Burns Out, Mendoza Too

Actually, a bunch of contract options were not picked up. Cunningham and Burns were the bigger names outside of Mendoza. Backup, backup GK Alex Riggs and never seen Ben Sippola were let go as well.

Ekpo and Rogers are under contract until the end of the year but the Crew has only made "minimum offers" to them in order to retain rights. It is not a stretch to think Columbus wants something for them, but if they are not careful they will get nothing.

In the matter of a few days the club has freed up $1.5 million (Rogers and Ekpo included). $2.06 million is still on the books. In theory, Columbus could afford the weekly salary of a Micheal Ballack, but not the transfer fee (unless the league helps; Rogers and Ekpo are not enough). As crazy as it seems, the thought of Ballack to Columbus is achievable, but it just doesn't seem like there is enough front office talent/resources here in town to make it happen.

Outside of a couple scouts and positional coaches, the picture above includes most of the brain trust. Seriously.

One thing sticking out to me right now is Duka now becomes the 2nd highest paid player on the team (only behind Marshall). The other Generation Adidas player; Tchani is now 4th.

Their salaries directly replace Ekpo ($222k) and Rogers ($140k). This indicates that General Manager Mark McCullers has a sort of base philosophy in regards to wages. A good thing. Elsewise you become NY or Toronto with rosters the size of phone books. Only problem is... I don't think McCullers was expecting them (Duka and Tchani) to graduate till 2013. Since they did, their salaries count towards the cap. This is probably the one big miscalculation the franchise has made this year.

Stepping back, the Adidas thing is one of the things that hurts more then helps in our country. Duka and Tchani are now thought more of burdens than good players because of an already unnecessary/arbitrary/obsolete program. Not fair to them or the Crew.

If you take a look at the list below you can see where things get sort of pear shaped. However, I am very impressed when comparatively evaluating against other teams in MLS.

The Columbus Crew's Current Roster, salaries as of last fall:

Guaranteed Compensation : Name
320,000 : Chad Marshall
223,000 : Dilly Duka
209,633 : Eddie Gaven
194,000 : Tony Tchani
163,500 : William Hesmer
133,500 : Danny O'Rourke
121,875 : Emilio Rentería
115,000 : Sebastian Miranda
72,169 : Julius James
66,667 : Andy Gruenebaum
66,375 : Justin Meram
58,875 : Rich Balchan
42,000 : Aaron Horton
42,000 : Bernardo Anor
42,000 : Cole Grossman
42,000 : Josh Williams
42,000 : Shaun Francis
42,000 : Tom Heinemann
34,475 : Korey Veeder
32,600 : Eric Gehrig