RSL Stock Market: Buying, Selling and Holding

I want to welcome everyone to the newest RSL Soapbox article, RSL Stock Market. We will be looking weekly at whose stock is up, whose is down, and who is worth keeping an eye on next match. Given this is our first article, I want to set the groundwork for future stock reports.

Setting the Stage

It’s important to note this is a highly scientific, unscientific stock market. Let me explain briefly how this works. We take the sum total of minutes played for each RSL player over the last 5 matches and multiply it by the average player rating from the last 5 matches. We then convert the total into a dollar amount to produce our stock prices.

Let’s use our captain, Kyle Beckerman, as an example. Kyle averaged a 4.75 player rating in the last 5 matches, however, he only played in 2 of the last 5 matches totaling only 82 minutes. In our stock report our equation is as follows:

(Total minutes x Average player rating = Stock Price) or (82 x 4.75 = $389.50)

With that as the foundation of our stock report, let’s dive in.

Player Stock Prices

Buy: Aaron Herrera, $2,790 per share

There are 4 players that have played the full 450 minutes in the last 5 games, but Aaron stands supreme. In 5 games he averaged a 6.2 player rating, better than the other 3 players with the same minutes. This gives him the largest stock price of any player over the 5 game stretch.

Aaron has been a very steady presence along the backline in the last 5 games, helping RSL post 3 shutouts in that stretch. The one black eye is the 5-0 loss to Colorado but that was a failure across the market.

Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports

Sell: Everton Luiz, $1,044 per share

Everton’s stock price is average, he currently sits at 12th out of 19 players on our stock report. However, and this is why I am selling Everton stock right now, there are two big problems with his stock. First, he is the second highest paid player on the roster based on the most recent player salary reports that were released last year. Second, of a possible 450 minutes in the last 5 matches, he only played in 174. That is not good enough for a player of his ability and his contract size. Oftentimes we save our most passionate ire for Sam Johnson and our other strikers, but in reality, Everton is comped much higher than those we have financial numbers on. That’s why we are selling Everton right now.

P.S. Tip of the cap to Pablo Ruiz who has made it increasingly harder for Everton to crack the lineup to increase his stock price.

Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

Hold: Damir Kreilach, $2,462 per share

Of the top 10 player stock prices, Damir currently sits at 5th, trading at $2.4k a share. That’s not bad at all. However, and here is why we are holding his stock for now, his player rating is 9th out of those 10 players. His saving grace is how many minutes he has played which gives him a big multiplier and drives his stock price up.

The only player Damir has a higher player rating than in our top 10 is Donny Toia. We’ll be hoping to see Damir’s minutes stay high, but his player rating to improve before we start buying his stock again.

Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports