It's beginning to look like the decision on whether to pick-up the option on Sharp's contract was not made by Vanney. On COG, Kevin Baxter speculated that the decision was made by Beckerman as a cost savings measure. He also stated that he was denied an interview request because "they" didn't want him to ask Vanney about Sharp's comments about being ghosted. Today we learned that Kuntz was responsible for salary cap management before he was promoted and now as GM is certainly in a position to override Vanney. We also know that Kuntz prefers younger players.
Was the timing of this conversation ever disclosed? Do we know who actually told Sharp's agent that his option wasn't being picked up? Do we know if Vanney was told to just let the issue go? As, Baxter stated last night on COG, Bruce had verbal agreements with Ashley Cole that were reneged on after Bruce left. He also stated that Beckerman worked to get rid of Nigel deJong before he met the performance metrics in his contract that would make him a DP.
You know Bruin, if I am ever in front of a judge I am retaining your services. In two short sentences you almost had me there. Almost...
I hear echoes of Curt Onalfo and Pete Vagnes in this corporate speak excerpt of the interview. And behind it, the bean counter himself, Dan Beckerman. I sure hope I am wrong.
72 Bruin, here, though I suspect there are about 40 miles, 3 years, and a level of academic separation between us.
In my defense, I was hanging out on Figueroa Corridor loooong before LMAOFC was even a twinkle in Daddy Chivas' eye.
I’d say that’s more an argument to let Dejan go. He’s not starting or getting significant minutes, and when he does he’s not exactly scoring in buckets so if his roster designation is valuable he hasn’t justified that over the past couple of seasons. MLS weird roster rules shouldn’t be ignored - but ultimately if there’s a player scoring at twice the rate of another player I want him on the pitch. And yeah it would grind my gears to bench a DP for underperforming. I know this because I watched Costa stink up the bench a couple of seasons (with periodic displays of quality)
Doesn't look like MLS is permitting a 4th DP next year, but perhaps some other changes that provide more roster flexibility Major points of the 2023 MLS State of the League with Don Garber: - No Fourth Designated Player, but changes to be announced next week-No plans to go beyond 30 teams, at the moment - 2024 MLS season schedule to be announced December 20th pic.twitter.com/faeygK9pry— Lizzy Becherano (@lizzy_becherano) December 8, 2023
Wonder if it’d make sense to not count North American players towards the cap. It’d be an incentive for teams to look for homegrown talent. Whether it would be a benefit to the league in terms of growth would be up in the air though.
That's a good idea. I think more incentives for homegrown and younger players make a lot of sense, for instance, if they de-coupled the 3 U-22 slots from requiring an open or Young DP and instead just gave all the teams 3 DP slots and 3 U-22 slots, and then lower the cap hit on homegrown players, that would do a lot to help bolster teams and make them a. little bit deeper and younger.
This sounds like a good step too. Guess the big question, at least for homegrown players, is whether they can live up to their end of the bargain and make themselves competitive from a talent perspective. For the u23 players, it could help with the leagues feeder league status too and can help the league make some money while they’re at it.
Galaxy is not good at developing, polishing and keeping homegrown players. That has to change first. Nobody told Miami there is no 4rth DP rule. They don't care. They'll pay the fine. Galaxy has to work within the rules. Most of these other MLS playoff teams do it no problem. I really don't care 4th or 5th DPs are coming or not. We need to work with what we have. Ridiculous this past decade. R I D I C U L O U S !
You'd have to quantify "North American" in your idea, but it's an interesting one. Technically North America includes everything north of Columbia. Or do you include only Canada, USA, and Mexico? Would that include elimination of international spots for those players?
I’d just simply by saying domestic players. So U.S. passport and green card holders for the American teams and the Canadian equivalent for teams based there. And yes, I think that would be a good move.
I would like to see something slightly different: Exclude transfer fees from a player's Salary Budget Charge. Acquistion fees should have never been part of the salary cap calculation. Exclude DP's salaries , performance bonuses and other charges from each club's annual salary budget. This will increase team costs by the max salary charge (approximately 12.5% of the salary budget) for each DP, but increase the pool of funds for regular players by up to 37.5% Exclude U-22 initiative and homegrown players from the annual salary budget (up tAo a total of 6 players leaving the mix of players to the individual club). To make MLS more attractive to these players allow teams to play these players up to the Max TAM amount. Create a new league funded salary pool for these players, with funding starting at $3mm per club, to encourage small market teams to bring in or retain these players. Remove the age 26+ restriction for U-22 Initiative players so they no longer age out. They would still be subject to the Max TAM salary restriction. Increase the roster size to 32 players and the senior roster size to 24 players. Allow teams to loan out up to 8 additional players to clubs both inside and outside of MLS. These players would all be off-cap. This would be a great way to season MLS Next and academy players who are not quite ready for the senior club.
Sorry. Mike Gray changed his tweet (about Miki Yamane as a possible Calegari replacement at RB) after I posted.
RUMOR: Reports out of Japan claim the #LAGalaxy are interested in right back Miki Yamane from Kawasaki Frontale of the J League. 29 years old, 19 caps with the Japanese National Team. pic.twitter.com/C4E5h2toMC— Mike Gray (@MikeGrayAFC) December 10, 2023 we do need a right back. seems entire career in Japan according to the fotmob app.
30 years old RB, maybe we expect him to make the bridge until Cuevas can start. According to Transfermarkt, he's a free agent in a few weeks. He was named to the J League best XI in 2020, 2021 and 2022. 12 goals and 30 assists in 171 games for Kawasaki Frontale, that's pretty impressive (a goal or an assist every 4 games !). We don't have a ton of examples of players coming from J League to MLS, but it seems we have our eyes on one of their best players.