RSL $tock Report: Rubin to the Moon

Hello everyone, I know you have all been asking yourselves, where is that amazing article from last season that looks at the best and worst Real Salt Lake players across 5 game stretches? Well worry no more, I’m back and I’m giving you hotter tips than TikTok influencers. Since this is the first Stock Report of 2021, let’s revisit how this works and set the foundation for the rest of the season. Big shout out to fellow Soapbox columnist Randal Serr for providing our player ratings week in and week out. He does a fabulous job and makes the stock report possible.

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. This is to ensure that a highly rated, but rarely used player doesn’t float too high, and lower rated player with a ton of minutes is appropriately called out. By using minutes and player ratings, we find a fair and balanced stock price that we represent in dollars.

Let’s use David Ochoa as our example. Ochoa has averaged a 6.2 player rating across the first 5 matches, as well playing every match, totaling 450 minutes. In our stock report our equation would be:

Average player rating x Total minutes played = Stock Price) or (6.2 x 450 = $2,790)

That’s enough of that, let’s dig into the good stuff.

Diamond Hands

At $3,100, Rubio Rubin’s stock price is through the roof right now. It comes as absolutely zero surprise that Rubio Rubin leads the list as our hottest stock, buy, buy, buy! And by buy, I mean give that guy a much larger, much longer contract now! Rubin leads all other RSL players with the highest average player rating at a flaming 7.6, his highest individual match rating came in the second match against Sporting Kansas City at a 9 out of 10. He has registered 4 goals, 2 assists and 408 minutes during the first 5 matches. He’s so hot that MLSsoccer.com has him in 5th place in the league MVP race.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

Stonks Go Up

Anderson Julio is our bargain buy of the first 5 weeks. Why is he considered a bargain right now? You might be surprised to learn that Anderson’s stock price is a very tame $1,836. That’s only good enough for 8th out of 17 players who saw minutes in the first 5 weeks. Don’t let that fool you though, the issue here is not quality, it is quantity. Julio has the 3rd highest average player rating during the stretch at a solid 6.4/10. Due to his injuries his minutes have taken a hit however, logging only 288 out of a possible 450 minutes. If he can get healthy and maintain his form, he’ll see his stock price rise significantly over the next 5 matches.

Paper Hands

Our first player of 2021 to fall into our paper hands category over the first 5 weeks is none other than our captain, Albert Rusnak. You may want to sell, as the financial risks are getting high here.

His stock price is 6th on the team ($2,200), which on paper doesn’t look bad, but that is fully driven by the number of minutes he has played and not by his quality whatsoever. This is artificially inflating his stock price and frankly it is really hurting the team. The bubble has to burst eventually unless he can raise his quality. His player rating is an abysmal 4.9/10, bad enough for 14th of 17 players who saw minutes in the first 5 weeks. However, he has played 449 of 450 total available minutes, only being subbed off once during stoppage time. This is bad, really bad. Until I see more, I’m selling.

Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

Player Stock Prices