MLS salaries for established players have gone up. $300k is no longer an outrageous amount. In fact, I looked up equivalently-paid forwards and got the four closest are: Quincy Amarikwa, Anthony Blondell, Dom Oduro, and Diego Rubio. So a lateral move. Rubio is better. And cheaper than Rubio is Manotas. But what these have in common is that they are talent that was identified outside of the league. For proven in-league players, $300k is nothing special. https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide
I am not so sure how much they go up. Just saw they paid Shea Salinas only $200k last year. To be an 11 year veteran , that isn’t all that much. Especially when you consider your playing days can come to an end at anytime. Any player can go from making that salary to $0.00 from one season to the next. The USL might be turning into a somewhat established league but it still isn’t great paying one and Drogba notwithstanding , I doubt it’s a league suitable for players who are over 30 years of age and who have family’s to support. I also doubt they pay players $75-100k in salaries.
Yeah, but Shea was just supposed to be a rotation starter. They paid Qwiberg, Quintana, and Affolter to be playing, also, but then they didn't really earn any time. Shea was an insurance policy that turned out to be needed. I don't think he could get even $200k from another team. And looking at the MLS-bubble USL players, we see they make anywhere from $50k-$120k. The non-MLS-bubble players make from $0-$50k, it seems.
Here is what the Quakes paid their players this year. Considering his production, I can't believe Quincy was making almost $300k... They can re-sign Marco Ureña with the money the are saying by releasing Hyka.
I understand where MLS salaries have gotten to. I am saying that a forward who had six goals in two MLS seasons is not worth that much, at least not anymore. He has a good work rate, and plays well for his national team, but doesn't score a lot of goals in league play. $300K is still 7% of the salary cap and a senior roster spot, plus he might still cost and INT slot. I guess where I am disagreeing is that he is a proven in-league player. I'd take Rubio.
If it were up to me, I’d rather start with a bunch of draft picks where you can pay everyone $75k. The trouble with that is many of those college players are still amateurs and usually need a year or two to transition from from college to pro.
[QUOTE="Seismothusiast, post: 37319313, member: 86355" $300K is still 7% of the salary cap and a senior roster spot, plus he might still cost and INT slot. I guess where I am disagreeing is that he is a proven in-league player. I'd take Rubio.[/QUOTE] Anyone would take Rubio over Urena, but you can't take Rubio. They developed him (not from youth, but he didn't arrive to them at MLS quality). The only way you get a player as good as Rubio for that cheap is to develop them. If you had to buy Rubio you would pay more. So of the players you could actually get for ~$300k, Urena is about right. I am not saying to get him, I think younger talent is the way, but he I am saying he is priced about right. And also that 7% of the salary cap doesn't mean much, since we know that the salary cap is a... permeable barrier.
Anyone would take Rubio over Urena, but you can't take Rubio. They developed him (not from youth, but he didn't arrive to them at MLS quality). The only way you get a player as good as Rubio for that cheap is to develop them. If you had to buy Rubio you would pay more. So of the players you could actually get for ~$300k, Urena is about right. I am not saying to get him, I think younger talent is the way, but he I am saying he is priced about right. And also that 7% of the salary cap doesn't mean much, since we know that the salary cap is a... permeable barrier.[/QUOTE] You brought Rubio up MtnGardener. Of course I would take him since he is the pick of that bunch. Yes, Urena is paid about the right amount for a foreign talent with a lot of caps coming into MLS for the first time. However, I still don't see the point. Is this supposed to make me want him back on the team? I stated I would be happy to have him back, but not at the price he makes now. Two unsuccessful stints on different teams in MLS surely makes him have a lesser market value. At 28 he is worth taking a risk on at a reduced salary. At his initial price, with two unproductive years I cannot see a reason to bring him back.
Unsuccessful is relative. In those two years he's played just a little more than Eriksson did in one, and their production goal production is the same, but with Urena getting 8 assists as a forward compared to Eriksson's pathetic 3 as a wide midfielder (or more accurately, center midfield crowder). I'm not arguing Urena is worth bringing back, but he didn't play very much in LA, so it's hard to say how he'd do. You can take the fact that he didn't play all that much as an indication of his quality, but he also performed better in 2017 with a bad Quakes team compared to the better LA team of 2018. It's hard to gauge his true talent with so few minutes in his career, and it's very unlikely his salary comes down despite that.
Your and MtnGardener's points are well taken. However, I would describe Eriksson's first season as unsuccessful as well considering he led the league he came from in scoring in the previous season. Eriksson fits MtnGardener's model exactly. We'll see if he gets his legs under him in a second season. Urena is only 28 so he might get picked up and light the place on fire too. I wish both well but would rather that Almeyda have those resources available to him to bring in talent.
To be clear, I am not advocating for Urena. He isn't going to fix our problems. My point was that Urena isn't overprice, he is exactly what you get for that price. My conclusion is that we can't fix our problem for that price. We need our talent acquisition so that we get Rubio's quality at Rubio's price (or more Lima for Lima's price), and we need to find the right place to drop $1mil each on two impact-making players. I'd rather have a roster of $400k players, but the MLS structure doesn't easily allow that, it prefers a bunch of cheap players and a couple very pricey ones.
Well, you can argue with that. There are foreign talents brought in at that price that could be great values, but it is about scouting and how they will fit into a system. We have so many 300-450k foreign players that it makes me think our organization thinks it can buy its way into a system through importing experience rather than building a system and buying smart pieces. The heart of my previous point was really that once a player is released their value goes down, whether through not extending a contract or the waiver draft. I like Urena. There is a price he is worth bringing back at. <$300K in 2019. $300K was a fair price in 2017.
I would rather have had Ureña than the No. 46 overall MLS draft pick, but that's what we got for trading our #1 Waiver Draft spot to NYRB. Ureña got picked up by Chicago. Who knows if they will keep him or trade him, still a few months to go.
Draft picks in MLS are a crap shoot. I wouldn’t put too much importance in them. Just looking at the Hermann award winners, very few became stars. Marcus Tracy anyone?
Correct. Tracy came to San Jose via lottery as he was coming from having played in Denmark and no team held his rights.