Value for money

[nick]

The following represents the salaries of DC United players for this year as provided by the Players association. If you look at salary vs contribution this year there are some striking Value for money questions that pop out.

I provided this information in another thread but I think it deserves its own discussion. It would be interesting to take these salaries and then divide them by minutes played in regular MLS games to get a "Most Value" Player ranking.

Club Last Name First Name Pos Base Salary Total Compensation
DC Gallardo Marcelo M 1,500,000.00 1,874,006.00
DC Emilio Luciano F 720,000.00 758,857.14
DC Moreno Jaime F 275,000.00 275,000.00
DC Martinez Gonzalo D 228,000.00 244,750.00
DC Carreiro Silva Fred M 210,000.00 242,000.00
DC Olsen Ben M 215,000.00 215,000.00
DC Peralta Gonzalo D 180,000.00 199,000.00
DC Crayton Louis GK 168,000.00 175,857.14
DC Guerrero Ivan M 140,000.00 147,000.00
DC Kirk Quavas M 100,000.00 136,500.00
DC Namoff Bryan D 95,000.00 98,750.00
DC Simms Clyde M 57,750.00 59,000.00
DC Wells Zachary GK 52,920.00 52,920.00
DC Doe Francis F 33,000.00 40,500.00
DC Quaranta Santino M 35,000.00 35,000.00
DC Burch Marc D 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Dyachenko Rod M 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Khumalo Thabiso F 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC McTavish Devon D 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Mediate Domenic M 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Vide Joe M 17,700.00 19,128.57
DC Cordeiro Ryan M 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Koroma Ibrahim D 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Stratford Dan M 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Carroll Jeff D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Carroll Pat D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Janicki Greg D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Miller Ryan D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Thompson Craig M 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Thorpe James GK 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Zaher Mike D 12,900.00 12,900.00

Salary Distribution
Total Team 4,881,668.85 100.00%
Rest of Team 2,248,805.71 46.07%
DP 2,632,863.14 53.93% Gallardo and Emilio

DC spent close to $5 Million in salaries this year double what it spend last year when it won the supporters shield. For comparison, this is about 10 times what a typical USL team spends yet a couple of USL teams are still going through the CCL and DC has 1 point in 4 games.

Of DCU's top seven players only Moreno and Fred have made a solid contributions this year despite that group taking up $3.8 million in Salary representing 78.02% of DCU's total player salary spend.

I can say from a business perspective that if I would get this type of value add from my staff I would be out of business very quickly. Hey maybe these guys came from Wall Street???

Bottom line... This year has been a near total disaster and shows that Soehn Kasper and Co have been very poor stewards of the money given to them by the new owners.
__________________

[CrimsonChin00]

Most Value Player: Santino Quaranta. Alot of bang for the buck.

[Sundevil9]

Emilio hasn't contributed?

11 league goals.
A goal in a Cup final game.

That's not contributing?

Could a healthy Emilio contributed more? Sure. But that's not to say that he's helped the cause on the field when he's been there.

[ongreystreet]

Club Last Name First Name Pos Base Salary Total Compensation
DC Gallardo Marcelo M 1,500,000.00 1,874,006.00
DC Emilio Luciano F 720,000.00 758,857.14
DC Moreno Jaime F 275,000.00 275,000.00
DC Martinez Gonzalo D 228,000.00 244,750.00
DC Carreiro Silva Fred M 210,000.00 242,000.00
DC Olsen Ben M 215,000.00 215,000.00
DC Peralta Gonzalo D 180,000.00 199,000.00
DC Crayton Louis GK 168,000.00 175,857.14
DC Guerrero Ivan M 140,000.00 147,000.00
DC Kirk Quavas M 100,000.00 136,500.00
DC Namoff Bryan D 95,000.00 98,750.00
DC Simms Clyde M 57,750.00 59,000.00
DC Wells Zachary GK 52,920.00 52,920.00
DC Doe Francis F 33,000.00 40,500.00
DC Quaranta Santino M 35,000.00 35,000.00
DC Burch Marc D 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Dyachenko Rod M 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Khumalo Thabiso F 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC McTavish Devon D 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Mediate Domenic M 33,000.00 33,000.00
DC Vide Joe M 17,700.00 19,128.57
DC Cordeiro Ryan M 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Koroma Ibrahim D 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Stratford Dan M 17,700.00 17,700.00
DC Carroll Jeff D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Carroll Pat D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Janicki Greg D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Miller Ryan D 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Thompson Craig M 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Thorpe James GK 12,900.00 12,900.00
DC Zaher Mike D 12,900.00 12,900.00

