MLS’ 17 most intriguing players for 2022 Taty Castellanos, Walker Zimmerman, Thiago Almada, more

The 27th Major League Soccer season got underway in late-February and, with each passing year, the league becomes an increasingly interesting mashup of veterans (name-brand and otherwise) and exciting, potentially Europe-bound young talent. It is seen as far more of a developmental league than it used to be, but it still has a place as a landing spot for aging stars.

If you’re slowly easing yourself into the league as Europe’s season begins to wrap up, let’s talk about a few of the names you’ll either be getting acquainted or re-acquainted with in the coming months. Here are the 17 players who interest me the most in 2022.

Let’s start with the two most obvious ones.

An outstanding scorer, the 23-year old Castellanos nearly broke the DAVIES model. It measures all of a player’s on-ball contributions in a given match and season, and Castellanos’ +9.3 goals added were nearly 50% higher than the next-best player in the league (New England’s Adam Buksa, at +6.4). In Europe in 2021-22, only Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski (+9.9), PSG’s Kylian Mbappe (+9.7) and Liverpool’s Mo Salah (+9.6) could top that total. He’s good.

The same goes for the 29-year old Gil, who not only led the league in assists (20) and chances created (136), but damn near lapped the field in those categories. He hasn’t wasted time in 2022 either, setting up 14 chances with one assist in his first four matches of the MLS season and adding two assists in New England’s March 10 win over Pumas in the CONCACAF Champions League.

• Castellanos’ current stats (MLS season and CONCACAF Champions League): 663 minutes (eight matches), four goals on 29 shots (3.3 xG), 17 chances created (three assists)

• Gil’s current stats (MLS season and CONCACAF Champions League): 480 minutes (six matches), two goals on 10 shots (2.3 xG), 22 chances created (three assists)

It…