2013-2014 Off-season rumors, news, opinions and hijinks

My biggest takeaway from Kasper's crap is that we were paying Jakovic a guaranteed salary of $300k. That is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder we don't have any cap space. There's also the circular argument that we couldn't afford the DP salary from the allocation player because of acquiring offseason players, including Parke, who was acquired when we gave the # 1 allocation spot.

 

Meh...at least it gives reasoning for trading for the trade....whether or not you agree with it is on you.

 

I had a teacher from Buffalo. At the start of class, I fell to the ground and grabbed my knee. I spent the rest of the day in the office.

 

Looking up Kasper's info on the DC page, he's been the GM since 2007. Discounting the two open cup trophies, because I don't put a whole lot of worth in the competition, we haven't won a thing. Further, given the quote from his page below, the lack of trophies and sorry state of our salary cap is all on him. This is just more evidence that our ownership doesn't give a damn.

"As the team’s GM, Kasper works closely with the coaching staff in identifying and signing talent, developing a draft strategy, creating closer ties to foreign clubs and managing all player personnel matters including trades and negotiating player contracts."

 

That belongs in this thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/official-2014-dc-gallows-humor-thread.1996173/

 

i think i'm at a point right now that i reached with the redskins nearly a decade ago...

if i remain emotionally attached to this team (under this management) i will definitely go insane


so for my own health i'm cutting the cord. watching a game involving DC is still possible but i just cant invest what i used to in Uniteds' fortune

 

Reading Kasper's quotes, it seems DC does have cap space left, but not enough for $300k+ players. What I don't get is what the hell we're doing with our allocation money. Or why Philly isn't picking up part of Parke's salary.

 

That's nothing. DC United has become the Bullets (that's Wizards to you young 'uns.) With the Bullets you knew that every decision was going to go wrong and any success had a half-life of about 2 years.

35 years and counting.

 

I just saw White's outgoing tweets, and I have to say, "He's staying classy!"

 

Looking at the breakdown of the players salaries, after the clean house that was done and prior to the new additions, we were at 1.65m. The seven players that we added cost at least 1.35m bringing the team to about 3m, which is probably about what the cap is for 2014. Now taking into account only the first 20 players count against the cap, then DC is about 200k below the cap. Though I have no idea how much the players earned in raises for being part of a record breaking team.

 

i grew up more into collegiate basketball but adopted the local team after moving into the area

dropped them once they changed the name...easily one of the dumbest rebrands in sports history

 

Is this trade a group / MLS decision or a Kasper / DC United decision? Is the deal basically that since our ownership group does not want to spend money, they were asked to clear the way for the teams (Union / Sounders) who want to the spend money to sign Edu and Pappa? And Parke is basically some small consideration for clearing the way - and who knows maybe even that is because Parke needs / wants to leave Philly.

At any rate seems like the ownership group has basically thrown in the towel on the season. Hope they can muster some sort of decent performance for opening day. Then on to baseball season.

 

doubtful on that

but if so this is STILL a massive fail (Chicago's disfunctional FO managed to steal Magee while "clearing the way" for a league sanctioned move)

 

Allright, reality check on suicide notes and throwing in towels... I'm disappointed in this trade, and more disappointed we couldn't get contracts done with less of a salary cap hit in the end. But if you look at last year's roster and this year's roster.... son of a beyotch. It's night and day. Even this trade made us better for 2014. If we really were down to under $300K of cap space left - it was at worst a sideways move in that context. There's some question as to if a guy we could get coming through allocation would be someone we'd pick up anyway, the first run through. MLS is overvaluing these contracts, given what we've heard of Pappa and Edu's. As for our acquisitions being slow... I'd rather have good slow players than bad fast players. They're not Jaime in his last year slow. We've got work to do, but we've got a formidable team now... so you can release the trigger, gently return the hammer to it's upright position, and remove the gun from your mouth.

 

Garth Lagerwey, come home to save us.

 

I don't think that was his mouth he was talking about of. Hell, we all know he is full of shit, so YOU figure it out.

 

What did he write?

 

Alejandro gave off the sarcastic vibe to me....but it's not it's just your typical "thanks for the memories" stuff

 

I'd like to thank all the coaches, staff, teammates and especially the fans at @dcunited for everything over the past 3 seasons. This

— Ethan White (@EthanWhite15) January 14, 2014

Organization had helped me grow as both a player and a man. I will miss you all and thank you for the support you guys have shown me through

— Ethan White (@EthanWhite15) January 14, 2014

You guys have shown me through it all. It is time for me to move on and I'm glad @PhilaUnion has shown interest and given me the opportunity

— Ethan White (@EthanWhite15) January 14, 2014

Great place to land. Let's make some great memories! #DOOP

— Ethan White (@EthanWhite15) January 14, 2014

Thank you to all the fans that showed support throughout my dcunited tenure. I'll miss you guys. This… http://t.co/0IjpMeYotr

— Ethan White (@EthanWhite15) January 14, 2014

 

not quite and i'm nowhere near suicidal

all i'm saying is: why throw in that pick?

having parke might not be terrible...i like him actually. but why give away the allocation pick too?

this team looks better on paper but we still have a weak midfield and several question marks in key places all over the field which could have and should been taken care of within our budget

 

Again, this argument isn't one. I mean, hopefully your standards aren't just "do better than we did in 2013", right?

It doesn't matter. Even if we have no interest whatsoever in the players coming through, other teams do, and so the allocation slot has real value -- hence the number of teams that have been offering trades to us for the slot over the last couple of weeks. We all but gave it away.

Did you think we had a formidable team in 2009 or 2011? We have improved -- it'd be hard not to have -- but since we can't hold possession or make dangerous passes out of the midfield, this is still not a team that can prevent being pinned back in its defensive third for most or all of a match. Out midfield is going to be last year's midfield. That's the opposite of formidable.

 

This looks to be a team instead of being out of the playoff race at the beginning of July, they may hold off until early September.

 

Exactly.

 

It's funny, until very recently I was thinking DC had won the off-season. Now I think you're being overly optimistic.

 

IMO this move basically comes down to a GM and Coach that are in the last year of their respective contracts, and are trying to make moves that give the club a shot at making the playoffs this year, (theoretically helping them to get extensions.)

In a straight swap, Jeff Parke probably gives us a better chance at winning in 2014 than Ethan White. Beyond 2014 is tough to say, but I'm guessing White will have at least decent value in MLS from '15 onward, while it's unknown how long Parke will be able to play at a decent-MLS-starter level.

The other (and possibly larger) element of the trade is the Allocation swap. I get that we probably couldn't afford Maurice Edu, but I would have LOVED to give Marco Pappa a chance. Either the DK/BO braintrust does not rate Pappa (why not?!), or we don't even have the "salary cap space" to go from Parke @~200k to Pappa @300k. (I'm not sure which answer would be more frustrating.)

The only possible silver lining in this move is that the 6th allocation spot might be at the top of the pecking order by the time the summer transfer window opens. It's likely that there will be a greater selection of players in the summer window, and we could have a greater need open at that time. Regardless, I'll take Ethan White + Pappa over Parke + Player TBD any day. Dumb move by a pair of individuals that are running out of time to save their jobs.