Tepid Stove League: 2015-16 MLS Offseason

Last year's offseason had activity on just about every front, with new TV deals, two expansion teams coming in, and CBA negotiations. This winter promises to be more straightforward. Well, in MLS terms anyway. There's still a mess of weird player movement mechanisms, the tortured product of the league's desire to suppress free agency.

Offseason Dates

December 7 - List of players eligible for the Re-Entry Draft is made public, as is the first group of free agents in league history:


It's a larger group than I expected. There aren't any "stars" on the list, in part because teams have already signed most of the better potential FAs to new deals earlier in the season. Mostly, though, it's because the structure of free agency under the CBA means that most FAs will be in their late 20s or early 30s. There are a lot of past-their-peak players on this list.

I wouldn't mind seeing the Revs take a run at Corey Ashe for FB depth.

December 9 - Waiver Draft, which is for players who don't have enough league service to qualify for free agency or the Re-Entry Draft. A minor event during which few players change hands.

December 11 - Re-Entry Draft phase one. If a team chooses a player, they must pick up the option that the player's original team declined or (if the player is out of contract) make them an offer that constitutes a raise of a certain percentage. Few players are chosen because most players are on the Re-Entry list because they are bad values based on their existing contract.

December 17 - Re-Entry Draft phase two. Here, players chosen can be offered contracts that are lower than their previous salary

January 7-12 - MLS Combine. Mostly useless. Even though there are always some useful MLS players to be found in the draft, the combine isn't a format that is particularly informative.

January 14 - Draft

January 22 - preseason begins

Feb 23-24 - CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals first leg

March 1-2 - CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals second leg

March 7-ish - season begins


Transfers

Nothing was officially announced prior to MLS Cup, but there was a flurry of activity yesterday as previous agreed upon deals were able to be announced.

- DC United acquired winger Lamar Neagle from Seattle for $$$

- DC also dealt winger/forward Chris Pontius to Philadelphia for $$$. Apparently Philly is taking on Pontius' full contract (at $420k) which is a hell of a lot for a guy who hasn't been healthy and productive for a while now. Shedding Pontius' salary and getting some money in return is a great deal for DC...if they reinvest it wisely. DC seems pretty financially gunshy and will likely remain so until their stadium opens.

- Philly dealt Cristian Maidana and Andrew Wenger to Houston for $$$ and the 6th overall pick in the draft. Maidana has some uses but is a luxury player. Wenger has been a disappointment as a forward and a winger, but I think could be a better player if he drifts deeper into central midfield or defense, perhaps. He played all over the place in college, but has insisted on being an attacker in MLS. It's not working.

MLS continues headlong into the age of TAM.....

Last year, the league introduced "Targeted Allocation Money", allowing teams to spend $500k over the 2015-2019 seasons. The purpose of TAM is to "buy down" the cap hit of contracts over the maximum threshold so that the player doesn't count as a DP. Many teams seemed to blow through their $500k allotment in one season, so now the league is expanding the TAM thingy so that teams can spend an additional $800k per season over 2016 and 2017.

1) TAM is basically an incentive to sign the sort of ~$750k player that teams need to take a step forward. Some Designated Players are great, but they are rarely excellent value for the money because they are often paid a premium and are only one player. Replacing the weakest link on the team with a no-name but good quality $750k player from Argentina or Colombia is the most efficient way of raising the quality of play.

2) I think it's pretty clear why MLS created another ridiculous budgeting category to add to an already too-complicated world of player movement and budgeting mechanisms. Since TAM money can only used on players who make over $457k, it ensures that the entirety of the money goes to these higher-end players. If the cap were simply raised by $800k, that money would inevitable trick down into the salaries of existing players. MLS owners are pretty skilled at keeping labor costs as low as possible. A lot of MLS rank-and-file bitched about the CBA, but until more mid-level players find better offers overseas, it's just empty talk. There isn't even a trickle of solid starters to the Scandinavian leagues anymore, as MLS salaries have gone up. The only players going to Norway now are MLS spot starter/bench types.

3) MLS also allowed teams to spend an additional off-budget $125k on homegrown players in both 2016 and 2017. Call it the "Jordan Morris rule".

4) This all shows that the "salary budget" in the CBA is fairly meaningless. It's the number that dictates the pool of money available for most rank-and-file players, but the owners can and will pump in extra money for specific classes of players when they feel like it. There are all sorts of off-budget salary being paid now via the Designated Player rule, TAM, general allocation money, the Generation Adidas program, certain academy signings via the Homegrown rule.... It's absurd, although I see the strategy behind it. And no wonder foreign coaches can have a hard time adjusting to this insanity.



- LAFC made their first technical hire -- John Thorrington. He was once a hyped US youngster in Manchester United's academy. He didn't break through and joined Bayer Leverkusen. He didn't break through there either and embarked on a decidedly more humble career at Huddersfield and Grimsby and then in MLS at Chicago, Vancouver, and DC. At 36, he's younger than most technical director types in the league.

- Orlando City got rid of their GM, Paul McDonough. The writing seemed to be on the wall after they hired Benfica's Armando Carneiro as their "chief soccer officer".

- Colorado re-signed center back Sean St. Ledger in an extremely unexciting move. They also picked up former Sounders central midfielder Micheal Azira in the Waiver Draft.

- KC re-signed left back Seth Sinovic and goalkeeper Jon Kempin, and signed Kenyan Lawrence Olum. Olum is a DM/CB who played for them in the past but spent 2015 in Malaysia. I'm surprised they brought him back.

- DC United's new logo. What say you, @Turrable?

- Philadelphia dealt center back Ethan White to NYCFC in exchange for a low-round (read: meaningless) draft pick. It won't take much to improve on NYCFC's sorry lot of CBs last season, but even so I'd imagine White will be a backup.

- Philadelphia also traded Zac MacMath to Colorado, where he'd been on loan this season. Colorado let the loan lapse, but were able to reacquire him for less than the option-to-buy in the loan deal had been. He'll compete with Clint Irwin again.

- Portland confirmed the sale of Jorge Villafaña to Santos Laguna and acquired Chris Klute from Columbus today. Klute hasn't matched his excellent 2013 season, but he'll have more of an opportunity to play in Portland than he did in Columbus where he was stuck behind Waylon Francis. Upside potential here.

- The especially boring first round of the Re-Entry Draft was today. FC Dallas picked up Maxi Urruti, formerly of the Timbers, and KC selected Alec Kann, formerly of the Fire. The second phase is always more active, since you can negotiate down salaries.

- NYCFC hired a bunch of team staff, including US U18 coach Javier Perez and three guys from Manchester City. They do have one holdover assistant coach with prior MLS experience (Rob Vartughian).

- Minority owner Gabriel Brener bought a controlling stake in the Houston Dynamo. AEG finally sold their 50% of the franchise, which means that the last vestige of multiple team ownership is now gone. Brener is a Mexican businessman, I don't know much about him. His group owned 50% prior to sale, but Oscar de la Hoya (an investor in the group) got more publicity at the time, because he's Oscar de la Hoya.

- Justin Mapp signed with Sporting KC, making him the first internal free agent signing in league history. The Mississippi Maradona has always had talent, but he's only just recently found Fitness Jesus (which is a big waste, he'd have more USMNT caps otherwise). He'll fit well on the wing in KC, but only if he stays dedicated to staying in shape. It's an open secret that the guy was a smoker for most of his career.

- Dallas traded Dan Kennedy to LA for a few throw-away draft picks in 2017. LA gets a decent starter who will be an upgrade over Old Man Ricketts. Kennedy gets a starting job again after losing his place in Dallas to the youngster Jesse Gonzalez. Dallas gets mostly a salary dump - it would have been nice for them to get a bit more in this trade, but they didn't have a lot of leverage.

- Colorado acquired Marco Pappa from Seattle for $$$. Seattle has a salary budget crunch, so shedding Pappa's salary and getting some money in return will help. He also picked up a DUI last season, I'm not sure if that contributed to his departure. He's a solid player, though, and Colorado doesn't have too many of those.

- Toronto has made some big moves with their defense. First they signed Drew Moor via free agency and today, they traded a (worthless) 2nd round pick to Vancouver for Steve Beitashour. A salary dump for the Whitecaps. RB and CB were problem spots for TFC in 2015, so this looks good on paper.

- Reports that Montreal turned down a $5m+ offer for Ignacio Piatti.

- Columbus signed free agent left back Corey Ashe. Rebuilding depth after dealing Chris Klute to Portland. Ashe is a solid fullback who probably had a bunch of teams after him. I wouldn't have minded the Revs taking a pass at him for depth, but I fear the free agency era won't be kind to New England.

- LA signed a pair of players from their USL team to MLS contracts. French goalkeeper Clement Diop and center back Daniel Steres.

- Chicago signed academy products Joey Calistri and Drew Conner to homegrown contracts. Both were four-year college players after playing for the Fire academy, so they're basically some bonus draft picks.

- Houston signed goalkeeper Calle Brown, who spent his first pro season with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

- The painful Re-Entry Draft was quiet this year, even the second phase. Portland took Jermaine Taylor, formerly of the Dynamo and Orlando took the Revs' Kevin Alston. Both look to be defensive depth on their new teams.

Domer said:

Jermaine Jones just tweeted that the Revs have offered him a contract at less than 20% of last year's salary.

Click to expand...

Classic New England. Jones made just over $3m according to the MLSPU salary page, so less than 20% would mean $600k or less. If you think he's worth that little, just walk away. Why make an offer that the player will find insulting and that will only further cement your reputation as a franchise who nickel-and-dimes players?

Personally, I'm not convinced he's worth a great deal more than $600k. He's old and clearly on the decline. He's missed time with injury. He's going to miss 1/6 of the next season because of suspension. But if you share that opinion, just walk away. Don't make a PR mess of it. Even if NE believes their offer is fair, it's obviously going to insult Jones, so simply part ways.

soxfan121 said:

Isn't it likely New England offered Jones exactly what they were paying and the reason the offer isn't worth as much, total, is that the league isn't kicking in the funny money? With Jones's time as a USMNT regular almost up, MLS no longer wants to pay him a premium.

Click to expand...

While that sort of scenario would be in keeping with the way the Revolution are run, I don't think that is the case here. Outside of the first ~$450k or so, the salary of a Designated Player comes out of the individual owner's pocket. So as negligent and cheap as the Krafts often are with this team, they actually ponied up for Jones.

I am also under the impression that the league "funny money" a.k.a. allocation money a.k.a. "GarberBux" is basically money above and beyond the salary budget of $3.5m that teams can either use on salary expenses or trade. The salary budget and all the allocation money are funded by the league, although "the league" is the owners, so they are just indirectly funding their own teams. But the individual teams pay their big DP salaries, outside of the first ~$450k, which is counted towards the salary budget.

At this point in the league's history, I don't think MLS HQ has much bearing on transfer policy. The GarberBux fund is, as far as I can tell, a way to preserve a low salary cap as leverage in future CBA negotiations while granting the owners flexibility to spend more on salaries if they feel like it. The newer type of GarberBux - TAM - is more clearly designed to help teams sign $500k-$750k type players, while ensuring that additional money won't inflate the salaries of rank-and-file players.

The exceptions to this involve MLS HQ chipping in for transfer fees. MLS paid some or all of Dempsey's transfer fee and I thought chipped in with Bradley as well, though when I just briefly checked I could only find speculation about MB and not confirmation. While something like that would not happen without the consent of most or all MLS owners, it's still bullshit and hurts credibility.

Anyway, clearly MLS salary accounting is not for the faint of heart.

soxfan121 said:

Downright byzantine. I thought the NFL cap rules were needlessly complex.

Simple question: Jones was a designated player, right? And this offer - presumably - does not designate him as such?

Click to expand...

Yes and....maybe. Anything over the $436k salary max makes a player a DP. However, allocation money can be used to buy down a player's contract to below DP status. Obviously not for someone like Bradley or Kaka, but this happens for guys making the $500k-$1m range. If Jones' account is true, his contract offer could easily be bought down to non-DP status.

If yes to both, my overall point stands: the megabucks deals given to USMNT players by MLS are going to continue causing problems - like this one - as those players age/decline out of the USMNT picture. Players like Jones, who were treated like royalty by MLS in order to get them to sign up, will soon be treated like "everyone else"...which will lead to some messy situations, and divorces.

Thus, it may be "classic New England"...but it's also "classic MLS" and a tidy example of the the phrase "chickens coming home to roost."

Click to expand...

I think most out-of-contract 34 year olds around the world move on to lesser contracts, so I'm not convinced this will be a huge deal. It will be more awkward for Bradley and Altidore, who are both paid more than Jones was last year, and whose contracts will expire at a younger age. I am curious to see where Jones lands and who steps up for him. If he can't get offers of more than $600k anywhere, then I'll have to walk back my criticism of the Revs.

USMNT and foreign, I'll be glad when teams in the league no longer feel the need to overpay players for marketing purposes.

Seems like wishful thinking from the Vietnamese press, but if it came to fruition it would be very bad news indeed for the Revs.

Other news...

- After declining his option the Revs re-signed Steve Neumann. Presumably he's coming back on a lower salary. Neumann has been a real disappointment so far and I'm still not sure what his best position is. He doesn't seem effective as an attacking midfielder, but with Dorman and quite possibly Jones gone, there are some new minutes to soak up at CM. Where he'll stand on the depth chart when the offseason is over is anyone's guess.

- Toronto acquired Will Johnson from the Timbers. Johnson is exactly the sort of solid MLS veteran that Toronto has ignored to their detriment in the past. Toronto fans seem to be very happy about this, especially because Johnson is one of the better Canadian players around. That being said, I'm not entirely sold on this move. Even though Johnson is a good player, I'd worry that he's too similar to a lot of the other CMs they already have. I'm not sure how they field Bradley, Johnson, Cheyrou, and Osorio in a way that makes sense. There's not a lot of width there, so either they have to bench a lot of salary or they have to play a skinny diamond (they have good width-providing fullbacks), but even so neither Osorio nor Bradley is an ideal #10 and neither Johnson nor Cheyrou is an ideal #6.

- Orlando traded a token low-round draft pick for goalkeeper Joe Bendik, who Toronto cast aside at the end of the season. Bendik is below average for a starter, but would be a solid backup. He'll compete with Earl Edwards, who is a young player who is supposed to be talented but who has minimal experience. It's a good move if Edwards seizes the opportunity -- beating out Bendik is not an insurmountable challenge -- but if Edwards has the sort of learning curve you might expect, they'll be stuck with two GKs who are below-average by MLS starter standards.

- NYRB signed two academy products. Derrick Etienne spent spring 2015 playing for NYRB II in the USL on an amateur basis, before heading off to Virginia. After six months in the NCAA, he gets his MLS contract. He's an intriguing winger prospect, but unfortunately he's already played for Haiti in official youth games. He can still switch to the US, but it's riskier to trade up than trade down (see: Teal Bunbury) and his dad played for Haiti as well. They also signed Brandon Allen, who was prolific over four seasons at Georgetown.

In a fun twist, Brandon's older brother R.J. plays for NYCFC.

NYRB is expected to sign a few more guys from their academy soon, too.

Omar Gonzalez sold to Pachuca

Wow. There have been vague rumors that Omar might move, but there was absolutely no chatter about Pachuca prior to this press release. LA bought Gonzalez's contract down below DP status last season so that they could carry Keane, Gerrard, and dos Santos. The salary capology got tough this year, I guess, and it was easier to let him go.


A few other things today:

- NYRB signed Georgetown attacking midfielder Alex Muyl to a homegrown contract; Muyl is bypassing his senior year.

- Seattle re-signed forward Andy Craven and signed goalkeeper Tyler Miller to an MLS contract. Both started with the USL team in 2015, though Craven moved up in the summer before running out of contract this winter.

- The San Antonio Spurs ownership group officially announced that they'll be fielding a USL team next season. The NASL San Antonio Scorpions will be folding or possibly moving to Las Vegas. Toyota Field has been sold to the city and the county and the new USL team will rent it. It's a quick turnaround to get ready for the 2016 season, but there's some infrastructure already in place. A nice get for the USL for the time being, but the Spurs are expected to mount a serious drive for MLS during the next round of expansion.

- MLS announced the opening day schedule + the rest of the home openers

The season kicks off on March 6. The Revs travel to Houston and there's an opening day triple-header on TV of Portland vs. Columbus, Seattle vs. KC, and LA vs. DC.

The Revs' home opener is the next weekend vs. DC.

- For the third consecutive day, NYRB announced more academy signings: midfielders Mael Corboz and Chris Thorsheim, and defender Scott Thomsen. At this point, 11 of their 27 players came through their academy as high schoolers, which is cool to see.

That being said, this trio is probably on the lower end of the academy products they've signed. They're done with their college career, so they come cheaply (no leverage), which makes it easy for NYRB to take a flyer on them. They're basically free middling draft picks. NYRB can park them in their USL team to develop and see if any catch fire.

- Houston signed CB Bradley Bourgeois to as a homegrown player, another guy who finished his college career.

- Arizona United hired good old Frank Yallop as manager. He was never going to get another MLS gig, but maybe he'll find success at a lower level.

- Coventry City signed out-of-contract Sounders midfielder Andy Rose. Rose was a fungible reserve midfielder for the Sounders who played a bit too much in 2015 because of injuries - no great loss for them.

Man, Juninho being sold is big news for the Galaxy. One report says that he went for $1.5m and Gonzalez went for $750k. That's a bargain for both players and a sign that LA was motivated to get them off the books.

Presumably there's a plan, but right now LA looks like a mess. It's pretty much impossible to put all of Keane, dos Santos, and Gerrard on the field together in a functional way, mainly because dos Santos/Keane isn't a complementary forward combo (and forces Zardes wide) and dos Santos plays zero defense when used out wide. Now that Juninho -- who was the glue of that team -- is gone to Club Tijuana, they need somebody good at DM to cover for Gerrard's sins.

And those Cashley Cole rumors? Yikes. Here's what he had to say in July 2014:

“I had offers from the USA, but I’m not ready to relax on a beach yet,” Cole told reporters at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, according toESPN. “I’ve won a lot in my career already, but I don’t want to stop.”

Click to expand...

What could go wrong?

- Six weeks after joining Orlando City from Benfica, Armando Carneiro left the club for "personal reasons". His hire effectively demoted GM Paul McDonough, who quickly landed a job with Atlanta United. The owner Phil Rawlins is stepping in to handle day-to-day soccer operations until they hire a replacement. Before he left, Carneiro had removed a number of popular members of the technical staff and it really seemed like the writing was on the wall for manager Adrian Heath. Now, who knows what will happen.

- Guus Hiddink reportedly wants to bring in Didier Drogba as an assistant. The threat of his departure from Montreal is apparently real enough that the club put out a series of tweets saying they're doing everything they can to bring him back in 2016 but that the "situation is out of their control"

- San Jose signed free agent Chad Barrett. Barrett is a solid backup and even though he takes a lot of stick in this league, he has had a pretty good strike rate recently.

- Montreal re-signed forward Cameron Porter. Porter was an unheralded draft pick who missed almost all of the season after tearing his ACL on Gillette's turf, but not before he delivered one of the greatest moments of the year (in his second pro appearance, no less):

- Vancouver signed 25 year old Japanese forward Masato Kudo from Kashiwa Reysol on a free transfer. Kudo has a solid-looking scoring record in the J. League and looks like a solid addition to the Whitecaps' corps of attackers. Especially if it's true that he can spell and/or challenge Rivero as a lone forward, play as Rivero's partner, or play a wide position in a 4-2-3-1.

- Portland loaned Liam Ridgewell to Brighton & Hove Albion until mid February. Brighton have a big injury crisis in the back. Seems like more downside than upside for Portland, though. I hope for their sake they are getting a decent loan fee.

- RSL signed an academy center back, Danilo Acosta, who can also play DM. Their academy 1997s seem like a really strong bunch with Acosta joining Sebastian Saucedo, Justen Glad, and Fito Ovalle on the first team. That same U18 team also featured Brooks Lennon and Josh Doughty, who spurned RSL for Liverpool and Manchester United respectively. A few others who went to college will probably sign eventually, too.


- There are reports that Jordan Morris has decided to turn pro and will likely sign with Seattle.

So Peter Nowak had filed several wrongful termination lawsuits against the Philadelphia Union, MLS, and the MLSPU regarding his dismissal as manager. I haven't followed the case too closely, but recently a judge ordered a bunch of documents from both Nowak's and Philadelphia's side unsealed. Jonathan Tannenwald's Twitter feed is airing all the dirty laundry right now.

Spanking rookies, denying players water, all sorts of CBA violations, refusing to acknowledge that concussions are real, intimidating players, and other good, weird stuff.

- Didier Drogba may be retiring to join Chelsea's managerial staff? According to L'Équipe, anyway. The truth of the matter isn't clear, but there doesn't seem to be much room for optimism for Montreal right now.

- SJ signed Simon Dawkins as a DP. He was good for the Quakes back in 2011 and 2012 when he was on loan from Spurs. Solid player in MLS, but in my opinion he's not DP worthy. With Derby County he's been a rotational starter when he hasn't been injured. I'm going to have to assume he's being paid just above the DP threshold.

- LA signed free agent Jeff Larentowicz. Although he's been largely a CB for the last 1.5 seasons in Chicago, I'd expect him to return to his natural DM role with the Galaxy, replacing Juninho.

- Chicago has traded Patrick Nyarko to DC for a 2nd round pick. Nyarko apparently asked for a trade, and the Fire got little in return. He and Lamar Neagle will give D.C. a bit more speed. Chicago is down to 14 rostered players, so they have a busy offseason ahead.

- FC Dallas signed center back Aaron Guillen to a homegrown contract. He just finished a four-year career at Florida Gulf Coast. A third of Dallas' current roster came through their academy.

- The USL is taking over the Rochester Rhinos after terminating the league's franchise agreement with the owner. Ugly situation for a minor league club that has been around for a long time. The Rhinos are the only non-MLS team to win the US Open Cup in the MLS era, back in 1999.

Edit: whoops, left the post unwritten too long and missed that the logo was already shown.

Anyway, I like it and I'm glad they didn't go with black and red like DC, Atlanta, and the old MetroStars. The wings do look a bit like what's on Minnesota United's jersey, but they'll live.



- Sporting KC acquired Brad Davis from Houston. It's a strange move; I'm not sure how he fits into the team as an aging and slowing winger. KC does need depth to gear up for CCL

- Five NCAA underclassmen signed Generation Adidas deals and will go into the draft. It's supposed to be a reasonably strong group, but who really knows. Josh Yaro in particular is said to be good. Unsurprisingly, four of the five are not American citizens. With so many good youth players now going through MLS academies and entering the league via homegrown contracts, the domestic pool of talent in the draft has dwindled.

I'm shocked. 29 games on ESPN and only 5 on ESPN2? That's a big change from the past [8 last year] and an opportunity to boost ratings a bit. FOX is also doing four games on their mothership channel, which they didn't do last year.

The distribution of appearances on national TV are expected -

17 - NYCFC, LA
16 - Orlando, NYRB
15 - KC, Portland
14 - Seattle

There's a middle tier of DC, SJ, and Houston, but their numbers mostly come from a lot of appearances in the smaller-time Friday night UniMás slot.

Then there's everyone else with 2-6 appearances, mainly the teams that suck and/or have a shitty atmosphere and/or are Canadian. Colorado brings up the rear with two games (and no home games).

The Revs have one home game on national TV (on UniMás) and four road games. That makes sense, since they offer a decent quality of play, but a dull home atmosphere in Gillette.

soxfan121 said:

Cannot wait to see what kind of effort Cashley brings to LA. Perhaps this will be the one that convinces MLS to stop this stupid, counter-productive strategy.

Nah. If Frank Lampard's walker and the giant fork sticking out of Steven Gerrard didn't stop them, nothing will.

Click to expand...

Well, "them" is mostly the LA Galaxy and NYCFC, so I'd hesitate to describe it as a league strategy. Most teams aren't wasting money on these sorts of mid-30s former star signings and the teams that were successful in 2015 built teams in an entirely different way.

It's going to be fascinating in a rubbernecking-a-car-crash sort of way. For what it's worth, an LA Times reporter is saying that Cole will be signed for "well below the MLS max of $457,500" and no TAM (a.k.a. salary cap funny money, so he won't be making more than his cap number) will be used. I suppose it bodes slightly better that he's not just showing up for a massive paycheck, but nonetheless pretty much everybody's expectations are low. On MLS message boards, pretty much everyone is lining up to take a huge, steaming dump on this move.

Some news from the past few days:

- The Revs re-signed Diego Fagundez to a "multi-year" contract extension. He seemed to regain his mojo in the second half of 2015 and he only turns 21 in next month. Hopefully there are only good times ahead.

- NYRB re-signed Damien Perrinelle, who was half of their 2015 center back pairing. They had declined his option, so presumably have negotiated his price down a bit. They really missed him in the playoffs when he got hurt. Bringing him back gives them at least some stability at center back, with the possible sale of Matt Miazga still looming.

- Seattle signed homegrown player Jordan....Schweitzer, a central midfielder from the University of Denver.

- Dallas announced a new affiliation agreement with Oklahoma City Energy. Dallas had been affiliated with Arizona United, while OKC lost their affiliation with KC after KC launched their own USL team. OKC seems like a better fit due to proximity.

- LA re-signed Alan Gordon. He's a good role player, but they really aren't getting any younger. He's 34 and can't go 90 minutes anymore.

- Portland has been stocking up on players over the past week. They've signed right back Zarek Valentin from Bodø/Glimt on a free transfer, free agent midfielder Ned Grabavoy (last of NYCFC), and just traded for forward Jack McInerney from Columbus. I don't think any will crack their starting lineup, but they are good depth.

- Toronto waived Moroccan center back Ahmed Kantari. They had too many center backs after signing Drew Moor and he always looked like the odd man out, as he is somewhat expensive and not that good.

- Philadelphia signed Brazilian center back Anderson Conceição on loan from Tombense. He's been contracted with Tombense since 2011, but hasn't played a match for them; instead, he's had loan stints at Mallorca and six different Brazilian clubs. In 2015, he was a regular for América Mineiro in a promotion season in Brazil's Série B. The Union jettisoned a lot of players this winter and need to make a lot of signings, but for now Conceição will compete with Richie Marquez and Maurice Edu. It's possible that Edu will move back into the midfield depending on who else Philly signs.

Philly also picked up winger Walter Restrepo from the New York Cosmos and sent defensive midfielder Michael Lahoud on loan in the other direction.

- San Jose signed Argentine center back Andres Imperiale from Deportivo Saprissa. Incumbent starters Clarence Goodson and Victor Bernardez both turn 34 in May, so SJ really needs to start planning for the future at that position.

- Kansas City signed forward Daniel Salloi to a homegrown contract. It's a weird case - Salloi came to the US as an exchange student from Hungary for his senior year of HS. He played for KC's academy that year and this fall he played half the year for Újpest in the Hungarian league. Somehow he's signing an HG contract back in KC. I wonder if we'll see more "exchange students" in the future.

- The Atlanta Silverbacks have been a league-run franchise for a while and the NASL finally pulled the plug on them. No surprise there, as they were never going to survive the arrival of Atlanta United.

Marco Pappa was stabbed by Miss Washington USA. He had been traded to the Rapids, so hopefully for his sake Miss Colorado is less stabby.

The college draft is later today.

steeplechase3k said:

Draft underway...

http://www.mlssoccer.com/superdraft/2016/tracker

Way too much for me to type out before my meeting in 6 minutes. Already been several trades including the #1 pick.

Click to expand...

Chicago took Jack Harrison with the #1 pick and then traded a PTBNL for the #4 pick. That PTBNL quickly turned out to be....Harrison.

Revs took right back Jordan McCrary at #10.

- LA signed free agent forward Mike Magee and 22 year old Ghanaian winger Ema Boateng. Magee had a good run with LA a few years ago and had a great 2013 during which he scored 21 goals, but he's been injured and/or ineffective since. If LA continues to sign all these domestic and international oldies, and block some of their promising academy players from any chance of playing time, LA may just topple NYCFC from the #1 position on the TB Schadenfreude Power Rankings.

Boateng is one of a growing number of players from Ghana to attend HS in the US via the Right to Dream program. He left UCSB after a year and spent three seasons with Helsingborg in Sweden, with moderate success.

- Colorado dealt goalkeeper Clint Irwin to Toronto in exchange for GarberBux. Irwin is a solid GK and will be an upgrade on what TFC had last year. For their part, the Rapids made Zac MacMath's loan permanent, so they have a ready replacement. However, they're also talking about taking a pass at Tim Howard. This is really dumb stuff. The Rapids are terrible and GK is far from the top of their list of needs. However, they made a draft-day trade that moved them to the top of the allocation ranking in the hopes of acquiring Alejandro Bedoya. That move fell through almost immediately, and almost immediately they began trumpeting their desire to get Howard. It's a PR-driven, panic move and it's more evidence that the Rapids are pathetically run. (Stan Kroenke is the absentee owner, btw.)

- Colorado also traded for Zach Pfeffer, a Philly academy product who didn't seem to fit into Jim Curtin's plans.

- RSL acquired forward Yura Movsisyan on loan from Spartak Moscow. He played in MLS a while ago, but left for Denmark on a free in 2010. He had some quick success at Randers, then moved up to Kuban Krasnodar, and then to Spartak. Movsisyan had three straight 10+ goal seasons in the RPL, but hasn't been as productive over the last two years in more limited playing time. RSL needs help, though, and Movsisyan will likely be a contributor.

- Seattle acquired Trinidadian left back Joevin Jones as part of a draft-day trade with Chicago. He'll compete with Dylan Remick and Oniel Fisher for the starting spot and he can fill in at left midfield as well.

- Chicago signed fullback Michael Harrington and goalkeeper Patrick McLain. After purging so much of their roster, the Fire need big contributors and small ones. McLain will back up Sean Johnson. Harrington has a chance to win a starting spot, especially at right back. Draftee and recent January camp invitee Brandon Vincent is likely to win the left back spot.

- Vancouver made a couple of last year's loans permanent - central midfielder Deybi Flores and winger Cristian Techera. Both young players from Latin America.

- Montreal signed an Argentine attacking midfielder on loan from Galatasaray - Lucas Ontivero.

OilCanShotTupac said:

It's completely awesome that you put this tidbit about a pageant queen stabbing a nondescript player into a stream of posts with routine transactions.

Click to expand...

Nondescript?! That's "arguably Guatemala's best player & sometime DUI artist Marco Pappa" to you, sir.

This is good:

Another gem from the later rounds in the draft:



As a third round pick, he probably won't even get a contract, but he clearly has a career in social media ahead of him.