Initial MLSPA Salary Review

I really don’t enjoy how much money Vagenas is making. I vote taking some of his cash and paying someone like Nyassi more.

Is Taylor Graham going to be placed on the DL? I heard he has a broken bone in his foot?

The money Vagenas is making hasn’t yet kept Sounders from signing someone so it isn’t an issue. There will always be underpaid and overpaid members of every team, but it is the averages that matter, and the team’s flexibility in signing more talent.

As for Graham, there is a possibility that he goes to the DL. My thought is that he won’t be because I think he could come back sooner. Although maybe he gets DLed so the team is more flexible in their roster. Same could happen for Vagenas.

Oh, and Freddie Ljungberg will be in town today.

Oh, and I’m still running the numbers for the rest of the league, but by my eyeballs it looks like Sounders FC has a more “rounded team.” More players in the middle salaries for their positions.

Hey, that look very interesting!

I’ve been a Galaxy fan for awhile, and I am just amazed at how balanced the salaries on this squad look when you compare them to the LA of the past couple of years.

Well done, Seattle and Sigi!

I think that Vagenas is getting overpaid now, which next season will make it difficult to pay him less if he stays with the club. That said, maybe he’ll be worth (all in due time..).

I’m not worried about not signing someone. I’m worried about retaining our power players next year. If my expectations hold firm for Montero, Le Toux, Nyassi, they’re going to deserve/want more money.

Also missing is a third goal keeper. Having only two GK’s makes me nervous. This is a topic that’s been discussed on the ECS forums about MLS having up to 4 GKs. I think 3 is a good number, because if Keller gets injured, and Eylander gets sent off… Well maybe Ljungberg can throw on some oven mitts. How exactly does the GK pool work?

About next year – 1st it often happens that player’s in the tail end of their careers make less than they did the year before, to put that in a Seattle perspective think about Griffey’s salary this year to next.
2nd – the players that earn raises will be able to get them, a player can be cut if it must happen, but there will also be fiddling with allocation, as well as a near certain raise in the salary cap since the Collective Bargaining Agreement is up after this current season.

About Keepers, since no team is going to have 3 keepers active for a single game, the demand to carry 3 on the roster is really low. It would take an injury/red to the starter and an injury/red to the backup within 90 minutes for a third keeper to be necessary. With only 16 players active for a given match would you really want the club to have 3 of those 16 be keepers?

The pool is there specifically so a club does not have to carry an emergency keeper. Now without a Reserve League clubs don’t have needs for 3 or 4, but a few and maybe even most will carry a 3rd on their developmental roster in building for the future, but it makes absolutely no sense for any club to have 3 keepers on their Senior Roster.

Good points, good points. I’m not a new sports fan, but I’m definitely new to being so keen on the details. Following a club so intently brings up questions about how we can best retain a player like Montero. I guess, that’s a problem the MLS faces in general anyways, so maybe I should just suck it up lol.

I wasn’t exactly suggesting 3 GKs active on each game day, but what if Eylander breaks something during training before a game, and Keller is the only GK we have, period. I don’t really expect to lose both our keepers at once, so I guess we’ve got that pool to give us some insurance if it happens.

Dave,

I calculated a some of the numbers on the salaries list and thought you might know the answers to some questions I had. First, what does the garanteed compensation mean? Is that the bonus from the allocation money, or bonus for games played, goals scored, etc. Do we calculate the total salary based on the total comp. or the first salary number. Also, I calculated roughly the Sounders payroll at $1,964,000 ( 19 players. Not including Zakuani and Peter V. Add another $150,000 if they keep him. It came to $2,035,500 for the total comp. amount. I am just trying to figure out how much we have to spend on the remaining 3 or 4 players. The last question is. I tallied up Toronto. I did not waste my night totalling every team, but Toronto was at $2,750,370 and $3,479,348 with comp. This is with 20 players and I believe one Genneration Addidas. As you can see my numbers don’t make much sense, unless I really calculated wrong.

TL, since MLS does not formerly release their salary cap, I always use the highest number when talking about cap space, because I feel it is more likey to be true that a team has less space than the fans think they do.

And you are right I didn’t drop Zakuani’s GA contract from my amount, so Sounders FC has about 200k below the likely 2.4Million cap. But that is only for the SENIOR roster and not the Developmental Players and is if we consider that SSFC used no allocation dollars on any of those contracts. The guarunteed dollars are based on roster and performance bonuses that are considered obtainable.

The reason that TFC is so high is because they had so much allocation dollars to spend and they did, that’s why they now have 4 of the highest paid players in the league, but not a single DP.

So the reason that the numbers don’t make sense is because MLS tries hard to do it so it doesn’t make sense.

So, if I get it correctly. The amount the Sounders have spent, also would include allocation money. If allocation money doesn’t count against the cap, then they may have quite a bit of room left.

Yes.

They have between 50k and maybe 500k left. For 1 or 2 senior players. This could mean that they add someone during the secondary window July 15- Aug 15

One last thing. Can they still add someone now? Or can they still trade now for a higher priced player or even another DP slot to use in the summer. Sounds like they may have enough cap room for an additional DP. After the collective bargaining negotiations, they will have no problem with the salary. If they can trade a couple players, draft pick etc. for a DP slot, then I would be for it. But, as my original question stated. Can they still make any moves? Thanks for your answers.

Yes, they can still make moves. The transfer window for MLS closes on April 15. That would be it for adding someone who is outside the US/Canada. They can add talent from within the MLS nations at any time though.