questionable ball skills is a really poor use of cap space. Kellyn Acosta will be one to watch in Dallas - he's just 18, and I think won the starting job from Loyd on merit.

Clearly Beitashour was being criminally underpaid. What's interesting is that apparently San Jose tried to renegotiate his salary up but he wouldn't. And now he's getting a huge pay raise. The Whitecaps will pay somewhere in that $150-200k range, and all of a sudden a ridiculous off-season doesn't look so bad.

UPDATE: If you haven't yet, go read Ben Massey's comprehensive look at Beitashour's career so far:

http://www.maple-leaf-forever.com/2014/01/29/those-steven-beitashour-statistics-in-full/

Whitecaps roster - 2014 salary cap edition

Name	Salary counts	2013 cap hit	2014 cap hit
Signed
Sam Adekugbe	no	51,500.00	51,500.00
Bryce Alderson	no	80,000.00	80,000.00
Caleb Clarke	no	46,500.00	46,500.00
Russell Teibert	no	65,600.00	65,600.00
Omar Salgado	no	136,868.67	136,868.67
Kekuta Manneh	no	84,500.00	84,500.00
Jay DeMerit	yes	375,000.00	325,000.00
Jordan Harvey	yes	112,500.00	112,500.00
Eric Hurtado	yes	81,500.00	81,500.00
Gershon Koffie	yes	176,000.00	176,000.00
Matt Watson	yes	79,251.98	79,251.98
Aminu Abdallah	yes	46,500.00	46,500.00
Johnny Leveron	yes	71,187.50	71,187.50
Darren Mattocks	yes	212,000.00	212,000.00
Carlyle Mitchell	yes	46,500.00	60,000.00
Andy O'Brien	yes	230,012.04	230,012.04
David Ousted	yes	166,156.25	200,000.00
Kenny Miller	yes	387,000.00	195,000.00
Nigel Reo-Coker	yes	237,362.50	387,000.00
		Total	2,175,951.52
Unsigned
Creative mid	yes		387,000.00
Starting RB	yes		150,000.00
Back-up RB	yes		60,000.00
Back-up GK	yes		70,000.00
Mehdi Ballouchy	yes	152,006.00	80,000.00
Andre Lewis	yes		80,000.00
Mamadou Diouf	yes		80,000.00
		Total	907,000.00
		Grand total	3,082,951.52
Christian Dean	no		100,000.00
Marco Carducci	no		35,000.00
Ben Fisk	no		60,000.00
Marco Bustos	no		46,500.00
Kianz Froese	no		46,500.00
Jackson Farmer	no		70,000.00

Here are my estimates for the Whitecaps' salary cap situation, as it stands on January 20. For updates, check out new posts on Two Fat Bastards.

1. The MLS salary cap for 2014 will be somewhere close to $3.097 million. 
2. If I haven't heard or thought differently, I have carried 2013 salaries over to 2014. There are some exceptions. I am considering building in a 2-5% raise for everyone. 
3. The table wouldn't fit further squad info that would explain why players are or aren't on the cap - suffice it to say that I think I'm pretty solid there. GA, homegrown, salary amounts, etc. 
4. I've guessed at DeMerit's salary based on a few things - it's much higher than other estimates I've seen ($200k, etc). I'd be willing to wager that he hasn't taken much of a pay cut.
5. Kenny Miller's amount is for a half-season as a DP. That could change quickly - so much depends on whether he'll be heading back to Scotland/Europe in the summer transfer window.
6. I've generously given our unsigned midfield playmaker a DP salary. Here's hoping we find someone whose skills demand it.
7. The amounts for the unsigned players are obviously estimates, but I've looked at a lot of salaries in the league for most positions, and I think I'm pretty solid there. We could pay more for a starting right back. If we pay more for a back-up keeper we're foolish.
8. The Homegrown Generation Adidas situation is not clear at all right now. We have no idea if Teibert remains a homegrown, if players ever transition to normal from homegrown, and so far it's unclear how much salary teams are allowed to allocate to Homegrown GA players above the league minimum before it counts against the cap. Yay MLS. 
9. I expect we'll see some signed players leave before the March 1 roster deadline - if I was a betting man, I would guess Abdallah won't be here, maybe Hurtado, maybe one CB.

We won! or why fans identify so closely with their teams

A friend of mine (we'll call him "Darren" for the purposes of this piece) wrote this:

I'm a big sports fan, but I try not to refer to the teams I support as 'we'. In this context, I'm a consumer, not a creator. This Mitchell and Webb piece is a wonderful illustration of this idea.

Haha, quite funny, etc. (Especially the bit about Spurs as a rival for the title. C'mon, you're havin' a laugh.)

I've been giving this a lot of thought. I share some of the aversion to the use of we, but often find myself slipping into it. And here's why:

[Insert good bit that opens "Darren" up to the idea of seeing himself as more than just a credit card.]

