Official: 2016 Rumor and Roster Moves Thread

Discussion in 'LA Galaxy' started by ragbone, Oct 29, 2015.

  1. wcmanes

    wcmanes Member

    May 28, 1999
    Riverside, Ca, USA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If that was a legitimate way to circumvent the salary cap I think a lot of teams would be doing it
     
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  2. Skevin

    Skevin Member+

    Aug 9, 2009
    Colorado
    Club:
    Aston Villa FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Czechia
    Yes, but how many players are honestly trying to become a coach within the next couple years all while still playing at a level that deserves DP? I just don't this situation has ever occurred, or at least I can't think of one.
     
  3. wcmanes

    wcmanes Member

    May 28, 1999
    Riverside, Ca, USA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Honest or not, it this was possible at all teams would absolutely be using it for players like Kaka, Pirlo, Dempsey, Gerrard, ...
     
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  4. GalaxyKoa

    GalaxyKoa Member+

    Jul 18, 2007
    North County
    Club:
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #3504 GalaxyKoa, Nov 10, 2016
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2016
    That's not quite how it works or, at least, how it has worked in the past. I'll quote a former post of mine:

    I think I was wrong about one thing in this post, and I think the budget was actually $125k at the time, not $150k.

    Zardes was off budget in 2014 (and therefore protected in the expansion draft) when he was making $198k and the minimum salary was $48.5k, meaning he was making $149.5k above that minimum at that time and was still off budget.

    Of course, the new wording this means that potentially things have changed but if you break down the new wording, the important part of the wording is "in aggregate" which means you're combining the overages of all your HGs in off budget spots.

    Also, we know the past budget was $125k before this new wording, and it shows $125k in the new wording, but the league also added an additional $125k to homegrown funds for the next two years in the same press release where they announced the $800k of TAM for 2016 and 2017. So it seems to me that actually the total homegrown budget is $250k.

    The only thing that kind of throws a spanner in that line of thinking is that Lagerwey said that Jordan Morris was offered as much money as they could, and he's only making $190.5k (which is more than a $125k above the $62.5k senior minimum, by the way). If the budget is actually $250k, it seems they could have offered Jordan Morris more. Of course, it's possible that he's actually getting a lot more than that in other things which aren't reflected in the Union player lists (as is common) so we don't quite know.

    It will also be interesting to watch FC Dallas' protected list as they've got some high earning HG players. Kellyn Acosta ($220k/$240k), Moises Hernandez ($100k/$105k), Jesse Gonzalez ($67.5k/$76.875k), Coy Craft ($70k/$87.083k), Victor Ulloa ($130k/$132.5k) and a couple others are senior or reserve minimum. Who is automatically protected among that bunch should tell us quite a bit. Though they have all four of their reserve roster slots by players making reserve money (two of which are HG), Moises Hernandez has been away on loan, and it seems like potentially they would have to leave at least one of their HGs in an off-budget slot in any case.

    Another interesting case is New England, who only have three HGs (one of whom is on senior min) but Caldwell and Fagundez are on $110k and $165k, respectively. In aggregate, these two make $150k; which is over the $125k budget laid out in the 2016 MLS Roster Rules and Regulations (though, again, I think it's actually $250k).

    But also remember that we used TAM on Zardes. That in itself may mean he's on the senior roster because you may not be able to mix HG and TAM funds, but if you can, we could have bought Zardes' contract down to the minimum required to be able to get him back under the HG cap.

    And if Zardes isn't currently in an off-budget spot, we've not spend any of the free HG money that MLS provides and I think that's a huge waste. I could see it happening if there isn't anyone out there to sign but ultimately it's still a waste. Granted, there are a ton of teams who aren't using it in any case, so there may be incentives to not use it if it unless it's truly warranted.

    I'd also like to point out our cap situation, which may or may not lend credence to the idea that Zardes is in a off budget spot. We've got 28 players under contract. We've got 19 players who are guaranteed to be on the senior roster based on their salaries and them not being HG. Then we have the following:

    Zardes: $472,500/$472,500

    Steres: $62,500/$65,086
    Romney: $63,000/$63,000
    Diop: $62,500/$62,500

    BJIV: $63,000/$63,000
    Sorto: $63,000/$63,000
    Mendiola: $62,500/$62,500
    McBean: $62,500/$62,500

    Lassiter: $51,500/$51,500

    We know for a fact that Lassiter is in one of the reserve roster spots and that Diop, Romney and Steres cannot be in a reserve roster spot. We also know that early in the season we did not have McBean on the roster and therefore the only other players who could have been in those slots are BJIV, Sorto and Mendiola (which, by the way, would cost$11k each to the homegrown budget for every player we kept in the reserve slot). We could have left one of the reserve slots open, but given that it doesn't offer any salary cap savings and it's also a slot that isn't guaranteed money, it seems odd to me that we wouldn't have had all those filled.

    It would have seemed likely to me that we would have kept that 20th senior roster slot open as we aren't required to fill it and leaving it open gives us an extra $62.5k to throw at the cap. We do know, however, that there was a time when all 28 roster spots were full, which means we had a full reserve roster, which I'm assuming would be Lassiter, Mendiola, Sorto and BJIV. That leaves Zardes, Steres, Romney, Diop and McBean for the 4 supplemental spots and the single senior roster spot. Conventional wisdom, I suppose, would indicate that that slot would be Zardes' but any of those other players (though I doubt we put McBean in there) would also be eligible to be in that slot as well. In fact, if any of them it would be Steres, who actually is making slightly more than Senior Min ($65,086, for some odd reason).

    Kind of round about and a lot of connecting dots and unconfirmed hypotheses but it's certainly not out of realm of possibility that Zardes is still off-budget. I wouldn't be surprised if he's on budget either, mostly because I'm not sure you can use TAM and HG funds together.

    Also, if you look at our cap situation, we've got 6 players at or basically at max cap hit: Gerrard, Gio, Keane, Donovan/De Jong, Zardes, Van Damme. Those six players take up 75% of the budget straight away. If Zardes were on-budget completely, our cap hits would sum to $5,185,925 (which takes into account the 4% in retirement funds each player gets). That's about $1.5m over the cap. That's just doable with the $800k in TAM we get in 2016 along with the $650k in GAM we got from selling Juninho and the standard $150k of GAM teams get every year. So I guess it could go either way from the perspective but it seems like we'd nearly completely max out.

    That's a lot of rambling to ultimately just say I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Either way wouldn't surprise me.
     
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