With MLS moves flying thick and fast, I’m not here to waste time with a lengthy intro. You know what we’re here to talk about.
Onwards to the interesting moves!
Before FC Cincinnati fans get to the bottom of this piece and find themselves enraged that their club’s record-breaking Kevin Denkey signing isn’t on this list, it’s not for a lack of intrigue. It’s because that deal was announced well before MLS Cup and I’ve already written a bit about Denkey’s move to Cincy. Okay, now onwards for realsies.
Ben Wright
You get a bailout, you get a bailout, you get a bailout!
One tricky part about MLS roster-building is that you only have so much wiggle room to fix your mistakes. Teams can’t paper over an under-performing Designated Player by just…signing another DP. You only get three of those things! So if you have a high-salaried player who’s not pulling their weight, you only have so many ways options.
You can live with it – but that stinks. You can buy out their contract — but that’s expensive and you can only do it once a season. You can agree to a mutual contract termination — but that only tends to happen when the player in question has another opportunity lined up somewhere else (shoutout to the Chicago Fire, who found themselves taking this path with Xherdan Shaqiri and Gaston Gimenez over the last six months).
Or, you can cross your fingers and hope and pray that somebody happens to call to make you an offer for that player – we’ll call that the guardian angel option.
As it happens, guardian angels for teams across MLS seem to have been busy this offseason.
