Diego Valeri retains the title of the Portland Timbers’ best player. And he is unquestionably the Timbers’ most-loved player. If you had to choose one player to be the face of the Timbers’ franchise, Valeri would be the obvious choice.
But is he the Timbers’ most-indispensable player?
Over at FourFourTwo, all of the above was part of Paul Tenorio’s criteria when he set out to identify each team’s most-indispensable player in both the MLS Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Here is how Tenorio laid out the standard by which he assessed each team’s most-indispensable or “franchise” player:
In this case, it’s the most irreplaceable player on a team; the person each team would least like to lose in a trade or sale.