And you don't think the players know that and therefore demand a big bump in the option years??? That means in 2 years he will be making over $250k (maybe closer to $300k).
This is irrelevant. In order to keep Beita, we would have had to pay him a lot more. There's no chance that Barklage is more expensive, the question is if he's as good or better. BUT, even that is not the point, and not the point I was making that you responded to. Perhaps I was not clear enough? Getting a cheaper player to replace one of your starters is only good if he's also a better player than your starter. I don't care if we save a ton of money with Barklage, if he's not as good it was a bad move. BUT, that's not the whole point either. We have moved several young players out, and brought in or kept older players. Yeah, this. It's not entirely about Barklage. Beita was one of our very best field players, and a local favorite. The one-to-one replacement is only part of the equation. Bringing in new players, even good ones disrupts team chemistry. Let's say that Barklage is good, and that he has time to mesh with the other players on the back line. That's a best case scenario. It is also true that we have kept other players on our roster who we should have traded: Hernandez and maybe Harden. While we lost Attakora (who might have still been injured, can't be sure). And we lost Morrow, and we lost Beita. But we kept Walmart. See where I'm going with this? The day after our season ended, I'd have announced that Walmart was gone. We've got Jordan Stewart playing left back now, and he's really seriously good! But he's also getting long of tooth. If he gets injured, it will take him longer to recover, and he might recover fully. And how many seasons has he got left in him? We need to go young, but we're going older. Barklage is not the problem in that part of the equation, it's the rest of our moves. Dude, let's say that Pierazzi is also really good. He plays d-mid, same as Sam Croninja, our MVP from last season. So we're going to go with two d-mids (holding midfielders!! Holding!!) in central midfield. Most of us here wanted an actually attacking central midfielder (I know, that term is now banned, but go with me for a moment). So JBP is a let down. I sure as hell hope he's better than Baca, but I wanted to keep Baca on the bench just in case. (It was MLS's decision to let Baca go, so I can't blame JD for that one.) JBP is not actually the replacement for Baca, he's the replacement for Cronin, and Cronin is the replacement for Baca. I wanted a Valeri-type player instead. (I'd have been pumped with the second coming of Dario Brose too!) Yeah, we got TT, and that's good. But we won't play him in central mid, we'll play him on the wing, just watch and see. We got AJ too! I hope that AJ is just depth this season and doesn't need to strut his stuff for us until next year, you know, when JBP retires. Right now, I think we're going to play like this: - - - - - - - - Lenny - - - - - - - - - - - - - Wondo Shea - - - - - - - - - - - - - Atiba - - - - - SamC - - - - - - - - - - - JBP JS - - CG - - Muma - - Bark - - - - - TheBusch I'm less than pumped. I never said that Barklage was the worst right back in the league. I never even said he was bad. I said that Beita was one of the very best right backs in the league, and that we should have kept him. Heck, adding Barklage might be good anyway because we need more depth at the outside back spots and we ditched Gargan, who I really liked, but he was getting on in years too. So I'd have been good with a Barklage replacing Gargan move. And of course, Beita will be out with the Iranian Nats so we would have needed a quality back up. It's the BIG PICTURE that has me sweating bullets, not Barklage by himself. go quakes! - Mark
Mark Mark Mark. You are starting to sound like a GM with a vision for the team. Small club with a focus on youth is not a bad idea question for you .. Is JM and Beita too old for us i.e., should we be bringing in younger players say 21-22 years old as replacements?
Comrade Mark, I think you have the correct tentative opening game lineup. Cato and Thompson are probably in contention to take the starting spots from Salinas and Harris. We'll see if the central midfield pairing of Cronin and Pierazzi is dynamic enough to create goal scoring opportunities. I'm skeptical because Pierazzi seems to be more of a defense first guy as is Cronin, who is recovering from a just disclosed surgery. But I've never seen Pierazzi play so I hope for the best. We already know the limitations of the Salinas/Cato wing pairing. So my assessment remains a strong defending team even with Barklage in the place of Beita. And an attack that will be predictable and easy to contain. The team will succeed if it wins many 1-0 type games or if Pierazzi and Thompson become part of a dynamic, fluid attack.
I'm hoping that SamC really comes into his own and shows a flair for attack. I've seen him do it in US Open Cup games (against the Timbers mostly scrubs). If Sam can make eight to ten offensive passes per game and take a couple of shots each game that might be enough to take some of the pressure off of Shea and AtibaButtHead or Cato or TT, whoever the hell starts opposite Shea. go quakes! - Mark
If we wanted to really get our hopes up we might be inclined to compare the potential of Sam/JB to Johnson/Chara, but of course this being BS let's not even go there.
