OFFICIAL 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread *RUMORS+OFFICIAL*

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

weird, so Klinsmann not choosing Gonzo has actually helped us...

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

I haven't seen this. Source?

 

Re: Get those Horses

Keane is signed for 2 more years. Done deal.

 

Re: Get those Horses

Don't confuse TJ by using facts. It throws him off his rant.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

I've seen mentions about it on bs and by Ives in regards to George John, who's entering the final year of his contract. The money split for the transfer still remains the same.

We won't be able to sign Mario Rodriguez until he's been in the academy for a full year due to MLS rules, which should be sometime next summer.

It sounds like we've offered Jose Villareal an HG deal as he mentioned he has pro opportunities back home (here) while he was trialing in Europe. It sounds like he's weighing his options currently. Villareal joined our academy same time as Rodriguez but has previously played with an affiliate club, South Bay Force, which "should" mean he doesn't have to wait a year to be signed.

Then there's the slim chance Raul Mendiola decides to start his career in MLS.

 

Re: Get those Horses

And may he stay for two more.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Multiple interviews he's done over his career. He's mentioned it before. It's not hard to see - he's 23, he'll want to play overseas.

The fact that he has two years left on his contract is great - means no sale this offseason, and next year will be the time.

PHEW.

(I tried to do a google search to find a specific article, but he's been in the press so much - mostly about the USMNT - I didn't want to dig for hours. Trust me, he's said it - I think I remember the tail end of 2010 especially.)

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

This is interesting as I still believe my Everton source (plus, no absolutes in this article, not that there ever are) - ESPN LA:

CARSON -- Speculation that Landon Donovan is headed back to Europe -- or that that's where he wants to be -- is constant: that's the kind of assumption that follows players with his skills, and last year's gloriously enjoyable spell in England with Everton sure turned his head.


So Galaxy fans will be encouraged to hear L.A.'s captain -- and scorer of the goal that gave their team the MLS Cup title Sunday -- is sounding pretty single-minded about next year.

Donovan, who will be 30 in March, was asked Wednesday if he expected to return to the Galaxy next season, the third year of a four-year contract -- or might Europe be in his sights?

“Well, you never know what happens, but yeah [I expect to be here],” he replied. Would he entertain loan offers? “I would entertain anything, but the main elements for me are being physically and mentally ready to go next year. For this team. And if anything is going to impede that, I'm not going to do it.”

That means, he says, about two months of not doing a whole lot. After a strenuous, injury-marred but ultimately rewarding campaign, Donovan needs some rest.

“I learned a lot this year about my body,” he said, “and I was probably a little lazy at points this year with things that probably would have let me hold up better at the end of the year. So I want to be better in those areas.

“The first part is to start from scratch next year, and you don't start from scratch if you're training and playing all winter during the offseason. I think we probably have until the third week in January to just really relax and let our bodies catch up, and then we'll be ready to go.”

What does Donovan mean by “lazy”?

“This job, if you want to do it right, is a 24/7 job, because you go go home after practice and everything you eat is important and affects how you train the next day,” he said. “What you do in the afternoon, how you're hydrating, how you're spending your time affects this. If you're lazy and you don't do things properly, then it catches up. And it's hard to be 'on' all the time, because you want to have some semblance of a normal life. But if I want to be better, then those are things I've got to be better at.”

If he's going to rest for two months, that would mean he wouldn't be playing in the U.S. national team's annual January camp at Home Depot Center. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but he's missed the last two U.S. gatherings -- for the friendlies in October and November -- with a quadriceps injury and fatigue.

“I have to talk to Jurgen [Klinsmann, the U.S. coach] about all of that,” Donovan said. “Part of the reason this was tough the last few weeks is because I felt bad for not going into these camps. A lot of guys in different situations went into camp and made tough decisions to go in, and I had to make a tough decision not to go. Part of me feels a little guilty about that.

“I've thought about the January camp, and while physically it doesn't make any sense for me to be there, I think if there's a chance to be there in some aspect, then I think it would make sense. And just to sort of feel out the coaching staff and Jurgen a little more and see what the expectations are a little more and be around the group a little more.”

Donovan's ultimate aim is to lead the Galaxy to another MLS Cup/Supporters' Shield double next year. The odds aren't necessarily with the Galaxy -- decisions need to be made on a lot of players, and not all of them will be coming back. Salary-cap issues could sting.

