MLS Player Salaries: Sounders Added Players, Trimmed Payroll

As they usually do twice a year, the MLS Players Union released salary data. As you'll see, there were a few surprises when it came to the Seattle Sounders.

Most notably, you'll notice that they managed to add two players -- Sammy Ochoa and Amadou Sanyang -- while also trimming their payroll. According to these numbers, they actually cut their guaranteed compensation by more than $65,000.

Most of that money was saved through Pat Noonan ($48,000), Nate Jaqua (almost $71,000) and O'Brian White ($47,500). Noonan's saving was not a huge surprise, as it was well known that he had re-signed at a discount. Jaqua's signing was a bit more of a surprise, as he had previously signed a new contract last year. It's hard to know what, exactly, this means, but it could very well mean that he was given an extension as players rarely just give back money they are owed. In White's case, this almost certainly had something to do with his giving back some kind of bonus that would have been achieved through playing time.

There were also a few players that were apparently given raises during the season. The most interesting of those is Servando Carrasco, who was apparently bumped up to a minimum salary player from one making an "apprentice" wage. Hard to argue with that since he is clearly playing far more significant minutes than the team probably thought he would be when he signed.

The only other player to receive a raise was Fredy Montero, who is getting $20,000 more in guaranteed compensation than he was getting at the start of the year. My best guess is that it probably has something to do with a performance bonus.

After the jump, we've attached a table of the current salaries, as well as the reported salaries as of May.