Re-Entry Draft

He reminds me of Zusi a bit. It took him a couple years and the right system to fully realize his potential. I am hoping the same is true for Duka.

 

Duka is a CM.

Of course we play him on the left...you know, he is more responsible there.

 

Hartman is the kind of guy you could bring in with a 50/50 contract to back up The HH and coach the keepers. Great clubhouse guy who is (likely) looking down the road at the next career step but in a tough spot like coming down the stretch in a playoff drive you could toss him in there and not lose a thing.

(My favorite "how to pick a national team" story is from 2002 when Arena took Tony Meola as his 3rd GK. Everybody thought he was nuts, since there were at least six guys better, mostly Timmy Howard. But the bottom line was that if it got down to needing your third keeper, it meant that a complete disaster had befallen the US and both Friedel and Keller had gone down. In that case, with 50 billion people watching on worldwide TV and the fate of the team in the balance, who was the one man who would not crap his pants when you told him to pull on his gloves and get out there? Surely not Howard or anyone else, who'd be having a stroke; Meola was the best choice by a mile and a half.)

Aside from that, it's fascinating to see all the guys that everybody drooled over at the draft ending up on the scrap heap. Half the damn 2010 draft first round (Philly - the day my car got broken into in a surface lot in broad daylight) is on that list except for Mwanga.

Well, and Bright Dike.

And I'm certain this is utterly ridiculous but I'm going to say it anyway: I'd bring in Ale Moreno in a heartbeat. He'd work cheap, sit without complaining, come in and give you some production and, frankly, we've had lots worse guys as our fourth or fifth offensive options lately.

LOTS worse.

 

I'm not so sure about this anymore. I used to be in that camp, but his defense was atrocious last season.

 

Gavin, Bone, and Schilawski were the guys we all wanted that year when we ended up with Dike. Shows what we know. But hey! we can pick them up in the Re-Entry Draft!

My favorite storyline from the 2010 draft is Sean Johnson. You have to hand it to Chicago for convincing the league to sign him to a GA contract when no one else in the league thought he was even worthy of a 3rd round pick, then taking him in the 4th. He's the only 2010 4th rounder left on an MLS roster, and Chicago is just now starting to pay him.

 

Bill I thought Moreno had a falling out with RW or the FO when he was put on the Allocation list and left unprotected.

 

Exactly, which is why I would seriously consider bringing him in and might even trade up if necessary to do it. Look at his CV. Two-time MLS Cup winner, two-time Open Cup winner, four-time Western Conf Championship winner, two-time Supporters' Shield winner. Holds many records within the league for goalkeepers, overall all-time appearance leader.

Most importantly, his teams are usually involved in the playoff picture. The guy is just a consummate pro and a winner, pure and simple. I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone around the league with a bad word to say about him.

That said, this appears to be the best crop of players available yet in this re-entry thingy, so I can see reasons for a number of players being potentially selected. And I do expect we'll make use of it, it seems like we've attempted to do so as much or more than any other team in the league thus far.

 

Not to mention the fact that he's still a starting-caliber keeper. But with that being the case, I wonder if someone like Vancouver, LA, or Chivas (if the Kennedy to LA move pans out) would make a move for him as a short-term solution with a longer term plan in mind.

 

New York really wanted Bone. (So many lines, so little time)

When he was picked late in the first, Backe - who had been the coach for about a day and had no Earthly idea wha the hell was going on - turned to Richie Williams and said "So who's this other guy you like?"

Turned out to be Tim Ream, who they took half a dozen or so picks later, early in the second. Much better pick, but of course he's now in Europe.

 

If anyone is serious in thinking that we'd take Ale or Hartman, you're smoking crack. Moreno had that falling out with RW after the 2009 playoff debacle that saw him benched with GBS. Then of course, the whole, "No one told me I was being left unprotected" deal....
Hartman has too much leadership and authority to survive on a RW team. He does have some Newark area connections, although I forget exactly what they were.
I would take a lot of people on that list, but I know that we won't. Bliss pretty much said as much in Jardy's blog on Monday. They want to get younger. Younger = Cheaper.
At this point, I'm pretty down about next year. I'll be honest. I'm not very excited about it.

 

So in both cases the problem would be insufficient levels of deference and groveling to the omnipotent Rifle.

Problem is, I'm still anxiously waiting for some proof that Bob has the first damn clue. In what area has he shown superior skill? Drafting? Development? Tactics? Player relationships? Game day adjustments? What?

