Using the Washington Post's MLS salary page here... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/mls/longterm/2006/mls.salaries.html I assembled this team made up entirely of players who have 1) managed to show something in MLS and 2) have "full" salaries below $50,000. (Sorry, no Chris Rolfe...) GK Perkins $29,400 D Segares $46,000 D Boswell $29,400 D Regan $36,000 D John $36,750 M Dorman $29,400 M Simms $43,750 M Thiago $42,000 M Grabavoy $45,405 F Walker $29,400 F Sealy $31,500 $399,005 I'm thinking there have been many an MLS lineup over the years that this team would beat...
I bet Rolfe would take a $0.01 pay cut to be able to play on your team. Then Walker could be a super sub just like for DC. Some of those salaries are mind boggling. How does MLS do it? Some sorta voodoo magic, or more likely blackmail.
Rounding out the 18 man roster I'd add: Zach Wells 48,000 Tim Ward 44,125 Clarence Goodson 48,575 Jack Jewsbery 29,400 Hunter Freeman 48,500 Chad Barrett 44,250 Herculez Gomez 47,000 I'd say not half bad in the depth department, although its debatable if a couple of these guys have "shown" something in MLS.
The only salary on that list that's surprising is Scott Sealy's. Perkins, Boswell, Simms, Dorman, and Walker are all recent college graduates who were completely unheralded leaving college; Segares and Regan were almost the same thing. Of the others, Grabavoy's earning what a college star who still isn't a starter should be, Thiago came from the Brazilian 4th division or so, and Avery John's just not very good.
Very interesting lineup. You wonder how they'd do as a team, but I like almost each and every one of those players on their current teams. I would wonder how Walker and Dorman would do with alot more playing time-- but they've been more than adequate as subs. Great post.
Couple thoughts on the responses. Wells, Ward, Goodson, Barrett and Freeman (among others) were all players I considered. Lots of room for argument here. Gomez was actually just an oversight on my part -- I missed him, and would probably have dropped Walker (who I really like to watch play) for him. Avery John had some competition for that spot, but hey -- he's going to Germany. Gotta have a World Cup player in a World Cup year!
You could drop Jewsbury's 29,400 salary in midfield for some competition. He's started every game (though it looks like Jermaine Hue is taking his spot this week) and has left virtually no one sad that Klein isn't on the field.
Also: Defense: Lawson Vaughn (11,800) Jonathan Bornstein (28,000) Matt Groenwald (28,000) Kevin Goldthwaite (29,400) Jeff Parke (46,250) Midfield: Eric Vasquez (16,500) Arturo Alvarez (44,456) Josh Gardner (37,267) James Riley (29,400) Danny O'Rourke (39,125) Forward: Chad Barrett (44,250) Knox Cameron (16,500) Fabrice Noel (28,000) None of these are blow-you-away type players, but they're all solid players under 50,000 USD.
Yep. I tried to lay off the rookies (in part because many developmental salaries are so low as to be comical) though the ones you listed are looking solid so far. I'm real interested in Noel too, but he still looks like one for a year or two down the road. It was hard finding lefties and I thought about Gardner, but in the end just thought Dorman had shown more in the league so far. Vasquez was one I thought about. Obviously has a bomb of a shot. Interesting about Parke since based on the first three weeks of the season one might say him and Regan are moving in very different directions than what you'd have expected, say, two years ago. Is Regan this year's Kerry Zavagnin Memorial "Back from the Dead" Story?
Very interesting. What's scary is that you could probably also put together like a 4M or 5M that still comes in underneath the cap. It's a great system.
Presumably the guys who see regular playing time will get a raise on or before the expiration of their contracts. Josh Gros could have made this team last year, but he apparently got a $42K raise during the off-season. I think part of this MLS experiment every year is to pay the new guys as little as possible, and then eventually reward the ones who perform.
