Peformance Reviews: Pedro Amador is one of Atlanta's most cost-effective players. Why is Atlanta United (seemingly) trying to replace him?

Keeping good players seems good

via Atlanta United

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Last offseason we went about creating performance reviews for each player from the 2024 season. A lot of them ended up being pretty optimistic! This…will (mostly) not be that!

Before: Latte Lath, Alexey Miranchuk, Miguel Almirón, Bartosz Slisz, Steven Alzate, Saba Lobjanidze and kind of sort of Jamal Thiaré.

Today: Pedro Amador

We have to put a bit of a slant on this one. Instead of just assessing Amador’s season and pointing out how the team was bad and the tactics were bad and all of those things made players who had previously looked good look bad, we have to ask a serious question about the direction of the offseason.

We started thinking about the offseason about seven months ago. Even then, it seemed apparent Atlanta United would benefit from utilizing one or both of their open U22 spots. Our suggestion: Use those spots to fill positions of need out wide. In particular, at either wing or at right back.

Well, Atlanta United has finally been linked to a U22 signing and, for some reason, it’s a left back. That’s definitely a wide player. It’s definitely not a position of need.

Reports from South America suggest that Atlanta United has submitted a formal (and expensive) offer for Elías Báez of San Lorenzo. There are some issues in the San Lorenzo front office that might hold that move up, but reports are that San Lorenzo’s asking price is around $4,000,000. That’s a hefty fee for any player, let alone a left back.

MLS-wise, of course, a U22 is going to hit at just a $200k budget charge. The transfer fee doesn’t really matter and it ain’t my money. Normally, it wouldn’t matter that Atlanta is trying to spend big he. However, your U22 spots are limited and valuable. So…uhh…why are they trying to use one of them in a position where you already have a valuable player in place?

It’s not even just Báez. Atlanta has also been connected with left-sided center back Júnior Alonso from Club Atlético Mineiro. He can slide to left back if you need him to.

It’s all starting to seem like Amador’s days in Atlanta are numbered. And, dear reader, let me tell you, I do not get it.

We can sum it up pretty simply. It’s an argument we’ve made plenty of times lately with Atlanta United. Low-cost players who produce are more valuable on the field than in the trade market.

Of course, we’re not going to stop at just summing it up pretty simply. This is Five Stripe Final after all.

Key Performance Indicators

Playing time: 24 starts, 26 appearances, 2078 minutes

Overlyings: 1 goals, 0 assists

Goals Added per 96: 0.01, 33rd out of 68 starting fullbacks in MLS, fourth highest on team

Evaluation

Obviously, Amador didn’t have a good season. Practically no one did. Yet, despite a reduced statistical output on the surface, the quants still found a way to suggest Amador contributed at a higher level than most of his teammates. Amador checked in at 0.01 G+ per 96 based on American Soccer Analysis’ “goals added” metric.

(Hopefully you’re familiar by now, but if not here’s an explainer.)

Per ASA, that makes him one of just four starters to produce at an above-average level this season. It also makes him one of the most valuable players on the team. Amador, who signed on a free transfer, made just $267.6k this year. That’s the lowest amount of anyone in a senior roster spot. He’s Atlanta’s cheapest player that actually counts against the budget charge.

I went ahead and charted his production relative to his salary—with a tweak to have the DPs only show up as their budget charge so the chart didn’t get totally borked—and he’s the only remaining player below the TAM threshold to put up a positive G+ in 2025.

It’s not like that’s a fluke. Since arriving in the summer of 2024, Amador has clocked 3230 minutes per ASA. In that span, he’s averaged 0.03 G+ per 96. That’s 10th among 55 starting fullbacks in MLS over that span.

Just to get a sense of what company he’s in, the names ahead of him are: Anthony Markanich, Kai Wagner, Jordi Alba, Andrew Gutman, Joseph Rosales, Max Arfsten, Ryan Hollingshead, Nathan Harriel and Aaron Herrera. That’s a collection of some MLS Guys™ who are regularly lauded and one of the best fullbacks of all time.

If you want to stick with just Atlanta United players, here’s the list of players with more than 1000 minutes played in the last two seasons and a better G+/96: Thiago Almada, Miguel Almirón, Stian Gregersen, end of list.

And if that doesn’t check out to you at all, just a quick reminder that Amador put together this performance in a little over 800 minutes after joining up in 2024.

That’s proof of concept for Amador as a quality performer in MLS in a team that’s at least semi-functioning and not constantly on fire.

Still, it’s fair to wonder how we got from there to here in 2025.

I don’t need to point out that things were a mess tactically this year. If Amador looked lost at times, well, so did everyone else. But I will point out that Ronny Deila once stated that he preferred “defensive fullbacks.” I have to imagine there were some restrictor plates put on Amador and, in general, that the setup didn’t play to his strengths on the ball.

What’s curious there is that he still got on the ball relatively often. His touches in attacking areas of the pitch didn’t differ. However, Amador got on the ball much less often in build-up. He took nearly a touch fewer per 90 in Atlanta’s defensive third while nearly every other area of the pitch stayed static.

However, his drop off in attacking production makes a little more sense when you consider how often Amador operated as a key figure in possession.

In 2024, He took 10.7% of Atlanta’s touches in their own third. In 2025, that dropped to 8.9%. In 2024, he took 11.6% of Atlanta’s touches in the middle third. That dropped to 8.5%. And, in 2024, he took 11.1% of Atlanta’s touches in the final third. In 2024, 9.8%.

That’s still a high number. When on the field, only Almirón, Alexey Miranchuk and Saba Lobjanidze were on the ball in the attacking third more often. Amador could have and should have done better with those opportunities. But it’s clear that his role in Atlanta’s tactics changed and changed for the worse.

Even still, G+ suggests he was one of the few players to consistently produce positive outcomes.

Suggested Career Progression Plan

Maybe he just got on a heater with a new team when he arrived. However, it’s not like he did a total nosedive in 2025. We’ve seen what he can do on the ball in a (still mediocre) team that isn’t in the corner chugging paste straight from the bottle. And that will make him a valuable asset to other teams around the league.

What I don’t understand is why that doesn’t make him a valuable asset to Atlanta beyond some extra GAM. Yeah, they need the GAM. I know. Trust me. But, at some point, you’ve got to stop sending out cost-effective players and, ya know, build your roster with the players who are actually valuable.

In this case, they’d be shipping one of those valuable players out to spend $4,000,000 and a premium roster spot on a player who *might* be as effective as Amador for roughly the same budget charge. If they do trade Amador, they’d better get a heckuva return to make that move make sense.

Or perhaps they will hold onto Amador. After all, he seems like a fantastic fit for a possession-heavy system like Tata Martino’s. His ball-playing ability could effectively make him something like the Gressel analogue in this version of the team.

In that case, their U22 strategy deserves some questioning. Why spend big on a player just to have him come in and compete for a starting job at a position where depth doesn’t help in nearly the same way attacking depth does?

Maybe this picture will become much clearer in the near future. Until then, I have questions. And worries that another solid player will be on the way out while a less productive (and more expensive) player comes in. Why not value the guys that are valuable?