Minutes Lost

As always, a lot of changes have been made this offseason. Among the current rosters, many players have not returned to their club for the 2009 season for whatever reason. I thought it would be interesting to look at the minutes played for each MLS team in 2008, and see which MLS teams have lost the least and most minutes from those players. Given the nature of this subject, it also includes players who were traded in the middle of last season. Minutes PCT Rank PPG Rank Columbus 3377 11.4% 1 1.90 1 Chicago 3855 13.0% 2 1.53 3 Houston 5186 17.5% 3 1.70 2 Real Salt Lake 5476 18.5% 4 1.33 7 New England 6052 20.6% 5 1.43 4 Kansas City 6516 22.0% 6 1.40 6 Chivas USA 7270 24.6% 7 1.43 4 Dallas 8458 28.7% 8 1.20 11 Colorado 8775 29.6% 9 1.27 9 Toronto 9255 31.3% 10 1.17 12 New York 9777 33.0% 11 1.30 8 DC United 10165 34.3% 12 1.23 10 San Jose 11742 39.6% 13 1.10 13 Los Angeles 14865 50.2% 14 1.10 13 As you can see, it pretty much follows the ranking for 2008 PPG. The top three teams last year lost the least minutes, while the bottom two teams have lost the most. The teams that are a bit out of line include RSL, which is feeling pretty good about the way they finished the year. NY on the other hand has not hesitated to make changes despite their playoff run.