2013-14 Sporting Kansas City Offseason Thread (Now Comes with Spring Transfer Window!)

I'm also guessing - without looking - that Josh Gardner comes cheap.

You've got 20 spots to fit under the Salary Budget. If you want your Beslers and Zusis and Bielers you're going to have some Gardners - or worse, someone who will never, ever play, but is on the end of the roster purely because they're cheap.

Josh actually does some have ability. Gardner and Daniel Paladini ran the midfield for the championship game losing Carolina RailHawks a few years ago (when I was team photog). At the D2 level, Gardner was a midfielder, and was pretty good at free kicks, if I recall.

 

And "Vermes" guys make us appear to have MLS depth while not having the depth needed for a long CCL run. Gardner, Peterson, Olum were all guys who would fit in well in MLS 2009 but are closing in on the start of their NASL/USL Pro careers. That is not depth IMO. It's guys with experience in an MLS that has been passed by and improved upon.

 

And if that's the case ... that the MLS salary cap is the only thing keeping those guys employeed then I hope the CBA adjustment this next offseason fixes that. Those guys belong in the NASL IMO if MLS wants their teams to be able to compete in the CCL and win the thing without putting subpar talent on the field during a congested schedule. IMO everyone else on the roster belongs there due to talent or show the ability to develop into that type of talent (the 10 players not counting towards the cap being young guys that could develop).

Just my .02.

 

Nothing fixes that.

You could double the Salary Budget and you'd still get guys like that at the end of the bench - so the team would have more money to spend on the stars.

Any salary capped league is going to have those players.

 

So if they raise the cap you think Sporting would keep those types of players and just spend on the top part of their roster? I hope not if they want to truely compete for CCL titles. You don't think a higher salary cap will raise the level of play across the board ... just the top part of the roster? Or maybe you don't think it will raise the level of play at all and think that it will just mean playing the same players more money. If that's what will happen then I hope they NEVER raise the cap.

I agree, if they raise the cap the same as say a "cost of living raise" then you're right, but I hope the next CBA means a bigger jump in salaries than what the average "raise just for the sake of keeping up with status quo" does. That means giving raises to the top players, raises to the bottom 10 (developmental off budget players) as well as a raise enough to attract better players for roster spots 12-18. I just keep hearing how MLS can compete with Liga MX 1-11, but it fails drastically in the 12-20 range. You can see that this is accurate when guys like the ones who left MLS to Cruz Azul (Villareal and Baca) are sent down to their 2nd Division affiliate since they can't make the gameday 18. Losing players like that from MLS because the cap space isn't there or the playing time (different story) isn't there is a shame. They go from being a top 15-18 squad player for an MLS team to Liga MX and get sent down because they're not there yet for those "deeper" clubs.

Throw in another 20 Americans that could potentially come back so you're not just adding "international" players and you could really give each player 1 of those and say ... get rid of your Josh Gardner (every team has a few of them ... SKC has 3 IMO). Those guys go to the NASL/USL and make those leagues more competitive so the developmental players in MLS get loaned down there face better competition ... it's a trickle down effect.

 

Cap or no, there will always be budget/utility players. Every team in the world has them.

 

Not all budget/utility players are created equal though. I'm just saying that for SKC or other MLS teams to be competitive in CCL they have to get to a point where the 12-18/20 players are BETTER than they are right now. The top talent is quality enough ... but there is a HUGE gap between starters and the bench guys (not all bench guys, I'm suggesting the end of the bench). They aren't that far off to be honest. And unfortunately, the MLS cap does play a part in it.

 

Where are these players that are going to raise the level of play across the board? There are still the foreign player limits the league has so unless there are a bunch of US players better than the Gardner's and Peterson's of the league, then raising the cap across the board will see some improvement but you're also gonna get raises for those types of players.

