Current Crew Roster

Preseason training is here and in a little under a month the team travels to Hawaii to start tuning up with some games. Time to take a snapshot of the Crew roster and identify where the team is headed.

2018 Estimate : Name
 $1,050,000 : Federico Higuain
 $844,000 : Jonathan Mensah
 $731,000 : Pedro Santos
 $500,000 : Ola Kamara*
 $350,000 : Wil Trapp
 $350,000 : Justin Meram*
 $300,000 : Harrison Afful
 $250,000 : Gaston Sauro
 $200,000 : Mike Grella
 $175,000 : Mohammed Abu
 $150,000 : Hector Jimenez
 $125,000 : Artur
 $120,000  : Josh Williams
 $105,000 : Zack Steffen
 $95,000 : Adam Jahn
 $85,000 : Alex Crognale
 $75,000 : Eduardo Sosa
 $73,000 : Niko Hansen
 $73,000 : Lalas Abubakar
 $73,000 : Cristian Martinez
 $65,004 : Jon Kempin
 $53,004 : Logan Ketterer
 $53,004 : Connor Maloney

Notes:
- 23 players filling up a possible squad of 28, as things stand.
- ~$5.8m in wages, last summer it was $6.7m
- Team has about $1.0m to play with

*The big thing: 
The future of 2018 roster makeup hinges on Justin Meram and Ola Kamara, who have both expressed interest in leaving. Should one or both depart, they would be taking 60% of team goals (31/53) with them (Chicago, NYRB and NYCFC only teams higher). It creates a huge hole. Some of that will be made up by the arrival of Grella and increased scoring output from Santos (either by himself or contribution to others increasing their output from last year).

The team is clearly a playoff contender as-is, but I do expect Kamara and or Meram leaving. Kamara's the player that people want. Meram being the player others can afford.

Berhalter and company have room to play, so they are in a good position to fill gaps, should that happen. If it does, I expect the team to be fairly up and down early in the season, but the number of home games will help keep the positivity going.

It's difficult to foresee the overall impact of what's going on around the team and the move to Austin. I've head that players are confused and not sure what to say or do. It's an awful position to be in. It can also be taxing, emotionally. I expect that players that do have options (or feel they are desirable to others) will just not want to deal with the drama surrounding the team.

Outside of Kamara and Meram that would be Mensah, Higuain, Grella and Afful, who I see as guys who might not want to put up with it and seek a move at some point during the season. The rest of the squad is fairly set.

On the coaching, team admin side, the announcements by Kamara and Meram put a lot of work on Berhalter's desk.