By Kevin Minkus (@kevinminkus)

San Jose made big strides in 2017 to go from the second worst team in the West to a playoff team. After adding more talent, and some youth, they’ll hope to build on that for 2018.

2017 Recap

The 2017 San Jose Earthquakes ended the season with a -21 goal differential, the worst ever of any team to make the playoffs. But, they did make the playoffs, as the 6th seed in the West. And, after missing out every year since their Supporters’ Shield winning 2012, that was rightfully cause for celebration among Quakes fans, despite bowing out to the Whitecaps 5-0 in the knockout round.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest they were not in fact as bad as that bottomline metric makes it seem. For one, the teams expected goal difference was a perfectly average -2, and their TSR a perfectly average .51. They put up 13.7 shots per game, tenth best in the league, and allowed 13.2, 7th worst. On the whole, these are the numbers of a middle of the pack, knockout round team.

For 1st year GM Jesse Fioranelli, that should be considered solid progress. He rebuilt a lot of the squad, and brought in a number of pieces key to the team’s future: defensive mid/center back Florian Jungwirth, attacking mid Jahmir Hyka (who scored my favorite goal of 2017), winger/forward Danny Hoesen, and, in the summer, attacker Valeri Qazaishvili. Each will be expected to contribute heavily in 2018.

The biggest move Fioranelli made, though, was to fire head coach Dom Kinnear at the season’s midpoint. Kinnear, who was replaced with technical director Chris Leitch, had the team performing fine. They were in fifth in the West, and had just beaten Real Salt Lake when he was let go. The decision, rather, seemed one of style and philosophy over quality. The Quakes actually had a worse xGD under Leitch than Kinnear (+2 with Kinnear to -4 with Leitch), but they played much more openly, upping their shots from 12 per game to 15. Perhaps more importantly, Leitch had no hesitations about giving minutes to the team’s promising youths. Eternal hype train conductor Tommy Thompson made 10 of his 16 starts under Leitch, and played 2/3rds of his total minutes. Jackson Yueill played only 15 minutes with Kinnear, but 952 under Leitch.

The foundations Fioranelli and Leitch laid down in 2017 should provide a solid base on which to build for the coming year.

2018 Offseason

Key additions

Leitch moved back to his role as technical director after the season, and in came Hacken (of the Swedish Allsvenskan) manager Mikael Stahre to helm the team. From what I’ve gleaned, Stahre seems to be an excellent defensive coach, with a proven ability to develop talent. The latter skill is self-evidently important to MLS. I think there’s a good case to make for the importance of the former, as well. The most consistently quality MLS defenses come from those coaches for whom it is a vital system - Jesse Marsch and his high press, Tata Martino and his, Peter Vermes and the high line. If Stahre can successfully implement his own system in San Jose, it will go a long way toward making the team sustainably competitive.

The centerpiece of the team’s winter signings was DP attacker Magnus Eriksson. Eriksson is coming off a season as the Allsvenskan’s leading goal scorer, and, at 27 years old, is firmly in his prime. Eriksson put up 3.2 shots per 90, which is a decent rate, but five of his goals came from penalties, and he actually overperformed his expected goals slightly (massive thanks to Zorba, whose coverage of the Allsvenskan is phenomenal). I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to not be quite the goalscorer his 2017 numbers would suggest. His chance creation, though, was also excellent in 2017, and more in line with expectation (going by the same fantastic article linked above). Eriksson can do quite a bit of both scoring and chance creation, and he should be a key cog in the attack for 2018.

San Jose also signed three homegrowns to contracts this offseason: 16 year old midfielder Gilbert Fuentes (today is his birthday), 16 year old defender Jacob Akanyirige, and 20 year old goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski. These signings all signal an increased reliance on youth that looks like it will be crucial to the team’s strategy for the future.

Key subtractions

None of the Quakes’ offseason losses can really be considered key, except, perhaps, that of Victor Bernardez. The center back mainstay of the last six seasons made 25 starts in 2017, but will be 36 in May, and looked a step slow at times.

Goalkeeper David Bingham was shipped to the Galaxy in December. While he started the first 23 games of the season, after falling out of favor he played in none of the last 11. Bingham showed some promise over his career, and saved the most goals above expected in the league in 2016, but in 2017 he made a number of shocking, highly visible errors, and on the whole was pretty average (33 goals allowed versus 32 xGA).

San Jose bought out DP Simon Dawkins’ contract last week, which, while not surprising given his production (9.0 xG + xA in two seasons), is surprising given the commitment in spending it signals from San Jose’s owners. That buyout comes out of the owners’ own pockets, and won’t count against the salary cap.

Forward Marco Urena was left unprotected by San Jose in the LAFC expansion draft, where he was taken third. Urena combined decent per 90 attacking numbers with a high defensive work rate, but given the team’s new additions he likely would have been surplus.

Positional Expectations

The word is Mikael Stahre prefers a 4-3-3, but in their past two preseason games the Quakes have come out in a 4-4-2 against USL affiliate Reno 1868 FC (though this at times played like a 4-3-3 and at times like a 4-2-3-1), and against the Galaxy.