(disclaimer: I went to art school. I fully welcome anyone to correct my potentially horrible math) In today's Rocky, Councebert reiterates that the main reason that Hart is no longer with the team is because of salary cap concerns. If you argue that Hart was holding out for $60K, that's likely only a $25-30K increase over 2003. So why does a $30K increase cause cap concerns? If you add up the currently-rostered base salaries as published by the players' union: Spencer, John $311,272.50 Powell, Darryl $229,999.92 Mastroeni, Pablo $200,000 Chung, Mark $160,000 $160,000 Henderson, Chris $147,000 Roberts, Zizi $120,000 Cannon, Joe $125,000 Kotschau, Richard $60,000 Carrieri, Chris $55,125 Vallow, Scott $37,800 Beckerman, Kyle $30,561 Stewart, Jeff $26,460 Kingsley, Zack $26,460 Crawford, Matt $25,200 Assume that Gregorio plus one other (either draftee or free agent) is signed for $25 each. As P-40 or Dev players, the salaries of Trembly ($29K), Borchers ($24K) and Foss ($15K) do not count against the cap. Similarly, the Rapids will likely sign at least one or two players to developmental contracts. TOTAL: $1.6M (approx) HOWEVER... that total is based on salaries higher than those that are counted against the cap, which stipulates a max player salary of roughly $270K. I think it would be a safe estimate to say the Rapids are hovering at roughly $1.4M that goes against the $1.7M cap. So with anywhere $200-$300K to spend, what are the Rapids looking at? Could there be a new big-salary discovery coming into the team, or perhaps a pair of league veterans each in the $100 range? In any event, it sure looks like the Rapids are trying to keep cap room open for these possibilities.
All which in my mind points directly to moving Fraser and cutting Hart. The Hart move does blow though if they aren't bringing in some players with their discovery picks.
Cutting Fraser makes sense in that math, especially if he would only have re-signed at $100K or more. But Hart at $40 or even $50K doesn't seem to open up that much room, especially considering the kind of room currently occupied by last year's mostly invisible foreigners, Zizi and PowPow. To me, the performances of those two in 2004 will be even more crucial to determining how successul the Rapids turn out to be in managing their salary restrictions.
I"m not arguing letting Hart go was good or bad. But sometimes that is what MLS GMs and coaches say instead of the truth. It's a lot easier to blame the cap then to say "he's an okay player but we think we can do better with one of our discovery slots" or "we've got other holes on the team and we need to free up resources (ie: cap space and roster slots) to focus on those holes."