With the salary cap so tight in MLS, you really have to make every penny count. I was looking at the MLS Player Salaries (as provided by the players union - http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/3_15_09_salary_info_club.pdf) and it really got me thinking about which players are really a bargain for us right now, and which aren't. For me, Ivan Guerrero is eating $154K of cap room and hasn't played any significant minutes at all. Ciaran O'Brien is another one... $103,750 in guarenteed salary seems a bit high for the production. I would really love to see that $250K tied in to another impact player like Casey. On the other side... Cummings only makes $73K. I have been critical of the guy, but that is a good value for a starting forward IMO. And LaBrocca is a downright steal at $72.5K All in all, MLS players make peanuts compared to some other pro athlete's. They should all make more money and hopefully they will in the coming years. But what a dream it would be to play soccer for a living. A lot of MLS player salaries put them well above what a 20 or 30 year old college grad could make out there in the business world. Before the economic crisis hit and payroll covered developmental teams as well, some of those guys only made $13-20K per year, but they were playing pro soccer. The first thing to come back has to be the bigger rosters, then bump the pay scale of every MLS player by 10%. I would love to see that. And my disclosure statement - I am not saying that I could do any better job of identifying and paying these players than Rapids staff has. I think they have done very well the last few years.
The only reason we have Guerrero was to get rid of Gomez who was a bigger cap hit. The portion of Gomez's salary that we're carrying may make this make sense or it doesn't. If Guerrero does leave as it has been said that he has, and Baudet comes in, then the trade worked in the long run. We Gomez off the dole the only way possible enabling the team to get a body it looks like it needs. Ciaran O'Brien as a Generation Adidas player doesn't count against the cap, but does take a roster spot. In any case, there are rumblings that the GA players (in general - not saying anything about COB) aren't the best fit for the locker room, because they get big bucks while others have to prove themselves. Of the GA players we've had recently only Jacob Peterson is routinely mentioned for his effort. Regarding the salaries. The players are paid less relative to other sports, but that's a lousy measure as other sports make more. A better measure would be to compare the salary as a percentage of revenue that they make, as opposed to the salary as a percentage of revenue other sport's athletes makes. From that perspective their lives ain't so shabby, as MLS revenues aren't huge. From the perspective of a college graduate who puts in a full weeks work year round to make it through the ladder of promotions in a financial institution, they've got a pretty good deal. In either case you start out small, and if you're good you'll do fine.