I'm starting to think Beita was commanding quite a big payday and Doyle, Kaval or whomever didn't want to oblige.
Well, mostly I want us playing guys in their mid to late 20's with some younger guys in the pipeline. We could do with a couple of older veteran guys, like Wondo, Busch, Goodson, and so on. It's not that I am completely biased against guys over 30, it's just that on the whole, they are not fast enough for MLS. But yeah, I certainly have a vision for OUR team. I want it well run, I want good players, I want to play attractive attacking soccer. And, I want really good beer in OUR stadium! go quakes!! - Mark
According to the Beckham Experiment, alot of players supplement their MLS salaries by coaching youth soccer. But one guy quit MLS because he was cleaning pools to make a living wage. Alan Gordon was getting subsidized by his then-fiance (now wife). That book makes it really clear how terrible the wage scale is for DPs versus pro soccer rookies, even if you're both starters. In Europe, you see this wage scale stretched across 4-5 tiers of league play, but here in MLS it is all compressed into the "senior" team.
That was under the last CBA, when they really paid the end of the bench guys nothing. This last CBA was a major improvement for MLS min wagers, and I expect the next one to be another step up.
I'm not convinced that it can actually be true that every single team is growing in strength every year relative to every other team. Some get a little better (some get a lot better) some get a little bit worse. If it were true that every team got better all the time, then DC would not have become one of the worst performing teams in MLS history last year and Toronto would have made the playoffs at some point. The western conference has a history of good competition recently, so it might seem that every team is getting better, but even there, you have a Seattle team that has had a fairly consistent record over their history, some years a little better than others but no drastic changes in quality. Beitashour's loss in and of itself is not an indication of a failed offseason. Baca's departure will probably have a bigger impact (positive or negative, not sure), but it too, might be a change for the better in the long run. We really won't know until the season is over how successful all of this will be. So long as the team can stay disciplined and focused and work toward a common goal, I think they will be successful. The second half of last season was good, although full of close contests. The results, themselves shouldn't be dismissed too easily, however.
Sounds like SKC are having the same issue with Chance Myers. This article seems to support the Front Office's valuation of Beitashour and seems to state that fullbacks like beita/myers/franklin aren't worth 200k+. Also interesting to note that Vancouver were trying to get Myers before beita but backed out because the money he wanted was too big. Chance Myers deserves a raise, but will he get it with Sporting KC? http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/29/4783680/chance-myers-deserves-a-raise.html
You'd think that a good fullback would be worth about the same as a good outside midfielder... With left side worth more than right side, I suppose, just based on scarcity.
The difference between "good" and MLS journeyman is much smaller at the fullback position compared to winger. Our FBs in MLS are minnows on the world stage whereas several who have played as outside mids can make legitimate claims to a third (Donovan, Zusi) or fourth (Brek, Davis, Fagundez, Rosales, Camilo, Chavez, etc.) tier world rating.
never mind, chance myers has just re-signed with SKC. can't find any leaks on salary figure yet. will be interesting to see the figures from the union in a few months.
Obviously, very disappointed in Beta leaving the team. While I think that he was somewhat overrate, I think that he deserved to be paid in the $150-$175 range. Anything above, you run into the potential Morrow regret. I think Morrow's failure to perform after getting a nice bump may have scared the Quakes a little. Still, Beta was a better player than Morrow and showed that over a couple of season (even with the poor start to last season). Paying $200k or more for a right back with the current MLS budgets is just not smart...
morrow was not overated. he was making 139K all in, he was a rock @ LB in 2012, he was an all star, got called up to the nats for a look and he can play 3 positions. if he didn't get bounced around from left back to center mid so many times in 2013 he may have never have lost his starting spot. also to take into account the team was run by yallop and this line ups had people scratching their heads half the time, no surprised the kid had a bad year. 139k is peanuts even in mls for someone like morrow. now with the quakes being as cheap as we are 139k looks like it turned out to be too much when they realized they had to pay goodson his full salary in 2014. hence the salary dumps of morrow, chavez, beita (projected), gargan, attakora (projected). i think in jd's mind anyone over 100k should replaced by a trialist @ the league minimum....except for hernandez of course.
Added Barklage data from 2013 to the mix. Any guesses on Barklage's 2014 salary with us? http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...racts-brandon-barklage-shaun-francis-bryan-me Data taken from .. 2013 MLS Player Salaries: September 15, 2013: By Club SJ Beitashour Steven D $49,612.50 $49,612.50 KC Myers Chance D-M $105,000.00 $120,666.67 NE Alston Kevin D $145,000.00 $194,000.00 RSL Beltran Anthony D $166,800.00 $166,800.00 SJ Morrow Justin D $130,000.00 $139,562.50 NY Barklage Brandon M $65,000.00 $71,428.54