Crew Roster + Budget Snapshot

The Columbus Crew have had a busy roster move week so it's worthwhile to take a quick look at where things stand with the team.

RECENT PLAYER TRANSACTIONS

IN: Waylon Francis
IN: Matt Wiet
IN: Brad Stuver

RE-SIGNED: Josh Williams

OUT: Glauber
OUT: Matias Sanchez
OUT: Jairo Arrieta*
OUT: Eddie Gaven
OUT: Danny O'Rourke*
OUT: Dominic Oduro*
OUT: Andy Gruenebaum*
OUT: Aaron Horton
OUT: Konrad Warzycha
OUT: Kyle Hyland
OUT: Drew Beckie

*Players believed to be in contract restructuring negotiations. Players agreeing to reduced deals with existing team is a moderately rare event in MLS.

CURRENT ROSTER BREAKDOWN

Budget Hit : Name, Pos 2013 Base Salary
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YES: Federico Higuaín, M 440k
YES: Chad Marshall, D 330k
YES: Tony Tchani, M 130k
YES: Agustin Viana, D 105k
YES: Wil Trapp, M 100k
YES: Waylon Francis, D 100k*
YES: Josh Williams, D 88k*
YES: Tyson Wahl, D 76k
YES: Ben Speas, M 62k
YES: Justin Meram, M 56k
YES: Ryan Finley, F 47k
YES: Ethan Finlay, M 47k
NO: Matt Wiet, D 46k*
NO: Aaron Schoenfeld, F 47k
NO: Bernardo Anor, M 47k
NO: Chad Barson, D 47k
NO: Eric Gehrig, D 47k
NO: Kevan George, M 47k
NO: Matt Lampson, GK 47k
NO: Brad Stuver, GK 47k*
NO: Daniel Withrow, GK 47k
NO: Shawn Sloan, M 47k

*Estimating new or re-signed player salaries.

Budget hit is what counts towards the league mandated "salary cap".

Only players 1-20 on each roster count towards the cap (1st team players). Teams fill those slots with players making about $80k and up with projected starters making >$100k.

Isolating the player that count to the MLS Budget along with projected 2014 wages (YOY wages, on average, increase between 10-15%):

$369k Federico Higuaín (DP)
$363k Chad Marshall
$143k Tony Tchani
$115k Agustin Viana
$110k Wil Trapp
$110k Waylon Francis
$88k Josh Williams
$83k Tyson Wahl
$68k Ben Speas
$61k Justin Meram
$52k Ethan Finlay
$51k Ryan Finley
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$1.62 million

The players above are who Gregg Berhalter and company are planning to have locked in the 18 each game day. Since there are only 12 players here that leaves about 8 more open spots for "MLS level" players (>$80k).

This fits perfectly with the roster already at 22 players.

EIGHT SLOTS TO FILL

So who and what type of player will be filling the final 8 to budget spots?

SLOTS 1,2 maybe 3: Forwards. Crew only have Schoenfeld and Finley right now (Meram should be there, but will not). They will likely be spending big here. Oduro, Arrieta are still out there, yes. Wouldn't be surprised to see new faces though.

SLOT 4: Easy one: the 4th overall draft pick in the upcoming SuperDraft (he will likely be in the 60-90k pay range).

SLOT 5,6: Midfielders. The Crew are already crawling with mids but lack solid starters. Wil Trapp and Higuain are the only two that are locks. Anor? Maybe. Personally would like to see Speas get full games. I believe Berhalter will be looking for another CDM to push Trapp (or start over him) as well. Either way, MF weakest area in '13, needs improved. They will be shopping here.

SLOT 7,8: Defenders. With Marshall the only player to be locked into the starting back line the team will be on the hunt for defenders. Heath Pearce or Brad Rusin were just released and could be options. I would expect him to be a target to play next to Marshall. On the wings I think it will be Williams on the right and Francis (or Viana) on the left.

MY BUDGET PLAY SHEET

I have a few MLS budget sheets that I mess around with, even one's for other teams. This might be blasphemy in the world of sports blogging (particularly MLS where very few step out of their own team's bubble). Never the less, I do it. Reason being: a general understanding of a team's cap position is the single most important thing in MLS. Team budgets are ever present and is behind everything.

It's not perfect but I think it gets me close enough.

Questions, comments? Feel free to email me at ljbaby654(at)gmail.com

Josh Williams, Returning for 2014

Word came down today that Williams will be playing in Columbus next season for the Crew. Big pick up for new owner Anthony Precourt and new head coach Gregg Berhalter.

Viana Tackle

Neither of these guys are winning any track meets but that is an excellent tackle on Jeremy Brockie by Agustin Viana earlier this year.

After playing off and on as a holding midfielder (more of a secondary position for him), Viana settled in very well to his LB roll this past year where he proved he has above average technical skill and excellent decision making ability in defense.

The Columbus Crew are bringing him back for 2014. It depends a bit on what type of formation new head man Gregg Berhalter wants to play but I would expect Viana to be a regular starter for the 2014 Crew.

Shawn Sloan: Part 1 of 6 !

During a damp summer Sunday Ohio morning reserve match at the Obetz training facility I joked with Fox Sports Ohio writer Rick Gethin that I was going to write a six part series about first year Crew player Shawn Sloan.

Rick rolled off a laugh as I made my case. I had seen Sloan play a couple times previous and thought he had something but the joke was that no player like him could possibly make it in a league structured like MLS. As the game progressed... I think both of us became more of a believer.

Sloan started in the back line but was moved up into the middle part of the field later on in the match. This type of thing is the hallmark of a player that is being used as filler on this less than glamorous Crew side. A competent warm body that fills the role of MLS reserve dummy. Or cone. Or what have you.

Seems there was something different in Sloan, though. It wasn't uncommon to see him barking at other players, frustrated that they were not where he thought they should be. In the wrong hands this type of behavior would earn him a spot on the bench. Or worse, disapproval from teammates. I'd seen it before, but neither happened.

I've been around MLS quite a bit since the size of rosters jumped from the low twenties to the thirty it is now back in 2010. Dozens of players like Sloan are left behind to continue on to whatever career track they were on in college a year before (in Shawn's case he could probably make more money not playing soccer).

Turns out, Shawn Sloan has been picked up by the Columbus Crew for the 2014 season.

After a year in which the team saw a new owner and along with a brand new coaching staff, this is pretty remarkable. All of the non-budget/cap players the old regime picked last year (Drew Beckie, Kyle Hyland, Konrad Warzycha) were let go after just a year with the team.

The decision to keep Sloan is a good one and tells me that new head coach and director of soccer ops Gregg Berhalter isn't moving about the early off season flippantly.

What's interesting to me is that Sloan likely matches Berhalter's thinking mind the most out of anyone on the team. Excited to see what's next.

Medora

I can't quite remember where I found out about the Kickstarter campaign to get this documentary made a couple years ago, but I'm glad I did.

"Medora" is a documentary that was created under the direction of Davy Rothbart and Andrew Cohn. It is something well worth your time.

Growing up with the sport of basketball I always find myself seeking out stories about basketball in Indiana. Most basketball playing white kids growing up in the 80's were heavily affected by the movie Hoosiers. At the time of it release, the mystique of Indiana basketball was only further enhanced by Larry Bird and his legendary career and Bobby Knight's time with IU.

I've read that "Medora" is some sort of "anti-Hoosiers" movie. A film that Jeannette Catsoulis of the NY Times calls, "a mournful Midwestern ballad devoid of grace notes, “Medora” views the crumbling of small-town America through the eyes of the Hornets"

That's elegantly put but this doc only pulls the curtain back for this generation. A lot of small town Indiana crumbled almost a half century ago now after a somewhat brief industrial boom that brought in laborers from all over the country.

Larry Bird was born just a couple years after the small town team depicted in Hoosiers won the state championship and he grew up on punishing poverty. His folks split when he was a teen and his father took his own life a couple years later.

No HD cameras back in the 70s to capture Bird's legendary plight in French Lick (some of the themes can be seen in the 1979 film Breaking Away, if your are so inclined), but thankfully there are excellent documentarians in Rothbart and Cohn to capture things as they are now in Medora.