Salary Distribution
Total Team 4,881,668.85 100.00%
Rest of Team 2,248,805.71 46.07%
DP 2,632,863.14 53.93% Gallardo and Emilio


If the team could get rid of Gallardo, which I am not sure they could, and split his salary up among the rest of the team, DC could pay each other player an additional 60k+ a year. To put that in prospective, Simms doesn't even make 60k a yr. DC may have some contracts to take care of during the off season with Simms, Doe, Quaranta, Vide, Thompson, and possibly Burch and McTavish(although I expect DC to bring in defenders) deserving some sort of pay increase. I think Ben Olsen needs to be cut, either salary or all together. If you want to keep him around, make him staff. Kirk also has to go.

[La Barra Blonde]

I know I'm going to catch hell on this one but I don't think Crayton is worth $175K. He's good but not that good and certainly not 3x better than Wells and definitely not good enough to be the 2nd highest paid keeper in the league.

I'd say $110K tops for him.

Peralta is kinda overpaid too - I'd say $120K. Same with Martinez - $175,000.

I know Q is Generation Adidas but $100K? Glad they can afford to pay young players that much money. Wish they'd farm out the wealth a little more.

I hate the American trend of automatically paying foreigners more money. Because obviously, if they are foreign, they're worth more right? :rolleyes:

Happens in the horse show world as well. People pay insane amounts of money for German horses because they supposedly breed some of the best horses in the world and pay German trainers insane amounts of money to train their horses. This is true but the best horses stay in Germany as well as the best trainers. We get the ones that don't make it over there.

Not to say that all foreign players are duds but if they were born and bred American, would we offer them as much money? Conversely, do they bring something extra because of their foreign training? In Jaime's case, I'd say yes, because he's got a wealth of experience having grown up in the soccer academy system of Bolivia that we just don't have here in the States. Same with Gallardo. For the other guys, I dunno.

[dcchelseafc]

its so sad when you make more than 1/2 of the roster...just sad!

salary cap up, include more players NOW!

[nobletea]

It's all well and good to review the numbers, but always be aware of the intangible benefits players may provide.

For example, one of our most wasted, Olsen, helping to get and maintain someone like Santino, who is a great value.

There are many things players can do other than get points.

[Bootsy Collins]

I provided this information in another thread but I think it deserves its own discussion. It would be interesting to take these salaries and then divide them by minutes played in regular MLS games to get a "Most Value" Player ranking.

I did this exercise (calculating pay-per-minute) a week or two ago when Goff originally posted the new salary sheets. Unsurprisingly, the winner by a wide margin is Ben Olsen, then Gallardo. I've been waiting to post about this because I wanted to combine it with some other info -- e.g. typical costs for players at various positions, league-wide.

The obvious interest is in performance-for-dollar, or cost-per-performance. But I think there's lots of other information there that's important to understand the situation we're in going forward from this season. And to that end, the interesting numbers aren't the ones you've given, but the ones with Gallardo @ $400k and Emilio @ $375k. What they're paid in excess of that is owners' discretion; it doesn't constrain our roster moves. Their cap hits do.

An example: I've been pretty down on a lot of players' performance this year. I can't think of a single player on the team that's played as well this year as they did last year. For a player like Jaime, that's perhaps understandable: age and all that. But it's more of a concern with players like Clyde Simms, Devon McTavish and Marc Burch. Burch has at least the defense that he should have been at left back rather than at center back, where we keep using him. But I don't think that kind of argument is there for Simms and McTavish. So maybe one would like to replace McTavish with a better center back. Rude surprise! McTavish only makes the senior minimum of $33k. If you were to lose him somehow, by trade or waiver or whatever, you haven't cleared enough cap room to bring someone decent in. McTavish and Simms together make $92k -- which is less than you'd pay for many of the best centerbacks in this league.

