More Expansion Draft Stuff: The Midfielders

By: Laurie | November 16th, 2007

First thing: If you’re unclear on how the expansion draft or other MLS minutiae works, go back to this post and read everything “bluemeanies” writes in the comments. Extremely educational.

Next, let’s talk about midfielders and who I’d protect in the Expansion Draft. I protected one goalkeeper and four defenders, and now I want to protect four midfielders. Which leaves two slots for the forwards. Funny, I never intended to go 4-4-2. It just worked out that way. Is it the players, or is that just the mode my brain is locked into?

But at any rate. According to the roster on the website, here are our midfielders, again minus the retired CoJones. (And of course the only reason I said that was because I like writing “CoJones.” And you already knew I was immature when you stopped by today, so stop complaining.) Again, I’m marking the ones I want to protect with an asterisk, and again, discussion is below.

David Beckham*
Kelly Gray
Kevin Harmse
Chris Klein*
Kyle Martino*
Josh Tudela*
Pete Vagenas

I’m not sure we have to protect Beckham. My guess would be that his contract precludes him from being traded, or that a rule will suddenly go into place before the draft on Tuesday saying DPs are already protected. (Why would you protect Gen. Adidas players and not DPs?) But he’s on my list till I hear he doesn’t need to be.

Chris Klein is on my list because he impressed me a lot this year. It would have been easy to get all whiny about everyone attacking the trade that brought him in, but he was a professional from start to finish, and he has a cool head on the field. Chris, if it were up to me, you’d be protected.

Josh Tudela made the list because he stepped up to the plate when he was given the chance and secured a spot on the field. We need to hold onto a player who can do that.

The last spot was a toughie, but I ended up going with Kyle Martino because I couldn’t NOT go with Kyle. No other explanation.

There’s a pretty good chance that under this scenario Yallop would at least consider taking Pete Vagenas, Kelly Gray or Kevin Harmse. If he were to pick one of these three, I’d guess it would be his Canadian discovery, Kevin . And it might not be a horrible thing for the Galaxy to lose a scrappy, volatile card-magnet like Kevin. (Although it might not be a bad thing to keep him, either.)

Have I covered all my bases here and flip-flopped enough?

And again I am feeling the need to apologize to the guys I didn’t pick. Nothing personal, boys! I still love you!