What we see with "Medora" is exactly what is left after all this time. The destitution is generations old now and it's through the prism of that hopelessness that we see the simple joy a single win can bring a lost community in a forgotten corner of the world.

It is beautifully shot and the story is masterfully crafted. Highly recommended.

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Though my contribution might have been small, I am proud to have my name listed among the many contributors to this movie in the credits.

"Medora" can be watched now through iTunes or at medorafilm.com

If you live in Columbus, Ohio you can check a screening (I'm planning to be there!) on December 10 at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

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MY INDIANA BASKETBALL STORY

On a family trip back when I was a teenager with big dreams of playing for Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers I came to Bloomington, Indiana to visit extended relatives. I'll never forget one night heading out back to play some pickup ball with cousins.

At first it was just a couple folks out there watching. Before I knew it there were well over a dozen people from around the neighborhood pulling up lawn chairs to watch a normal game of pickup between a bunch of complete strangers. As a kid from Northern Virginia this might as well have been a scene from another planet.

I went on to play basketball for a while, even some in college, and have some great memories from it. But that night in Indiana. It wasn't about the celebrity that has always seemingly dominated the sport or the skill of Larry Bird the legend of Bobby Knight.

It was about the sport itself. How it is in the blood of every Hoosier. I'll never forget it.

Final Crew Player Rankings

Summarizing an entire season in one score is unfair to any individual player but it can tell a story.

Below is how things played out for each Crew player according to the only four player rating models that I know exist. HELLTOWN (me), WHOSCORED.COM (they hammer away at Opta data), CASTROL (they go their own way), FANTASY (MLS fantasy scoring, a rating is a rating).

So, there it is. Why is this not greeted with more fanfare? Maybe a giant post at Massive Report or even petition On the Fire to do it? Because it is basically a list of top minute earners to least.

For me, personally, this is something I noticed the first year I started tracking. The better players get to play more. So much is dictated by the coaches and the league. It's not so much the players ability that is being judged here but more the player's ability to fit into the league system that the play in.

Peel back another layer and you get to the place where Major League Soccer's competitive structure can be so frustrating. In this sport, above all others, good players need other good players to truly rise above the scrapheap of mediocrity (which is sold as parity in the United States).

Food for thought and all that.

Lenhart and Heinemann, Aug 2013

Aug 10, 2013; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Vancouver Whitecaps forward Tom Heinemann (29) and San Jose Earthquakes forward Steven Lenhart (16) during the second half at BC Place Stadium. The Vancouver Whitecaps won 2-0. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports. Edited by me using Google+ and Gimp

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Steven Lenhart played for the Crew between the 2008 and 2010 seasons. Tommy Heinemann wore the black and gold in 2011 season and was injured for all of the 2012. Lenhart now plays for San Jose, Heinemann for Vancouver.

I ran across this picture while researching player performance data. For anyone that has followed this team over the past five years or so... what a random/great find. Wonder what they are talking about.

Both could, and should, still be here in Columbus. Man, I love this picture.

Oduro, Gruenebaum, Williams Returning?

Gregg Berhalter's press conference was the big Crew news of the day but there was something that Mark McCullers said that is much bigger news to me.

In today's Covering the Crew, Adam Jardy brings up that Dominic Oduro, Andy Gruenebaum and Josh Williams are about to be without a MLS contract. Along with Bernardo Anor, these are the three guys that have the most question marks surrounding their futures.

From Jardy's Dispatch blog:

"McCullers said Berhalter has been handling the ongoing negotiations with the trio and that he feels each will return to the Crew next season."

I sort of did a double take on this little bit of information. I'm sure that Berhalter would rather not anyone in the organization say anything about any player. Let alone the guy that Anthony Precourt made a point to pry off roster decisions.

Oduro, Gruenebaum and Williams made up about $290k to the cap in 2013. Two of them, Oduro and Williams, are likely working on larger deals.

To keep Oduro it will likely take around $200k and Williams is probably seeking about double ($100 to 130k). Gruenebaum would probably move on to the next standard veteran contract, whatever that is (130-150k maybe).

It turns three players at $290k in 2013 to $450k in 2014.

This affects next year's roster a great deal and something I know Berhalter and Precourt have barely started looking at.