The deal in every sport is, and has always been, that you have to earn the trust of veteran players. The kids, sure, toe the line or hit the road. But guys who have been arund the block a few times don't just bow down and kiss your ring.

Maybe he'd like to do the world a favor and go punch Keith Laughlin in the face. Sure make a big fan out of me in a hurry.

Young teams don't win in MLS. Never have. If we go much younger than we already are - and stock up on more second team All Big Ten players in the process - it will only mean that management is not really serious about winning.

 

Everyone harping pessimistically on the "getting cheaper" thing needs to remember that we don't save any money by being under the cap (unless there's something I'm missing about the convoluted MLS salary rules, which there probably is).

I think the gist of what the FO is saying is "we have some really good players that we think we can build around, but we don't have cap room to add any other high profile signings." Is that true? Who knows. I don't know exactly how much Higuain is getting. It sure as heck isn't $324,000

 

Actually i would venture he is making more than $324

Remember he only counted towards the cap at %50 last season since he arrived late. Wasnt that 180ish?

...based on my memory and not actual research.

 

Couldn't resist.

 

We’ll see, here’s where I think we’re at
We have 17 signed and we’re negotiating with O'Rourke, Renteria, and Mendes I know it’s anecdotal but these players have remained on the team’s roster page while Balchan, Birchall, and Miranda have been taken off. That leads me to believe the former three with be back.
17+3=20
I think it is likely that we sign at least the three seniors to homegrown contracts.
20+3=23
Assuming we keep at least our top two draft picks.
23+2=25
That takes us to 25 pretty easy without including the possibility of Miranda or others re-signing, Trapp or supplemental picks being added to the team. With 25 we only have five guys to go I don’t think we’ll see a ton of big spending this year.

 

I think it's because the first three have expiring contracts with no option (otherwise they would be in the re-entry draft)--and as such they are still on the roster until Dec 31, when contracts expire. The latter three had options turned down--so they thus are no longer on the roster, though we can still negotiate with them up to a certain point.

 

Yeah which is why I think there's a chance we'll re-sign someone else. Doesn't change my math though.
Also grabbed this from Jardy to reinforce the math.

So I still think we get to 25 pretty easily.

 

Not sure about the "you don't save money under the cap" part... TrueCrew mentioned that if you don't have 20 people on your "On-Budget" roster, you get charged 44k for unused spots - was that what you were thinking of? Or were you referring to weird MLS revenue-sharing junk?

Otherwise I agree - it seems like the cap would be more of an issue than shallow wallets. Obviously DP's are the notable exception to this, but I'll just stay thankful that we have even one. In fact, we had more 100k+ players (13) than LAG did (10), I'm guessing because their DP's chewed up a whole bunch of space.

Then again, TrueCrew's numbers make it look like we were actually under the cap last year... Does anyone know if that was the case? Also, conventional wisdom (the fact that we signed 3 mid/late-season players) would make it seem like we had cap room to play around with mid-season.

 

My understanding is that part of the single entity structure is that each team pays a set amount at the cap regardless of the actual salaries of their players. The players are all paid by the league, so the money has to actually be coming from MLS, rather than the Columbus Crew. So, yes the team can be cheap by refusing to sign DP's that go above and beyond the cap, but if you could save money by being under the cap, I think we'd see a lot more of that in this league than you do.

It also makes sense from a standpoint of maintaining parity. If Columbus decides tomorrow that they want to fill a roster with league minimum salaries to save money, that doesn't exactly jive with what the league is trying to accomplish.

On the other hand, I also remember reading that there's some sort of compensation if you don't use off-budget spots 25-30 (I think Philly took advantage of that last year), so I'm not sure how those two things work together.

 

Here we go:

So we may have had more 100k+ plus guys than LA, but a few of them (Duka and Tchani) were off-budget as GA guys.

 

Duka and Tchani were not off budget in the 2012 season. They were graduated from GA status at the end of the season last year, even though neither had played much due to injuries.

 

SoccerByIves
Montreal Impact trade Josh Gardner to Sporting KC for a 2nd round pick (the higher of KC's 2 2nd round picks) in the 2013 MLS Draft.
12/5/12 1:06 PM


It appears that Gardner is no longer a possibility

 

Unless they're planning on flipping him to us (not likely).

The sad thing is, he would start here, but he's going to KC as depth.

 

Are there any other LBs available in the re-entry draft. IIRC Segares is available, yet expensive