2019 Sounders’ player salaries released

UPDATE (Sept. 27, 2019): Only three new names showed up on the final salary release of the year, most notably Emmanuel Cecchini. The Sounders will apparently be on the hook for about $790,000 of his salary on a loan that keeps him under their control through next season. The other two late-season additions — Luis Silva and Justin Dhillon — will be making the veteran minimum of $70,250. The team will end the year with a total guaranteed compensation of about $14 million, which is about 5 percent more than they ended with last year and the fourth highest in MLS behind Toronto FC ($24.3M), LA Galaxy ($19.6M) and Chicago Fire ($17.1M). LAFC had the fifth highest payroll ($13.8M).

It’s the time of year that many fans (and players) look forward to: The MLS Players salary release. The MLSPA releases these numbers twice per year usually; one in the spring in and once in the fall. It is typically released around May 15, but the MLSPA tells Sounder At Heart they decided to delay the release until after the winter transfer window closed. This allowed them to incorporate last-minute signings that occurred as the window shut.

Further, the MLSPA indicated they wanted to do additional analysis of the player salaries. These change directly affected the Seattle Sounders, as they signed two players at the close of the transfer window: Xavier Arreaga and Joevin Jones. In total, the Sounders are paying about $13 million in total compensation (including Chad Marshall’s salary, as the Sounders remain on the hook for that money). That’s down about 3 percent from the last time salary data was released in October.

No players stand out as egregiously over or under-paid, except that Raul Ruidiaz’s salary is pretty modest relative to his production. Stefan Frei does not appear to be on a TAM salary, though Joevin Jones is. Both were the subject of reports of having previous TAM deals rejected. In Jones’ case, that in part led to him leaving for Germany for 18 months.

Both Danny Leyva and Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez are making more than the minimum in guaranteed, which says more about their potential (and potential demand elsewhere) than anything else probably. Additionally, the Sounders may have had some additional funds available due to a change in the rules when Jordan Morris signed his first homegrown player contract.

Speaking of Morris, the deals for both he and Cristian Roldan are now described in more detail. Both signed extensions earlier this year, though it was unclear at the time how much they were making. Reports had Roldan’s deal as averaging around $800,000 per year, while Morris’ was reported to average over $1,000,000 over the lifetime of the deal if he hit incentives.

At the time, both deals came under scrutiny for the perceived values of the deals, thought the Sounders repeatedly maintained that the contracts were “team friendly” for at least the first two years. Given that both players are on the low end of the TAM scale, that appears to be correct.