Since this is my first time writing about my experience of messing around with the American Soccer Analysis (ASA) shooter data, which is available for free on their website, I thought I would keep it simple and look at the best finishers in MLS this season. First, I have to give credit to Omar Chaudhuri for this idea. I thought it would be a great topic to write about after reading Football Hackers (an absolutely fantastic book, I would highly recommend it) which discusses his analysis on finishing in La Liga.
Here is the table with all the data I'm using to figure out who the elite finishers are MLS.
All these forwards have taken a minimum of 14 shots (the average number of shots an MLS forward takes per 96 minutes is 1.3, so extrapolating that over the standard 1000 minutes is about 14 shots). Their average finishing percentage is 17.10% and I used the standard deviation (7.67%) to split up the forwards into 4 groups: Elite (dark green), Above Average (light green), Below Average (yellow), and Wow you can't finish (Red).
Some of these results aren't surprising, such as Maxi Urruti with his 3.33% conversion rate.
The sad thing is his shots (30), shots/96 (1.80), and xG/shot (0.12) are all around league averages (33, 2.77, and 0.16 respectively) but his finishing percentage is well below the league average of 17.10%.
The biggest surprise is who we find at the top of the elite finishers. Sam Johnson, Brian White, and Tesho Akindele. These guys are the only forwards putting away over 30% of their chances.
The scatter plot shows a really high variance in the finishing percentages of players who have taken less than about 30 shots, so unfortunately we have to count Johnson (21 shots), White (17), and Akindele (18) as outliers. However, I'm really interested to see how Brian White's finishing % pans out over the remainder of the season (He literally just scored against Orlando as I'm writing this).
Oh by the way, that one data point at the far right of the scatter plot is Carlos Vela who has taken a staggering 99 shots so far this season. Surprisingly, the golden boot leader falls right in the middle of the pack when it comes to his finishing percentage which sits 2% above the league average at 19.19%. His xG/shot (0.15) is also close to the league average (0.16). This gives us an interesting insight into how Vela has scored 20 goals in 20 games so far this season: He isn't getting high quality service from his teammates, he just gets a TON of average quality service. I'm curious to see if his insane shot totals will help him break the single season scoring record. Just for reference back in 2018 Josef Martinez only needed 97 shots to score his record setting 31 goals for an absolutely ridiculous finishing percentage of 31.96% (UM WHAT)!
Speaking of Martinez, he has definitely kept his title as the best finisher in MLS. Out of all the forwards who have taken over 30 shots, Josef Martinez, who has taken 57 shots, has put away an incredible 22.81% of them. We'll see if someone can dethrone him in the next couple of months (my money is on Brian White but I'll admit I'm biased).