[La Barra Blonde]

It's all well and good to review the numbers, but always be aware of the intangible benefits players may provide.

For example, one of our most wasted, Olsen, helping to get and maintain someone like Santino, who is a great value.

There are many things players can do other than get points.

I totally agree and think that Benny is worth every penny of his salary, even if he only played 15 minutes of regular time. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's a big reason why the team hasn't completely imploded this year.

I also think that given this year, I don't think we can judge any player too harshly. It's been a minor train-wreck of a year and I don't think the coaching staff has handled it as well as they could. I'd like to get a better coach and staff in and see if things improve.

[nick]

OK I went ahead and ran the numbers and then sorted the team by $/min played to date. I also calculated $/Goal, $/Assist and $/Shot.


Very Interesting. Look at the bottom 5 players. I think this speaks to the type of Player Model and mix DCU should consider in future time spent in scouting Argentina verses US Colleges and other developmental programs.


PLAYER MIN Total Compensation $/Min
Ben Olsen 15 215,000.00 $14,333
Marcelo Gallardo 1161 1,874,006.00 $1,614
Quavas Kirk 135 136,500.00 $1,011
Franco Niell * 279 168,000.00 $602
Luciano Emilio 2051 758,857.14 $370
Dan Stratford * 81 17,700.00 $219
Louis Crayton 990 175,857.14 $178
Fred 1600 242,000.00 $151
Jaime Moreno 1825 275,000.00 $151
Ivan Guerrero 1059 147,000.00 $139
Gonzalo Peralta 1501 199,000.00 $133
Gonzalo Martinez 2102 244,750.00 $116
Francis Doe 365 40,500.00 $111
Mike Zaher 124 12,900.00 $104
Greg Janicki 126 12,900.00 $102
Ryan Cordeiro 207 17,700.00 $86
Domenic Mediate 437 33,000.00 $76
Thabiso Khumalo 448 33,000.00 $74
Pat Carroll 186 12,900.00 $69
Craig Thompson 241 12,900.00 $54
Bryan Namoff 2321 98,750.00 $43
Rod Dyachenko 776 33,000.00 $43
Zack Wells 1530 52,920.00 $35
Joe Vide 590 19,128.57 $32
Clyde Simms 2607 59,000.00 $23
Marc Burch 1727 33,000.00 $19
Santino Quaranta 1873 35,000.00 $19
Devon McTavish 2169 33,000.00 $15


Here are the other stats $/Goal, $/Assist $/SHT

PLAYER $/G $/A $/SHT
Ben Olsen
Marcelo Gallardo $468,502 $624,669 $60,452
Quavas Kirk $136,500 ............ $45,500
Franco Niell * $168,000 $56,000
Luciano Emilio $68,987 $151,771 $10,688
Dan Stratford * ............................ $17,700
Louis Crayton ..........................................
Fred $121,000 $60,500 $8,643
Jaime Moreno $27,500 $27,500 $7,857
Ivan Guerrero .............. $36,750 $29,400
Gonzalo Peralta $199,000 ........... $33,167
Gonzalo Martinez $244,750 $122,375 $27,194
Francis Doe $20,250 ............ $4,500
Mike Zaher ...........................................
Greg Janicki ...........................................
Ryan Cordeiro ............... $17,700 $2,529
Domenic Mediate ........................... $16,500
Thabiso Khumalo $33,000 $33,000 $3,667
Pat Carroll ...........................................
Craig Thompson ........................... $12,900
Bryan Namoff $98,750 .............. $8,229
Rod Dyachenko ........... $11,000 $4,714
Zack Wells ............................................
Joe Vide $19,129 ........... $3,188
Clyde Simms $29,500 $29,500 $2,682
Marc Burch $11,000 $3,000 ..................
Santino Quaranta $7,000 $8,750 $795
Devon McTavish $33,000 $8,250 $3,000

Does this look like a chapter out of Freakonomics or what???
:D

[sussexcentralsoccer]

its so sad when you make more than 1/2 of the roster...just sad!

salary cap up, include more players NOW!

It is also sad, in a different way, when you make less then half the roster...

