First, I will acknowledge that a simple, clean solution to roster builds would probably be ideal. But I'm also going to say that's not likely to happen, so this is an idea that can fit within the byzantine set of rules as they have long existed. At this moment, MLS does pretty well with uncapped DP contracts at the high end and with Initiative contracts that have a very low cap hit, and those are usually (not always) on the lower end. What I have in mind is something that's designed for the MLS middle class. The basics are this. Predictable salary range limits, between 1 and 3 million dollars per year. If this was uncapped, it would just be another DP slot by a different name so I have a cap on this thing. In my proposal, the cap hit is 300k. The roster slot is not transferrable, much like with DP contracts. You have it available to you and you probably use it. And there's one more stipulation- this is a retention contract, so in order to be eligible, you must be under some other contract with MLS to begin with. No going after foreign players with this one. You have to perform here, in MLS, and then someone can decide that you deserve this contract. The primary target of this contract is young or young-ish players that are probably under an Initiative contract, but it could be any player that's on a sub-million dollar contract. This slot allows a club to identify a player that's outplaying their current contract and retain them. It would be especially useful for players that are about to age out of their U-22 contract. These days, a club might feel like they need to move the player because they can't figure out how to pay him what he's worth. Other leagues can take advantage of that. If this type of roster slot did exist, clubs would not feel as pressured to sell players. As long as their value is somewhere between 1 and 3 million per year, a club can simply retain the player. Field a better team. And maybe they hold out for a really good offer, if that player does get sold later. Meanwhile, this would lead to a rather lively intra-MLS market. TAM and GAM, along with players, would move about as aggressively as the rules allow in order to get every deserving player locked into this type of contract, as much as possible. The base salary cap is around 7 million, and maybe that will change with the next CBA- but it won't change by much, if we're being honest. Most clubs spend between 10 and 20 million if you include their above-the-cap stuff. With this proposal, the floor on that spend is very likely to increase by 2 to 3 million across the board and I do believe it would have a net impact on how much money MLS clubs can get when they move their players elsewhere. What I'm really hopeful for is this. If this type of mechanism helps build the middle class in MLS, I really really hope that a second (and maybe third?) identical slot can come into existence further into the future. MLS has this chronic problem of top-heavy rosters that are almost never truly complete. But I think this is the type of roster mechanism that can take it a big step closer to achieving that. Any thoughts? Good idea, bad idea, does it need some work? In my ideal world, the timing would coincide with the calendar shift. If these two things happen at the same time, I think it would have a huge impact on the position of MLS in the global market.