MLS doesn’t have enough winners and losers.
The league’s constraining roster rules and regulations have been purpose-built to keep a tight gap between the best and worst teams. Toss in the fact that 60% of the league makes the playoffs and you’ve got a real “everybody gets a trophy” situation on your hands. We need more winners in MLS. We need more losers, too. Those things build the kinds of stories that make any product more compelling.
To that end: today, I’m making my own winners and losers by ranking MLS teams based on their summer business. With the summer transfer window officially closed, teams have made most of the rest of their big additions for the year. Now, we could still see some players moving from MLS to other countries. We could also see teams pick up a few free agents. Still, we have plenty of information to put together a quality list.
The winners? They’re primed and ready for a late-season push. The losers? Maybe not so much. Let’s get to the transfer rankings, working from worst to first.
*Deal not yet announced as of publication.
30. New York Red Bulls
Notable incomings: Mijahir Jimenez, David Ruiz, Devin Padelford
Notable outgoings: Gustav Berggren, Dennis Gjengaar
Did the Red Bulls address a single urgent need in this window? That’s rhetorical – they clearly didn’t. I hope Mijahir Jimenez pops off and scores eight goals down the stretch, but nothing they did in the summer inspires anything other than frustration.