 

to an extent, i agree with both sides of this discussion. if we were to say that the starters in mls were 7's and 8's and these utility guys were around 5's, maybe these utility/budget guys that are inevitable would become more in line with 6's if the salary cap was substantially increased. you're still going to have the same designations on the roster of starters, backups, and utility players, but the quality of each should be increased. now, i think it'd probably be slanted much more toward the top, but i think it'd still lift the quality of the bottom.

as for the individual players, 2 of the 3 blando mentioned should be ripe for the hatchet. i think olum, however, is probably alright for now... though he does seem to be a bit immobile for a dm. i'd probably give him another year or so to see how much more he can grow into this level.

 

I completely agree with this. While SKC isn't up against the "foreign designated player cap" (I think they have 5 of 8 filled, correct? Uri, Beiler, Jerome, Medranda, Joseph). Other teams are. That extra cap space HAS to be used at "retaining" players and bringing more players back. Not suggesting you're bringing back a bunch or Dempsey's or Bradley's ... because they aren't there, but you could target players like the ones that left for Liga MX recently, Villareal, Arriola, etc., players like Corona, Beasley, Fiscal, Ream, Lichaj, Farfan 1 & 2, Gomez, Gatt, Gyau, Kljestan, Jones, Spector, Shea, Whitbread, etc. Will they all come? ofcourse not. Would Jurgen Klinsman like it? He wouldn't come out and complain, but you know he'd have issues with it ... but how many of those players are consistently getting minutes in leagues much better than MLS? Would all of those players make MLS better if they're replacing guys like the Gardners/Petersons/Olum's of the league?

And to all of those that are saying/thinking it would bring the talent pool of the USMNT down? Is it better to hope and pray each American finds a good spot getting minutes in a significantly better league than MLS ... or is better to raise the level of MLS up so that the ENTIRE (nearly) pool is seeing an increase in level of competition in MLS?

I don't think you can just simply waive a wand (the "raise the cap wand" in this case) and suddenly make this a reality, but I think the last couple of years developments in MLS have made this a closer reality. Raising the cap doesn't bring all of those players back, but player retention adds to that. Increased development adds to that by developing players faster than you're losing players abroad & retirement will also help that. Make sure SKC's next draft pick takes Peterson's spot and not Soony's or Dom's because you have the cap space to keep those two. That sort of thing.

And expansion hurts this ... it's probably kept those types of players in the league longer than they should (and hopefully won't in the future). Slowing down expansion at 24 would help this "cause" tremendously.

Didn't mean for this to get long winded or to turn into a Salary Cap/Expansion/etc. talk, just venting after watching a horribly played game (yes, due to weather and playing on carpet), but also because this "depth" some speak of isn't quality. Yes, it's hustle and grit and screams of all the things I hated the Royals for keeping players like Getz and Gload and .... that list is LONG! I want to say it again ... SKC is close ... other MLS teams probably not so close, but it's not as far off as you may think. SKC is really just a couple players away from not having to worry about a significant drop in talent when putting in the "2nd 11". Affiliations are helping the "Developmental 11" develop with game time which is a HUGE step in developing talents to be better than the roster filler we're talking about.

Sorry, ending rant!

 

I agree, Olum is probably the best (for his position) of the three ... but another year or two to grow into this level? He's 29 years old ... you think there is growth left? I'd rather see Lopez getting those minutes at DMid ... or better yet, use the open international spots and bring in someone that was rumored last summer (Jorge Claros ... a Honduran Espinoza lite).

Your first paragraph is spot on though! Some teams will use that cap space to be Man City (great XI ... horrible depth ... see loss to Wigan this weekend). Others will be more balanced like SKC is now and not rely on 3 DP's and not front load their cap space.

 

hmmm, i'll admit that i'd forgotten that he was already 29, so your point has merit. however, if he can continue to become a smarter player in his position, his physical skills shouldn't start declining for still a good couple of years.