[nick]

I did this exercise (calculating pay-per-minute) a week or two ago when Goff originally posted the new salary sheets. Unsurprisingly, the winner by a wide margin is Ben Olsen, then Gallardo. I've been waiting to post about this because I wanted to combine it with some other info -- e.g. typical costs for players at various positions, league-wide.

The obvious interest is in performance-for-dollar, or cost-per-performance. But I think there's lots of other information there that's important to understand the situation we're in going forward from this season. And to that end, the interesting numbers aren't the ones you've given, but the ones with Gallardo @ $400k and Emilio @ $375k. What they're paid in excess of that is owners' discretion; it doesn't constrain our roster moves. Their cap hits do.

An example: I've been pretty down on a lot of players' performance this year. I can't think of a single player on the team that's played as well this year as they did last year. For a player like Jaime, that's perhaps understandable: age and all that. But it's more of a concern with players like Clyde Simms, Devon McTavish and Marc Burch. Burch has at least the defense that he should have been at left back rather than at center back, where we keep using him. But I don't think that kind of argument is there for Simms and McTavish. So maybe one would like to replace McTavish with a better center back. Rude surprise! McTavish only makes the senior minimum of $33k. If you were to lose him somehow, by trade or waiver or whatever, you haven't cleared enough cap room to bring someone decent in. McTavish and Simms together make $92k -- which is less than you'd pay for many of the best centerbacks in this league.

I've been thinking right alone similiar lines and your example is bang on. There are some role players that even though their performance hasn't matched last year they are not the major problem. Instead we have a number of highly compensated players that have just not provided a return anywhere near what one would have expected or hoped and that is regardless of whether you count them at full salary or salary applied to Cap.

It kills me that someone like Kirk is paid 136k and Mctavish is paid 33k. Yes I know this doesn't apply to the Cap but dang we could pick up a really nice Central defender for that 136k plus what we spent on Paralta 200k or Martinez at 245k. That's $580k that has been very poorly spent from a Club and League perspective.

[MagpieFan]

Rod Dyachenko 776 33,000.00 $43


If I give the team $43 will they keep him off the field for a minute?

[fatbastard]

I hate the American trend of automatically paying foreigners more money. Because obviously, if they are foreign, they're worth more right? :rolleyes:

I believe it has more to do with the market they are buying the player from than it has to do with some mythical "love of foreigners" (though I will admit that seems to exist in MLS upper management). We can pay McTavish a paltry sum because he probably isn't going anywhere overseas straight out of college - and he has local family to help out with his expenses.
But you can't ask Peralta to move his family to the USA for that money because he could make alot more by just staying home.
I should be using a younger player to compare, but I can't think of a young foreign non-development player on the roster.

But you not only have to think of our economics as a league, but also of where we are buying players from.

There, I finished a sentence in a preposition. Suck it, Mathai! ;)

[La Barra Blonde]

I should be using a younger player to compare, but I can't think of a young foreign non-development player on the roster.

Boyzzz and Doe to name a couple. They're both at $33K but I think both were in the country when they were picked up by DCU, or at least Boyzzz was.

[Bootsy Collins]

It kills me that someone like Kirk is paid 136k and Mctavish is paid 33k. Yes I know this doesn't apply to the Cap but dang we could pick up a really nice Central defender for that 136k plus what we spent on Paralta 200k or Martinez at 245k. That's $580k that has been very poorly spent from a Club and League perspective.
I know you know this, but just in case anyone out there doesn't -- the $136k for Quavas Kirk is Generation Adidas money; it doesn't come from DC United, and it doesn't hit our cap. Thus, the only team resources he takes up is a roster slot. That being the case, I don't have any problem with Kirk; money-wise, he doesn't keep us from getting a player.

That said, I don't know when his GA status ends; if it's at the end of this season, I don't have any interest in picking him back up at anything remotely resembling his current salary.

[tallguy]

OK I went ahead and ran the numbers and then sorted the team by $/min played to date. I also calculated $/Goal, $/Assist and $/Shot.


Very Interesting. Look at the bottom 5 players. I think this speaks to the type of Player Model and mix DCU should consider in future time spent in scouting Argentina verses US Colleges and other developmental programs.