“You guys don't know the issues in the league in terms of conflicts you have in trying to maintain a roster, build it or whatever,” Galaxy coach Bruce Arena noted during the buildup to last weekend's victory. “We're going to have a lot of that next year, and that'll be challenging as well.”

Arena doesn't discuss potential player moves -- the Galaxy manage affairs under the radar better than any club in the league -- but there's a lot of thought that Josh Saunders' performance has made superfluous Jamaican goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, with his $170,000 salary. Forward Chad Barrett ($192,000), midfielder Chris Birchall ($144,000), defender Frankie Hejduk ($96,000) and midfielder Jovan Kirovski ($84,000) might be expendable, too.

“We're in a league that's designed to knock you down when you're good,” Donovan said. “You get the last pick in the draft ... the way the salary cap works, a lot of guys probably had bonuses this year that will kick in next year and make their cap numbers higher. The league is designed to let bad teams get better and good teams get worse.

“But I think we're a little greedy. When I look back over the season, I think we probably left eight or 10 points on the table, and we could have been better. My thinking as early as Monday morning was how are we going to repeat. And I think that's maybe a little selfish and greedy, but if you want to live in the moment, that's the way you think.”

Any conclusions?

“I have some ideas, but, unfortunately, nobody cares.”

Arena isn't thinking along those lines yet.

“It's Wednesday. We just finished on Sunday,” he said. “I'm gonna give myself about a week to not worry about it. We've got as little but of a cushion here to relax a couple of weeks and not talk about winning a championship next year and all that kind of stuff, and we're just gonna kind of chill out a little bit, do this tour, and then get back to business.”

 

Re: Galaxy interested in Didier Drogba

It originally came from The Daily Mail. Even worse.

 

Re: Galaxy interested in Didier Drogba

drogba won't sell a single seat. damien duff (keanes partner at IRELAND) rumored to join LAG

 

Re: Galaxy interested in Didier Drogba

Drogba is one of the top name players in the world. Are you seriously implying that Damien Duff would sell more seats than Drogba?

Frankly its hard to make a case for the Galaxy even signing Duff. First, he isn't going to be out of contract until June of 2013 (so I assume Fulham would want a transfer fee unless they were trying to dump his contract). He doesn't have a history of being a consistent scorer at Fulham or anywhere else. Second, with both he and Robbie being on the Irish National team, we will lose both of the them at the same time for national team play.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Some good news from SBI about Franklin

The bad news is that we're going to be in a financial bind. Cutting Hejduk, Berhalter and Kirovski doesn't save us their full salaries, only the difference between their salaries and the league senior minimum of 42k.

Cutting the three nets us 150k

We're going to have to give Franklin a raise (I'm still not sure why he's not going to Europe - but I'll take it), Juninho a raise (if we can keep him) and Saunders deserves a raise. I would expect those three raises to burn through the 150 easily.

Second, we were pretty clearly overbudget this year, which means that we must have used allocation money to pay down salaries. I'd bet a big chunk of our allocation money came from Donovan's and Beckham's loans, and we're not going to have that this year.

We may have to cut either or both Ricketts and Barrett just to keep what we have now.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Here's our roster the best that I can construct it.

I'm using guaranteed salaries. We are one over on the senior roster (1-20) which I attribute to Leonardo being out on a season ending injury. Keat and Cardozo both have a 42k base salary which should put them in slots 21-24. We don't use slot 30 which gets us a little allocation money.

The salary budget for slots 1-20 was 2,675k, while our budget was 3,098k so we used a chunk of allocation money.

1 Beckham 335
2 Donovan 335
3 Keane 335
4 Barrett 225
5 Gonzalez 197
6 Ricketts 195
7 Birchall 157
8 Dunivant 142
9 Franklin 111
10 Magee 105
11 Perk 105
12 Robinson 100
13 Juninho 100
14 Leonardo 100
15 Berhalter 96
16 Hejduk 96
17 DeLaGarza 88
18 Kirovski 86
19 Stephens 79
20 Saunders 66
Lopez 45


21 Keat 65
22 Cardozo 53
23 Christman42
24 Jordan 42

25 McBean 76 (HG)
26 Alvarado 33
27 Jimenez 33
28 McCarty 33
29 Thomas 33
30

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

I'm not entirely sure how this salary/budget stuff works, but do we absolutely have to give Saunders a raise? He surely deserves one, but to my knowledge, his contract doesn't end this year.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

If we decide to give Saunders a raise, then that'll more than likely mean he will be our #1 keeper. We can't keep two #1 keepers especially if we have to pay them like they are #1 keepers. I prefer we keep Saunders and trade Ricketts for someone good.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Can you explain this? Why do players not on our roster count against our cap?

