Just in time for First Kick '09, the '08 Season Grades!

Ha ha ha, boy am I late with this one. But with no further ado, here are my final grades and such from the 2008 season:

Top 5 Grades (Season & Playoffs, minimum 15 games):
5-Dema Kovalenko 6.04167
4-Jamison Olave 6.06423
3-Robbie Findley 6.08344
2-Andy Williams 6.12655
1-Nick Rimando 6.66667

Honorable mention goes to Chris Wingert, who missed the list by approximately .0001, and Will Johnson, whose 6.41667 would have made the list but he appeared in only 12 games for RSL.

Regular Season Heroes (min. 15 games):
3-Robbie Findley 6.058
2-Andy Williams 6.180
1-Nick Rimando 6.633

Not surprisingly, since the playoffs were only 3 games, the top 3 are the same on both lists.

Clutch Performers (Top 3 Playoffs, min. 2 games):
2 (tie)-Nat Borchers and Javier Morales 6.667
1-Nick Rimando 7.000

All 3 players had a nice playoff run and it shows here.

Manliest Men (most RR Man of the Match awards, regular season and playoff):
3-Jamison Olave 4
2-Nick Rimando 6 (5 + 1 playoff)
1-Javier Morales 6 (4 + 2 playoff)

Although it was a tie and the top, I give the award to Javi for getting 2 of his 6 awards during RSL's playoff run.

And now, the awards no one wants, the low scorers for 2008:

Nerves of Butter (Lowest Playoff Scores, min. 2 games):
3-Robbie Russell 5.333
2-Clint Mathis 5.000
1-Kyle Beckerman 4.667

Russell parlayed an atrocious Conference Final into a 3rd place showing, while Cleetus and Kyle each made a solid run of subpar form throughout.

Season Suckers (Regular Season only, min. 15 games):
3-Kenny Deuchar 5.621
2-Ian Joy 5.333
1-Yura Movsisyan 5.106

Even some very clutch goals couldn't save Yura, who killed himself with some terrible early season form and way too many missed chances and selfish plays.

Big Loads (Reg. Season and Playoffs, min. 15 games):
3-Kenny Deuchar 5.6333
2-Ian Joy 5.3165
1-Yura Movsisyan 5.1732

Again the full season and regular season awards mirror each other. Let's hope that Yura can be in good form all season this year and not just for the last 6 games or so.

Based on all this, with some help by my own subjectivity, here are my Top 3 RSLers of 2008:
Honorable Mentions: Borchers, Williams, Wingert
3-Jamison Olave
Made some big mistakes at times, but was overall a beast in the back and his 4 Man of the match awards were double what any other defenseman got.
2-Javier Morales
Had a midseason dip in form that hurt his score (only 5.79), but when he was on, the team usually won. Plus, even with the rough patch he still came up with a (tied for) team-high 6 Man of the Match awards.
...and your 2008 Royal Review RSL MVP is:
1- Nick Rimando
What can I say? RSL's most consistent performer not only kept "super-prospect" Chris Seitz bolted to the bench, but he also won all 3 2008 grade awards as well as tying with Javi for most Man of the Match awards. It's hard to argue with that kind of performance, even if it was from a goalkeeper and not a field player. Congrats Nick Rimando!

And now, in about 6 hours, your 2009 season!

PS-If you want to see the grades for every player, for every game, I have uploaded them to http://drop.io/royalreview for you to download or just look at. They are in Excel format, bothe the new version and in a version for Excel 97-2003. Enjoy!