Busy day today as the Crew Operations staff must be back from their holiday breaks.
• Tyson Wahl Signed
Wahl is a serviceable and experienced MLS player. He first saw time when he was drafted 19th in the "2006 SuperDraft"+ to KC. From there he went on to have productive years with Seattle before falling into an expansion draft vortex last year that few return from.
Columbus view him as a solid backup to whomever they end up signing for the Left Back position. The club has made it known that they want an international player in that role. "We've got some things in the works, but sometimes things go afoul and don't work out. If they don't work out, Tyson is our guy at leftback." - Brian Bliss to Cody Sharrett on Crew.com
My Thought: Tyson seems to want a chance to start but the Crew outright told him he is a 2nd choice to, well... a player they sign later on. My prediction? Hindsight will probably prove that keeping Nemanja Vukovic was the better option. His performance metrics were good to above average, the coaching staff just had a problem with his personality. Bad business.
• Brian Bliss shoots down Mirosevic Rumors
Craig Merz also had an article today that attempted to shoot down any chatter about Milovan Mirosevic going back home to Chile. Bliss went as far to say that Mirosevic's agent called him to "refute the article" floating around. They don't state which article it was but did confirm that it was "on the internet and all that".
• Sebastian Miranda isn't coming back.
• Emilio Renteria's Contract expired. [+++UPDATED]
To my knowledge, most Major League Soccer contracts expire on December 31st. Renteria's is probably no different. With that, he is no longer officially a Columbus Crew player. Hard to tell where new contract negotiations are so for now I've taken him off the club roster (along with his salary).
CAP UPDATE!
Adjusting for expected annual salary increases (7-12%) the Crew now sit around $2.25++ million to the $2.95 million cap and a total roster size of a whopping 21. This leaves around $700k to round out the roster.
I still expect three local kids to sign Homegrown deals that don't hit the cap (league minimums, ~$44k) that will take the roster to 24. What this means is that the Crew have that $700k waiting for 3-6 players. So, either they are going to pay some draft picks big salaries or they are looking to make a couple high profile signings along the likes of Mirosevic, Olman Vargas or Jairo Arrieta last year.
We'll see, I guess. Either way, plenty of bank remaining, interesting now that so many were let go. What happened to that cap excuse? Seems remarkably false now.
"It's a casualty of how the League is set-up and structured." - Bliss, Nov. 28th.
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+Of note on the 2006 MLS SuperDraft: Columbus picked Jason Garey (with Carolina Railhawks), Kei Kamara (Sporting KC) and Jed Zayner (retired this year) ahead of Tyson Wahl.
++A few salaries are estimated as MLS does not make this information public until spring. Danny O'Rourke and Tony Tchani, estimated at 100k. Wil Trapp, $60k (Tchani's may be low, hard to tell. Not many examples of GA players getting restructured like his). If you want more salary info you can email me at ljbaby654 @ gmail.
+++[UPDATE]Per thecrew.com Renteria not coming back. HC Warzycha "...we offered him a contract and he didn't take it. We haven't had a conversation with him the last couple of weeks."
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