Monday, November 21, 2011

Protected Crew XI. Quick, Everyone! Retire!

Hesmer, Balchan, Anor, Gaven, Marshall, Rogers, Renteria, Miranda, James, Tchani, and Duka are protected from the evils of Montreal.

Aaron Horton is a "Homegrown Player" and is automatically protected.

Tchani and Dilly Duka were Generation Adidas players so they would have been automatically protected, but they declared themselves Graduated recently. Therefore are considered "Been Graduated" (in MLS faux legal talk) and not protected.

It's interesting they graduated recently. Now they count towards the cap and have to be protected. Oh, by the way; A G.A. player, themselves, determine when they graduate. Hm.

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Each Major League Soccer franchise had to turn in their Protected Player list to MLS offices by 5 PM today for the planned Expansion Draft on November 23rd.

The 10 bullet points and official league language is amusingly short. I will shorten it even further here and put comments next to points relevant to Columbus.

AKA; your friendly neighborhood HELLTOWN translation.

1. Protect 11 players
Done.

2. Protected 11 aren't guaranteed contract next year
Rogers was probably retained in off chance of getting cash from "Europe"

3. Retired player sent adrift, team can reclaim
That's nice MLS. Loophole. Quick, Everyone on draft list retire!

4. Off-Roster players are part of draft
Those two Costa Rican dudes, I guess.

5. Generation Adidas players don't need protection
Not a problem in Crewtown now. Uh, thanks?

6. International in US includes Canadians and vice verse
Not an issue for Columbus. Beauty, eh?

7. Clubs can't dump all international players
but they can dump three less then total.

8. DP's must be protected, not exempt
Poor Mendoza.

9. Only one person from each team can be picked
Whew! So my heart can only be broken once. fffffyou MLS.

10. Ten Rounds.
zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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It's time like this I wish I had brother James L. Esquire writing for Helltown. 1st question? What if more then 11 players on team had "no trade" clause?

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Here are the guys not protected:

Burns, Cunningham, Ekpo, Francis, Gardner, Gehrig, Grossman, Gruenebaum, Heinemann, Mendoza, Meram, O'Rourke, Owieri, Prim, Riggs, Rusmir, Sippola, Veeder and Williams

Gotta say most of the Crew players are prime for the pickin'. Surprising Ekpo wasn't protected. The club (or MLS, I guess) could have gotten good money for the Nigerian international.

My guess is Montreal Impact Fonts will go for experienced to be competitive and mostly bargains to stay under cap. I do think they will try and snag a big name though, because, let's be honest here... nobody of quality will ever. I MEAN EVER want to willfully go to Montreal (why oh why, MLS).

Experienced Bargains: Ekpo, Burns, Gardner. Maybe paper thin Francis.

My heart will be broken if Heinemann, Meram, Gehrig, or Gruenebaum get picked. So, count on one of them getting taken on Wednesday.

4 comments:

Larry W Johnson II said...

just read that Brian Ching would rather retire than go to Montreal. Maybe i'm underrating the city but i just imagine it to be like the setting of 'the Thing'... the old version.

Unknown said...

glad to see Mendoza on there, but Heinemann?? damn.

boskovic from united unprotected (which most likely means De Ro will achieve DP status)

mother'f'n mvp!

Larry W Johnson II said...

Heinemann showing up on too many lists. crap. shin guardian even. "Need someone up top for Fucito to run off. Since Fucito is taken, can’t take O’Brien White. Plus he’d scare the crap out of people on the streets of Montreal."

Larry W Johnson II said...

ugh, it's bothering me know.

they shouldn't have protected tchani. he moved a few times last calendar year. only de ro can pull that number off and come out the other side clean. tchani was carrying an injury but the crew bit anyway, now they are protecting him? it smells like 1. someone is covering their ass and 2. they didn't expect him to graduate and count towards the cap or protected list. poor.