To one-up you Dave, I decided to create a 16 man game-day roster for under the price of your starting 11 that I feel could be competitive in MLS. To do so I decided to take no players whose base salary was more than $30,000. My starting 11 would be a 4-3-3: GK Perkins $29,400 LB Bornstein $28,000 CB Boswell $29,400 CB Yi $29,400 RB Groenwald $28,000 CM Pitchkolan $16,500 CM Vazquez $16,500 CM Jewsbury $29,400 RW Walker $29,400 CF Kamara $30,000 LW Noel $28,000 Total Cost of Starting 11: $294,000 Bench: GK Gaudette $11,700 D Hernandez $28,000 M Dorman $29,400 M Cila $16,500 F Cameron $16,500 Total Cost of Bench: $102,100 Total Cost of 18-Man Roster: $396,100 All of these players have experience in MLS and are proven role players. The question would be how well they could handle the extra responsibility. The Defense would be as solid as half the current defenses in MLS with great attacking outside backs. The Mid would be the weak spot, but all three players here have been known to score a few goals and are adequate defensively. Up front there's speed and athleticism to burn which would worry any defense in MLS. The Bench too would have solid backups for every position. I'd be willing to wager this team would finish above the bottom places. Well there you have it, I'm ready for an MLS GM position
I agree but he's also not been given consistent minutes in his career. He's got loads of potential, but right now, you're right, he's a red card waiting to happen. Still worth the price though.
Perkins, Boswell, Simms, Dorman, and Walker are all recent college graduates who were completely unheralded leaving college; Segares and Regan were almost the same thing. If my memory serves me correctly, that is not true about Segares - he was one of the three finalists for the Mac Hermann trophy his last year in college
I know, I know, I was just trying to be succint. Segares was a bigger deal than the other guys, but he still didn't have much leverage with the league - he was 22, he didn't have any non-MLS suitors, etc., which was why he signed a developmental contract with the league last year. What's most surprising about Segares is that he's currently making so much (maybe Costa Rica came calling?), not that he's making so little.
You put together an A-league team that wouldn't draw well. As a fan I want to see Donovan, EJ, Ruiz, Dempsey, etc. Rolfe is also a fun player to watch. He will get his well deserved pay increase when he negotiates his contact.
If you were a smart MLS GM, you would have picked Marvell Wynne, Ramon Nunez and Brad Guzan in goal, because even though they are making around $300,000 between them, none of it counts against the cap. (Neither does Grabavoy, so subtract him from your total. ) It's an interesting lineup, but would need the right coach to take it to the next level. And I can predict after a while you might want to break the bank for at least one player with the individual brilliance to change a game when the younger players run out of ideas... He's got a point about drawing fans, of course. And while you're at it, one injury and you're screwed. Rolfe has already renegotiated his contract--he was on the DEV roster last year at $16,500, so he's had his salary almost tripled this year. Add in some bonuses he's probably getting that the article has clearly missed, and a potential All-Star appearence this year, and he's got more cash (and a higher cap number) than what the article claims. Next year I'm sure he'll get another good raise, but working your way up from a rookie salary doesn't happen overnight--just ask Dempsey and Noonan.
Saying you can build a team of cheap players is all good and well, but you're ignoring the fact that all those guys had to be drafted. No one team is going to be able to have first dibs on all the cheap young talent. That's the whole point of the draft. It's designed to help each team add some cheap help to pad out their squads and have comeptition for places. You'll notice players like Segares (who was onl $11,700 last year) and Herculez got substantial pay rises within 12 months of hitting the roster. So, even your young team - impossible though it is to assemble - would get expensive quickly, and if it didn't, it's because those players aren't good enough.
Or, indeed, any of the Generation Adidas players (10 or so each year). That could even include Freddy? Or did he 'graduate' this season? Isn't Dempsey still GA too?
Your point sounds entirely reasonable, but it surprisingly turns out to be wrong. Perkins-- he was undrafted Segares-- he was a 3rd round pick in 2005 Boswell-- he was undrafted Regan-- he was a 3rd round pick in 2003 John-- is a senior international (did they use a disco on him?) Dorman-- a sixth round pick in '04 Simms-- from the USL (a discovery?) Grabavoy-- a 2nd round pick in '04 Walker-- a 4th round pick in '03 Sealy-- a 1st round pick in '05. So, the total draft picks used would have been: 2003: 3rd and 4th round 2004: 2nd and 6th round 2005: 1st and 3rd round. At first, I was shocked-- your post makes perfect sense. But there is an obvious reason it worked out like this: most of the first round picks get bigger starting paychecks, which means they were automatically excluded from this list. So, naturally, most of the cheap guys are also later round draft picks. So, I guess the biggest hurdle to assembling this squad is actually knowing in advance which of these late round picks would work out. Guys like Boswell, Walker and Dorman came out of nowhere. This exercise also tells us something else: talent development is pretty scattershot. I'm sure that's true for any league, but you wonder if it's especially true for MLS given how thinly scouted this country is. When guys go undrafted and then come in and make an impact, like Boswell did last year, it suggests that the draft scouting process hasn't worked quite as well as it should.