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

For the next iteration, I've cut Hejduk, Berhalter, Kirovski and Lopez and traded/waived Barrett and Ricketts. Franklin, Juninho and Saunders get 50k raises each. I'll assume that general raises are matched by a general increase in the salary cap.

1 Beckham 335
2 Donovan 335
3 Keane 335
4 Gonzalez 197
5 Franklin 161
6 Birchall 157
7 Juninho 150
8 Dunivant 142
9 Saunders 116
10 Magee 105
11 Perk 105
12 Robinson 100
13 Leonardo 100
14 DeLaGarza 88
15 Stephens 79
16 Dude 42
17 Dude 42
18 Dude 42
19 Dude 42
20 Dude 42

This puts us at the salary cap more or less. We will have some allocation money, so that can go towards buying Juninho and paying down salaries if we pay a new addition more than 42k. On the other hand, I think Juninho could end up demanding more than 150k, so who knows.


Two big salary issues I see. First, we don't have enough money to bring in proven quality players, which means we're basically going with what we have. Also, it probably means we would have to play Donovan at forward since we really have no one else who is ready.

Second, we have a problem at keeper. Ideally, you'd like your first string keeper to make a good salary, your back up keeper to be at the lower end of the senior roster and your 3rd keeper to be making 42k or less. Our backup keeper (Perk) is pretty expensive at 105k and I'm not sure I'm confortable with him being the backup.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

I'm assuming that we will want to run with a full 20-man senior roster. So we get rid of Berhalter who makes 96k and replace him with a scrub who makes 42k for a savings of 54k. We could run with an 18-man senior roster, but I don't think that's a good idea given all the games we play.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

We don't, although I'm in favor of doing the right thing. We did it for DeLaGarza too.

There also could be clauses in his contract where he gets paid more depending on the number of games he starts, although I have no idea whether that's the case or not.

 

Re: Galaxy interested in Didier Drogba

Well, oddly enough I think both are a wash. We've already go most of the Irish football fan base interested with Keane, so I doubt Duff would sell much more in that demographic. And we've already used Beckham to sell tickets to bed-wetting Europoseurs in premiere league shirts who want to bring their girlfriend to a "footie match".

So no, I don't see Drogba being much of a haul either.

And lord, I have to say, I kinda missed the "[X] is in talks with the Galaxy" threads. Kinda nice to feel important again.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Thanks. I misunderstood what you were saying initially.

 

Re: Galaxy interested in Didier Drogba

I'm sorry, but you're the 242nd person to say that. Today. In America. Since noon EST.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

Your proposal leaves us ~$96k under the cap (~$2.811m). That could be spread between the $42k players, or to pick up a player at ~$135k.

Of course, we'll get extra allocation money for qualifying for the CCL, and possibly for trading Ricketts and Barrett which means we could have quite a bit of allocation money floating around to supplement the cap. If we end up selling Gonzalez, we'll get the max allocation (something around $650k, I believe).

Plus I think Birchall's money could be a lot better replaced. Finding decent American D-Mids is not tough.

There should be room to make moves, but I don't expect us to get a huge impact player, just more tinkering as has been the norm. It makes for a boring off-season but during the season the chemistry that comes from a consistent roster is awesome.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

I was going with the previous year's salary cap because most contracts include an automatic raise which eats up any increase in the salary cap (athough one benefit of having DPs is that I don't think their cap hit automatically increases).

But yeah, we should have some allocation money. I think that every team automatically gets some allocation money, plus the CCC money, plus a little bit of money if we run under 30 players.

I'm ambivalent about selling Gonzalez. The money would certainly help, but I think we have a good chance of winning things next year, particularly if Beckham stays.

In the same way, Birchall is a good backup at DMid and Right Mid and could give us one more year while we try to develop a replacement.

 

Re: 2011-12 Offseason Moves Thread

That's my expectation too. Hopefully pick up a couple of cheap South Americans to see if they work out.

I wonder what Ricketts would be worth in a draft pick?