PLAYER MIN Total Compensation $/Min
Ben Olsen 15 215,000.00 $14,333
Marcelo Gallardo 1161 1,874,006.00 $1,614
Quavas Kirk 135 136,500.00 $1,011
Franco Niell * 279 168,000.00 $602
Luciano Emilio 2051 758,857.14 $370
Dan Stratford * 81 17,700.00 $219
Louis Crayton 990 175,857.14 $178
Fred 1600 242,000.00 $151
Jaime Moreno 1825 275,000.00 $151
Ivan Guerrero 1059 147,000.00 $139
Gonzalo Peralta 1501 199,000.00 $133
Gonzalo Martinez 2102 244,750.00 $116
Francis Doe 365 40,500.00 $111
Mike Zaher 124 12,900.00 $104
Greg Janicki 126 12,900.00 $102
Ryan Cordeiro 207 17,700.00 $86
Domenic Mediate 437 33,000.00 $76
Thabiso Khumalo 448 33,000.00 $74
Pat Carroll 186 12,900.00 $69
Craig Thompson 241 12,900.00 $54
Bryan Namoff 2321 98,750.00 $43
Rod Dyachenko 776 33,000.00 $43
Zack Wells 1530 52,920.00 $35
Joe Vide 590 19,128.57 $32
Clyde Simms 2607 59,000.00 $23
Marc Burch 1727 33,000.00 $19
Santino Quaranta 1873 35,000.00 $19
Devon McTavish 2169 33,000.00 $15

. . . Does this look like a chapter out of Freakonomics or what???
:D

By contrast, look at the salaries of the 7 or so highest paid players. If I were MacFarlane or Chang, I think I'd be like one of those cartoon characters that's got steam coming out of his ears . . .

[CrimsonChin00]

*Please note that Quavas Kirk is on a Generation Adidas Contract, it runs out after this year. What are we do about him next year? Kid has unlimited potential, put him in a *semi* starting rotation. Super sub maybe? What are we gonna pay him? $60,000-80,000? Or just drop him?

[bigredfutbol]

By contrast, look at the salaries of the 7 or so highest paid players. If I were MacFarlane or Chang, I think I'd be like one of those cartoon characters that's got steam coming out of his ears . . .

Steam? That's a little much. Here's the top ten from that list:

Ben Olsen 15 215,000.00 $14,333
Marcelo Gallardo 1161 1,874,006.00 $1,614
Quavas Kirk 135 136,500.00 $1,011
Franco Niell * 279 168,000.00 $602
Luciano Emilio 2051 758,857.14 $370
Dan Stratford * 81 17,700.00 $219
Louis Crayton 990 175,857.14 $178
Fred 1600 242,000.00 $151
Jaime Moreno 1825 275,000.00 $151
Ivan Guerrero 1059 147,000.00 $139

Ben's been hurt all season and he's already proven himself.

Gallardo may end up being a bust, but he was starting to prove his worth before injuries ended his season.

Kirk, as noted many times, does not cost us a dime.

Niell is gone.

Emilio...well, that's quite a bit of money for a target forward in this league, but some people talk as if he's been a complete bust this season. He's got 11league goals and scored one of the two goals in a Cup final.

Stratford...yeah. That would rankle me if it was my money.

Crayton, well. It's a lot of money for a GK in this league, but the guy was able to step into the spot and immediately provide an upgrade. He's got experience, and he's got some game left in him.

Fred has some pedigree, and he's definitely had an impact in many games. And really, 150,000 for a decent Brazilian midfielder? Not outrageous.

Jaime Moreno is Jaime Moreno.

Ivan Guerrero looked good right away...I haven't seen the payoff quite yet, but considering his experience this isn't a bad price to pay for a guy who at least has the potential to make us stronger on the wing.

[HarkesyRules]

What I found interesting was that at the height of all of the team's injuries, we had over $3M+ sitting on the bench due to injury. What was left on the field probably made less than $1M altogether -- that's just crazy!

For the person who said that McTavish has not had a good season at center back and DC should consider getting a new one, let's remember that McT was not a center back. He was a midfielder and I think he has done pretty well, improving throughout the season in that position. I think his game vs. NE was his best yet (except for one bone-headed play that left me holding my breath, but all was well so we'll forgive him). Perhaps they do need a new center back, but not to replace Devon, but so he can move back to his more natural position.