...and the high cost of hockey tickets and the dead audience at Canucks games may engender a sense of feeling like a wallet, true. I have no desire to consume a Canucks game again. But I can compare it with my experience and cheap price for tickets to the Whitecaps, or even catching the Whitecaps Reserves for free at Thunderbird Stadium.  Are we ever merely consumers, paying for services rendered? Surely not when I attend games for free. What about if I pay $1 to see a game? Or money for parking? At what point do I become just a consumer?

(This ignores, of course, the library-like atmosphere at some Premier League games, and the ultra-high cost of season tickets for, say, Arsenal, but that's not my experience as a soccer fan.)

I assume "Darren" meant it in a broad sense of the word consume, as in to take it in rather than actively participate. Technically true for many fans, but not for those of us that choose to participate in the more active forms of support. When I go to a soccer game, I am more than a consumer. We chant, we sing, we stand and applaud, we swear at the ref in rhyming couplets... We participate. And I'm not even talking about being part of the spectacle of tifo and flag-waving and such that is often seen as an integral part of some game experiences.

This (at times) turns into the 12th man aspect. Crowds influencing games, etc. There's a lot to be said about the value of home field advantage, the benefits of having an active, loud crowd, etc. There has been a lot written about this elsewhere, and I'm not about to repeat it all. Suffice it to say that it's a thing, with measurable thingness.

And how's this for measurable thingness: Unimpressed with the effort shown by the team who were losing 4-0, ultras (hardcore supporters) in Genoa demanded the shirts off the Genoa players' backs, mid-game. And they got them. Now let's pretend that Genoa didn't end up losing (which they were going to do no matter what.

I detest that, absolutely, but it sure is direct participation in a game.

I'd like to take it one step further, though, beyond trying to insist (backed up by fairly strong evidence) that fans influence the outcome of games, so therefore are part of the effort that leads to winning, and therefore can rightly say "We won." I'm going to write a bit about community.

Like everyone else, I belong to a lot of communities. I have a family, I have various friend-groups, am a Canadian citizen, a resident of Vancouver, a member of a political party and a social change movement, and so on.

When a community does something, I consider that we did it, as a group. We rent a house, we like to drink wine and beer, we used to be respected on the world stage, we are experiencing a craft beer revolution, we aim to make things better, and so on.

And we just missed out on the play-offs last year. The Whitecaps, that is.

Looks a bit weird when I write that. We. Like I kicked a ball in anger. Which of course I didn't.

(Now, I did buy game-worn gear - I have played in the actual shorts that star midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker wore in an actual game. But that doesn't count, does it?)

Some communities have strict definitions of who is and isn't a member. You likely aren't a member of my immediate family (Hi, Nina!). You may be a member of my soccer team, or a paid-up member of a political party. We may have raised a pint together.

But even for most communities with clear boundaries, there are always grey areas. Sylvie has aunties that aren't her actual aunts. New people sub in for my soccer teams sometimes. Citizenship is not always clear, nor are residency, race, sex, religion, etc.

I'm blathering on a bit in order to get to this: in true post-modern wankery fashion, I posit that group-membership is largely self-defined. Or at least it is often so ill-defined or impossible to define as to allow for self-inclusion. We can argue about this if you want.

Moving on...

There's a feeling one gets from being part of a group or community, a sense of belonging, of well-being, that the hard-hearted amongst you may deny has any meaning. Those people likely go to watch soccer in Vancouver, pay for their $25-50 ticket, buy overpriced beer, groan or cheer, and go home, satisfied they spent their money well on solid entertainment. The product on the field, and all that. And I'm sure those people enjoy soccer a lot. Like I enjoy a tv show that I pay Netflix to see (David Tennant is a very good Doctor, by the way). Thanks, Netflix, for engaging in a financial transaction with me.

For others, there's real meaning in that feeling. It doesn't matter that it comes at a financial cost. Feelings don't get to be sliced and diced and categorized.

Here's where I should pull up a bunch of quotes about all this. Something by Eduardo Galeano, perhaps, the most romantic writer soccer has ever known. Here's one:

“The ball laughs, radiant, in the air. He brings her down, puts her to sleep, showers her with compliments, dances with her, and seeing such things never before seen his admirers pity their unborn grandchildren who will never see them.”

I've lived those moments. I watched Camilo do this:

And if you look carefully you can see me in the crowd shot after Eric Hassli does this: 

And here's the relevant bit: I've lived those moments with other fans, and even with the players. In soccer it's common for goals to be celebrated with the fans. There is no fourth wall in soccer. 

Multiply that by the 30 goals that teams might score at home, the others on the road celebrated with traveling fans, the near-goals, the heartbreaking losses, and you start to get a sense of what the fans mean to the players, how they're a part of the same community, with everyone willing the team to glorious victory, and sharing in the defeats.

An occasional game here and there doesn't do the same thing. Neither does watching on tv - no matter how many Arsenal games I watch, I still say "Arsenal won!" when reporting back to Nina about my Saturday mornings.

