Congratulations, you're the new GM of the Seattle Sounders!

For some teams, the MLS offseason has already started. For other teams, stupid jerk-face teams, their offseason hasn't started yet. Well guess what, the Sounders aren't stupid or jerk-faces! In fact, they're so not stupid that they've hired you* to be their General Manager for the offseason!

* This move would actually be considered to be stupid by a lot of pundits. I mean, c'mon, do you even have experience being a GM in the MLS?

Think this will be easy? Ha! MLS can hardly be considered a transparent league, so good luck figuring out the rules. Can't figure out whether to retain Sigi Schmid for another season? What do you do regarding Mauro Rosales? Steve Zakuani? I heard Eddie Johnson would like a raise, and now there are rumors swirling out from the East regarding how he'd look in a red uniform.

Here's what we know (which, admittedly, is very little (because again, MLS opacity)):

• Brad Evans may or may not be at the end of his contract
• Mauro Rosales may have a club option for the 2014 season
• Eddie Johnson may have a club option for $200,000, or $250,000 (one of those, or nothing) for the 2014 season
• Shalrie Joseph is old and is likely on contract next year
• Steve Zakuani may or may not be at the end of his contract
• Mario Martinez is reportedly going to be a Sounder again, according to his current club
• Sounders don't have a top 10 pick in the MLS Superdraft
• MLS Salary Cap for 2013 was at $2.95 Million
• MLS Salary Cap increases 5% each season
• Player wages increase between 5-15%
• Marc Burch has amazing hair
• Clint Dempsey was a mid-season DP
• Seattle does not pay Fredy Montero's salary
• Eriq Zavaleta has a Generation Adidas contract which does not hit the Sounders's cap
• DeAndre Yedlin has a Homegrown Player salary which does not hit the cap

Here's what we don't know:

Think about what formation you'd use, and what current Sounders players fit into that formation, which type of players we'd need to bring onto the squad to round it out. Think about whom your DPs are going to be, whether we have 2 DPs or 3 DPs. Think about if you move up into the top 5 of the Superdraft, which player you intend to target.

The real General Manager of the Sounders, Adrian Hanauer (sorry, you're just pretending), has stated that he wants to build around the three players Dempsey, Alonso, and Evans, so bear this in mind when making your decisions.

2013 Salaries

From the Players Union page

...all player salaries are broken down into two numbers. The first is the player's current base salary. The second is characterized as annual average guaranteed compensation. The annual average guaranteed compensation number includes a player's base salary and all signing and guaranteed bonuses annualized over the term of the player's contract, including option years. For example, if a player has a base salary of $50,000, has a two-year contract with two one-year options and received a $10,000 bonus when he signed, his average annual guaranteed compensation would be $52,500 (base salary plus signing bonus ($10,000), with the signing bonus divided by the number of years covered by the contract (4)). The average annual guaranteed compensation number also includes any annual marketing bonus to be received in the current year and any agent's fees annualized over the term of the contract. The average annual guaranteed compensation figure does not include performance bonuses because there is no guarantee that the player will hit those bonuses.