Payne: "New Young Designated Player Program"

I have a feeling that all the GMs in MLS do business by the seat of their pants... honestly, I don't think even the rules guru at MLS FO knows all the rules

 

I think the only rule MLS GMs know for sure is that every rule has a significant amount of flexibility given the right player and/or team. Other than that, I would not be surprised that even MLS GMs aren't familiar with every rule.

 

I spent a lot of time talking with Doug Hamilton before he passed away. (for those that don't know the name, he was the former GM of the Galaxy and one of the best execs in the league before suffering a heart attack on the team's flight home from Costa Rica following a Champions Cup match).

Trust me. The good GMs in this league have a very firm grasp. Quite frankly, the rules aren't that hard for the average fan to figure out if they take the time to actually sit down and read them.

The only thing that is not and never has been transparent is the allocation money with regards to how much each team has available.

 

It's not the complexity of the rules, but the fact that there's so many of them and each year more are introduced. It's loophole after loophole to the salary cap. We currently have about 7 different player designations. We also have about 7 different player distribution mechanisms. And the lotteries. And the allocation money. The mysterious homegrown player requirements.

It's just a bureaucratic clusterfuq

Just let the teams go out there and compete in an open and transparent market for the best players they can fit under the cap. I have no problem maintaining international player limits and homegrown player exemptions.

But the rest of the rule book needs to be flushed down the toilet

 

Well that and MLSSoccer.com's sometime incompetent reporting of what a team did and how (for example, they reported Kamani Hill as an allocation and a lottery pick all through the 2012 season).

 

Unless something has changed recently, this is not true. As of 2010, the league received 1/3 of most transfer fees. Teams can only get $650K in allocation money per transfer, but they still get the rest of their share even if it is over that, they just don't get to use it to offset salary cap hits.

 

If what Payne said, see the quote in the OP, then each team can basically have a league provided Youth DP that does not count against a teams 3 DP limit.

So Houston could buy Alex outright as one of their 3 DPs and still get another youth DP via this new mechanism. Random Team A might not have filled any of their 3 DP spots and still receive a youth DP from the new mechanism.

If Houston wants Alex to be part of this new mechanism, then Alex might need to go through the allocation set up for this new player position.

 

That just seems like a strange way to do business, especially with MLS wanting to give teams more control over their rosters. If you have two equivalent players of the same age, both requiring a transfer fee sufficient enough to make them DPs, you're punishing teams for being outgoing and nabbing said player by making them take up a DP slot and cost more on the cap than deal with another lottery/allocation process where another team could hold your player hostage (a la Brian McB).

 

Well, depends on how you look at it I guess. I can definitely see where you are coming from.

But MLS will be paying for these spots. If you want a specific player, sign them to one of your DP spots.
Otherwise take your chances in the allocation. Maybe trade up in the allocation...

Also, while Payne wasn't exactly clear, I read his statement as saying that the new youth DP spots will be treated just like the current youth DP spots with the only difference being that they won't count against a teams 3 dp limit.

So the ONLY way a team can have THEIR player nabbed is if they don't want to sign them to one of their three DP spots.

And there is no difference in the cap hit from one of these new youth DPs vs a youth DP that fits into a teams 3 dp limit. Again, that is how I am interpreting Payne's comments. He is basically saying "These players are outside the DP limit but still receive the youth DP cap discount"

The only difference between a youth dp under a teams cap limit vs one acquired via this new mechanism, with respect to the cap, is that MLS pays for all of their salary.

 

hard to see MLS signing young players without some input from clubs. at least one of the teams must want a particular player, or else why would MLS buy a player?

 

Who says they won't seek input from individual teams? But that doesn't mean they go out and poach players from individual teams.

The league can submit a list of players and their scouting material to teams and ask for input on which players they want on their teams.

 

This sounds absurd.

 

This is MLS. Absurd is the word.

Also, surely this rule benefits NY/LA. Somebody please tell me how; or is this being put in place so that NY2's roster can be completely filled by MLS via allocations, re-entry draft, expansion draft, supplemental draft, new young dp rule thingy.....

 

Minor aside, your basic point remains (and I'm too lazy to look up the details) but didn't the Timbers sign a Colombian [?] 'Young DP' who immediately needed surgery and missed all of last season?

 

I think they caught the injury at the physical so they were able to restructure the deal before it was too late. I think that guy's salary ended up being only $44,000 last year.

 

I'm a fan of the impulse here.

I'm very, very wary about the mechanism.

 

MLS has been very good the last two years publishing the details behind the roster rules. Hopefully the 2012 Rules link below will be updated shortly to add in this new mechanism.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/2012-mls-roster-rules

 

I wish the league would focus this program on that elite group of US based young kids who are heading overseas from young ages. Try to keep the kids from going to overseas academies if that is available to them, especially kids with multiple passports who we could try to filter into the USMNT.

 

How many of these kids are there?

1 or 2 per year? If that.

 

if 2 a year, thats 10 every 5 years. thats almost a full lineup

 

Spread out across 19 teams, soon to be 20. And the number of kids that MLS "loses out on" that actually turn into anything resembling a productive player is even less.

MLS losing young player to foreign leagues is nowhere near as big a crisis as some one BigSoccer would make it out to be. And its becoming less and less of a problem as MLS academies evolve and the league continues to improve.

 

Not to mention that a fair number of those kids won't pan out.

 

europe isnt that interested in MLS talent honestly especially as salaries become comparable to those leagues over there.

 

Tell that to Roger Espinoza, Andy Najar, Dane Richards, etc..