 

I just cannot see what Josh Gardner has done at LB which makes him such a horrible guy to have. The fact that he can play other spots in a pinch is an added, but unnecessary, bonus. When he was playing on defense in LB on Saturday he was just fine and he's played fine at LB before as well. In fact, I thought he made one of the better defensive plays all game on Saturday.

They had all game to run at us on their right and our left and it wasn't until both JP and Gardner were gone that we got burned there.

I'm not saying these guys are game-changers or anything, but they don't get the credit that they deserve either. What you need out of a #2 is someone who can come in and do the job. Perhaps people might say that JP doesn't do the job up top if he can't do better with his chances, but even though we like our FBs to attack, the LB's primary job is to defend and Gardner does well enough there.

(Though he did suck in Orlando against Columbus, you also have to say that coming into a game cold with little to no warm-up like he undoubtedly did can be difficult).

 

And I still don't think their absence is the reason. I think it has more to do with the fact that Ellis was forced to switch sides after being on the right all game.

And to add to that, we didn't really get burned there. We got burned through the middle.

 

Yes. All the evidence of Salary Cap leagues points to that.

 

That is patently untrue. MLS quality is lightyears ahead of 1996. Not because spending has exploded, not because of DPs - but because the generic MLS player is much, much better.

Scott Bowers, Ryan Tinsley, Scott Uderitz, Garth Lagerway, Sammy Ekeme all played more than 20 games for the 1996 Wizards. Paul Wright, Kevin Koetters, Eric Eichmann, and Tommy Reasoner, and Alan Prampin all got more than 10.

Josh Gardner is better than pretty much all of those players - and he's at the end of our roster.

MLS on-field improvement is 90% tied to player identification and development improvement, and 10% all other factors - including increased pay and better foreign players.

 

I completely agree with this, however, I feel like we're getting to a point where the 90/10 split you speak of is balancing out a bit more. It's not really fair to compare those first few years to what we have now. It's like the old baseball line of thinking where it's relatively easy to go from 65 to 75 wins in a season, and MUCH harder to go from 75 to 85 wins and extremely hard to go from 85 to 95 wins. I think we moved from 65 to 75 around 2010, the last few years we've gotten to 85 (really got there due to attendence figures/supporters cultures growing and expansion not diluting the product). I think the jump from 65 to 85 had a lot to do with what you said, player identification and development. To move from 85 towards 95 I feel will be much more financial driven than player identification/development. Mainly because I think we are beginning (hopefully) to compete on the world market at a much higher level and with that comes higher financed competitors for those players. We'll see fewer Joseph Peterson's and Jerome Machek's taking up international roster spots on the cheap and have more $200-300k priced internationals with mainly domestic talent taking up the "developmental" roles. But to get the league and team to that next level, those international spots will need to be used for more players in their prime filling out the 20 or so players on the cap. And to get those players, it will take a larger cap.

Just an opinion, but it seems to be going that way with some of the better teams in MLS. SKC has been fortunate that our domestic talent is as good as it is. Most teams don't have mutiple guys going to Brazil.

 

I disagree with that. I think Seattle and others have proved that not spending on high dollar free agents and "name players" and buidling good squad balance and depth helps you excel is one option that is different than just spending on the top of your roster.

 

Rodriguez is expected to be announced today

 

Hoping this player proves to be someone worth starting ahead of Gardner or Peterson on the left side of the lineup and push for starting minutes on the left side. Unfortunatly this likely takes a roster spot from a player we drafted (Gabeljic or Schmetz) instead of Gardner or Peterson. I guess if Peterson Joseph goes on IR there could be room to still sign both of those players.

 

Yeah, I think that all of the negotiations with the club were to make sure he isn't a DP. The Player tried to get his former club to terminate his contract allowing it to be a non DP free transfer. Sounds like they didn't want to do that so it's going to be a 1 year loan (possibly with option to buy) that will be under the DP limit. But like you, this is all from twitter info.

 

It's official, no mention of him being a DP in the release.