I'm not entirely comfortable with the use of we when talking about a sports team, but I've succumbed to it, and made my peace with it. It's not something that is at all rational (despite my above rationalization) - it's irrational, based on an emotional attachment. It's beyond attachment, even, to belonging. I belong to the Whitecaps community. I celebrate with them, I travel to away games with them, we watch Reserves matches in the rain together, we win and we lose together, all of us.

I'm going to finish this up, despite barely convincing myself. Mostly because I'm tired, but partly because this isn't something that can be fully explained. I'll let Dennis Denuto sum up my feelings on the matter: 

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

I started this on Tuesday while Sylvie was playing with toy food. It's going to be a fun, quick read. Part fish-out-of-water, part travelogue, it's a pretty simple story so far, and the writing matches it.

Joe McGinniss is an American writer who was completely new to soccer. He has a bestseller that I almost read called The Selling of the President 1968, about the marketing of Nixon - a book I'm interested in reading.

After the World Cup was held in the US in 1994 he fell in love with the sport and decided to chase the story of a team from a tiny town in Italy that against all odds was promoted to the second tier/division of Italian soccer.

(For those new to this: soccer in most parts of the world works in a promotion/relegation pyramid - that is, the best teams move up to higher/better divisions and the worst teams move down at the end of each season.)

It's rather simple for any fan of the game - he actually explains (in just a sentence or two, luckily) how the game of soccer works. But so far it's fun, and I'm a sucker for a story about soccer in small towns in other countries.

I was thinking of what this book might mean, at the heart of it, but I feel like I'm pretentiously searching for something that isn't there. It's a travelogue/cultural immersion sort of book that the food world thrives on.

In the end, there is a seriousness to it that I enjoyed. The first half floats along, painting a picture of a slightly buffoonish fan, stumbling through a world he doesn't really understand, but the second half explores some more difficult issues - death, morality, obsession. And it's worth the trip to get there. 

Books for 2014

EDIT: Further purchases that I'm excited to read...

Michelle Orange - This is Running for Your Life (essays)

• Bought this on a whim at the bookstore (yay, Pulpfiction Commercial Drive). I love essays, I like the cover, and the first essay is called The Uses of Nostalgia and Some Thoughts on Ethan Hawke's Face. I know nothing about the author. 

Adam Gopnik - The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (culture)

• Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, about raising a family in Paris. In this book he writes about food culture, another of my favourite reading topics. 

UPDATE: to add

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (play)

• I think Borges wrote something about this, and then I spotted it at one of the best book shops I know - the guy who sells on Commercial, around 7th. A few pages in and it's so clearly an influence of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

This is aspirational for now. I'm finishing up Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, a wonderful collection of short fictions and essays (and, oddly, parables), and planning my next books as I look longingly at my book shelf.

As an aside, Nina and I have been toying with the idea of forming a book club. Standard stuff, read a book, talk about it with friends over wine and beer, etc. Might try to do something with this, might not.

The books, though. What do I want to read...

Ian Rankin - Standing in Another Man's Grave (detective/mystery)

• A new Rebus book (when there weren't meant to be any more...). I grew up reading comfortable westerns, and this is about as close as I get to that. Frustratingly repetitive at times, but it's a long series and I'll be quite happy to burn through this.

Ian Rankin - The Impossible Dead (detective/mystery)

• The series/character that Rankin moved on to after the (not-quite) final Rebus book. It's of a style, but Rankin updated the stereotypes somewhat, and he really is very good at his craft.

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

• A story of small-town soccer in Italy as experienced by an American new to the sport. A bit of travel tourism, sports history, culture, etc.

Adam Gopnik - Winter (musings, or something)

• I like to read the Massey Lectures every year. I've fallen off the wagon a bit of late, but Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, so I'm back, baby.

Lisa Moore - Alligator (fiction)

• Small-town Newfoundland, and the author won an award recently. That's all I know. 

Salman Rushdie - Fury (fiction)

• After reading his excellent memoir, Joseph Anton, I wanted to read more fiction by Rushdie, and I'll be damned if I'm going to try Midnight's Children for the third time...

Edmund White - The Flâneur (more musings)

• I love the word flâneur - it might be the most romantic word I know. White lived in Paris, and here he writes about his days there, wandering about the city, etc. I imagine the book is pretentious but fun.

Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote

• This is an ambitious move on my part. It's a bloody huge book. I'm looking for interested reading buddies to take this on with me. Borges has such high praise for this book, and since he's my latest authorial obsession...

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There, that's a decent list. I'd like to add a few more soccer books in there (most notably Dennis Bergkamp's well-received autobiography Stillness and Speed - here, watch one of the most beautiful goals ever scored). I'm certainly not as prolific a reader as I once was, or anywhere close to my friend Derrick's speed-datingreading regime...

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Oh go on, watch this other amazing goal by Bergkamp: