Digesting the list, part 1

By: Melissa | November 19th, 2007

Since I last blogged here, I read many many internet predictions, talked to a few fellow soccer-obsessed friends, went to the gym, hung out with my dog, and poured myself a stiff drink. Now I think I’m ready to post my initial thoughts on the expansion draft unprotected list.

First off, this is the only prediction I’d place money on: we’re taking Tuleda from LA. As I said in a comment on Laurie’s Galaxy blog a few days ago, The Frank told those Chivas podcast guys he wasn’t allowed to use some reserve players he wanted to at the time and the fact that Tuleda appeared in the line-up, late in the season, seemingly out of nowhere, helps my argument tremendously. Also, I’m looking at the MLS salaries pdf as of August and right now Josh makes a whopping $17,700. I’m thinking SJ can swallow this one. Unfortunately for Josh, rent isn’t any cheaper in Silicon Valley vs West Los Angeles so he may want to consider using that right to renegotiate clause in the expansion draft rules.

As for my Chivas, I think Nunez is the obvious pick here. The only drawback is his reputation for being a bit of a whiner and his $100,000 salary. SJ may not want to gamble on an expensive guy who might balk on the pitch if he doesn’t get his way. If Nunez isn’t on The Frank’s radar, I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’ll choose Flores. Wait… that guy who won the reality show contest? Yup. Here’s the deal, he just got called up to the U-20 Nats squad meaning the dude has potential and his $12,900 salary is easy on the eyes.

Ok, so far I’ve been picking young, mostly inexperienced dudes. We still need someone to hold down the fort and give direction to the troops. Enter Houston. I’m torn between The Onstad and The Waibel. Both guys are old-school Frank players who despite getting on in the age department, can easily provide calm and collected experience to our young team. Now, the general consensus is that Waibel has been, err, wobbling and Onstad’s year has been fantastic. I’m still torn though and can’t decide between the two. The clincher may be money since Onstad cruises in on a mean $168,000 while Waibel floats by on $85,000.

My last pick for the evening is from Chicago and, well, it isn’t even my pick since I deferred to my long-time Fire fan friend Samantha. She chose Ivan Guerrero and gave me her reasons why:

He can play attacking midfield and he can play left back. That right there is a pretty valuable thing when your entire roster is still up in the air. He’s only turning 30 this year so he shouldn’t start wearing down for at least another year or so. Cons are that I hear he only speaks Espanol so that might not be good for team chemistry and he is just coming off an injury. Funny story, for the longest time I didn’t realize we had this guy on our team. So every time I would see him do something awesome there was just like this shock of, “man, who is that guy? He is awesome!” I guess my biggest endorsement is that I never really noticed him because he never did anything that pissed me off repeatedly.

Great endorsement, but Guerrero clocks in at $160,000 so unless The Frank has massive confidence in this guy, I’m thinking it will be a pass (or a serious renegotiation).

The one big big factor I don’t know about here is the length of anyone’s current contract and if a player is up for renegotiations in the near future. Also, its important to note that these wild and baseless expansion draft speculations are just one of the many pieces to create our eventual roster. We still have the regular season draft to get though and no doubt a few trades. Oh and lookie – according to the expansion draft rules, San Ho has priority to sign any USL players during the off-season. Hey Laurie, what was the name of that forward from Seattle you want to see in LA? Le Toux?

Alright, I’m going to sit on my thoughts about the other teams and post a part 2… likely sometime tomorrow.