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Cavan Sullivan is an MVP Finalist, Which is Definitely a Reach
Published:
Award news ahead of the MLS playoffs:
MVP will go to Lionel Messi, so it’s kind of pointless to even analyze this, but it’s a nice tip of the hat to Cavan’s breakout season. He should win Young Player of the Year, but the MVP thing, which is determined by technical staff, player, and media votes, is way too much.
Sullivan was incredible after the World Cup break, scoring 8 goals and bagging 10 assists while playing a crucial role in the Union’s 15-game unbeaten streak and brilliant turnaround. He was the most dangerous attacking piece on the team, and the trio of Cavan, Milan Iloski, and Bruno Damiani became a nightmare for other teams to deal with. The Union looked totally different when Sullivan was given an elevated role under interim coach Ryan Richter.
But if MVP is a season-long award, then Cavan can’t be MVP, let alone a finalist. He played 13 MLS games before the break in which he scored 1 goal and had 1 assist. He started six of those games for Bradley Carnell and came off the bench in the other seven. It’s obvious that Carnell’s firing and Richter’s elevation was the catalyst for Sullivan’s breakout, but you can’t win MVP if you play lights out in 16 games while not being much of a factor in the other 13. Cavan logged 1,822 MLS minutes this season and 551 of those were under Carnell. 1,271 were under Richter. Carnell also started Cavan in three of the four Champions League games, so this idea that he was glued to the bench isn’t entirely accurate. He got plenty of burn under Carnell, which we now know should have been 90+ in every game.
We would all probably agree that “Most Valuable Player” is usually a bullshit award because “value” can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. These awards always go to attacking players who put up big numbers. Quarterbacks and running backs and wide receivers and high-volume shooting guards and whatnot. The only non-striker, non-midfielder to win MLS MVP was Tony Meola way back in 2000. Every season it goes to guys like Messi, Carlos Vela, David Villa, and Sebastian Giovinco. MVP is basically just a “best offensive player” award, kind of like the Heisman Trophy.
If you widen the scope and think about what player brought the most value to the Union this season, my argument is for Kai Wagner.
Back in the spring, the Union had gaping holes at left fullback and right fullback. Yawning, abyss-like holes. Olwethu Makhanya was disgruntled and Nate Harriel had to slide around. Phillippe Ndinga wasn’t very good. Sery Larsen was just okay. When Wagner returned, he solidified the crucial left back spot, which allowed Westfield to go back over to his natural side. That was a 2-for-1 move that plugged two black holes at the same time while stabilizing Harriel’s role and allowing him to partner with the elevated Neil Pierre at center back.
Kai’s return solved the entire backline.
The reality is that the front office fixed the team by firing the coach and then adjusting the roster from back to front, not front to back. So while Cavan played a massive role in the evolution of the attack, I just think Wagner’s addition killed three defensive birds with one stone, which is more valuable at a macro-level.
It depends on whether you expand the concept of “value” to include roster and personnel changes, or if it’s only about counting stats and on-field play in a league that logs secondary assists the same as primary assists. Neither argument is wrong because the concept of value is arbitrary and vague. People have rightfully pointed out that the Union attack looked lifeless when Cavan missed a couple of recent games. If you swapped out Wagner for another LB and Cavan for another winger in the very next game, which absence would be felt most? Probably Sullivan, but I don’t think it’s as obvious as some others do. We all saw how much of a disaster they were at left fullback before Kai returned from Birmingham.
Not to diminish anything that Cavan has done this year, because he’s been incredible, quite easily the best player the Union have ever produced. But it’s not a half-season award. If it was, Carson Wentz would have taken NFL MVP back in 2017 in a landslide (he even got a couple of votes after going down injured). You could make legitimate arguments for guys like Petar Musa and Carles Gil to be MVP finalists based on their full-season body of work, playing for teams that finished 2nd and 3rd in the East and West, respectively. Even on his own team, Cavan had fewer goals and assists than Iloski, who played at a high level from February all the way to October.
But the young and exciting American player is always going to generate buzz and the voting typically comes with recency bias, which is to be expected. Brenden Aaronson made the best XI in 2020 despite not being the best player on the Union and DeAndre Yedlin got this huge league push that saw him make the 2013 All-Star Game over the more deserving Sheanon Williams.
Anyway, that’s my take. Maybe yours is different. That’s fine if you’re a Philly or MLS person. The only thing that’s annoying about all of this is that there are USMNT and Manchester City fanboys all over social media, calling anybody who disagrees with them a “retard.” They aren’t Union fans or MLS fans so their opinions don’t matter.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com