Expansion Draft Thoughts: Carlos Pavon

Hola le envio un catracho saludo a Carlos Pavon, al cual admiramos mucho. Oime Carlos Mi sobrino Gerardo y Carlos (tu tucayo) te admiran mucho desde que has jugado en nuestra tierra catracha, se admiraron mucho cuando participastes en el Morelia de Mexico y la cantidad de goles que hiciste para que el equipo entrara a varias liguillas y la obtencion de vario titulos es la liga mexicana.

Ahora que estas poniendo muy en alto nuestro futbol catracho en la MLS, te admiran mucho mas.

Gerardo y Carlos te mandan un cordial saludo desde Miami, ahora que estamos pasando unos dias de vacaciones y quieren ver la posibilidad de poder vestir la Camisola (la 21) que tu usas en tan prestigiado equipo. Te agradecere si es posible complacer a estos grandes admiradores tuyos. Un saludo a la distancia de este catracho. Julio Villalta

I understood that Xavier was signed to a one year contract only. Someone said he is already back home overseas. Anyone verify?

What input do players have where they go?

Players at the college draft do not have a choice which MLS club they go to if they are drafted. Undrafted players can go to whatever team is willing to take a flyer on them but are unlikely to get picked up.

A player who has no history with the league or US national teams can negotiate with any team but are limited to one negotiating partner once a discovery is filed.

In a rule that the league is reconsidering a player whose contract expires can only renegotiate with his old team for a period of two years after the expiration. Developmental players may or may not be subject to this.

Returning national team players are limited by the allocation system. Youth national team players signed out of draft season are assigned by the league by lottery.(the most notorious case of this being Danny Szetela, a New Jersey native, who wanted to go to NY. A lot of NY fans thought Garber would fix the lottery nice and good after all he did fix the first pick of the Freddy draft (ie Dallas had to accept an allocation from DC for the #1 pick because the league said so) but everyone was surprised when he went to Columbus (including maybe Garber who it is sometimes insinuated was shocked when the fix didn't work). This led NY fans to assume that they could lowball Columbus on a deal with backroom pressure. They were surprised at how obstinant Columbus, a small market team that frequently feels slighted by big market favouritism, was in not trading with him. Columbus & New York catfight over trades frequently.)

Anyway, a lot of players once they are signed by the league are limited by the decisions of their teams front office. Some teams will accomodate players who want to leave and accept say a fourth round supplemental draft pick for a trade. Some won't.

bluemeanies, thank you so much! I'm actually printing your tutorial out so that I can glance at it again whenever (unfortunately not if ever) I forget a thing or two.

This question may sound strange, but what kind of input do the players have re where they go, and at what point, or do they have any?

Yup, Laurie is talking about who is on the 11 player list and who is not. The arguement for Pavon not being on the list is that he is not one of LA's best players and is also an older player with a high contract that isn't as attractive to a new team just starting out. Plus Yallop didn't seem to like him at the end.

Don't worry about not understanding allocations completely, no outsiders do and the rules change frequently. They need to be abolished and replaced by a better system.

OH! Now that I've re-read Lauries blog entry, in light of bluemeanies' eddicating me on how this all works (S-I and DP's, protection, salary caps, expansion draft, all that), now i understand what she's saying. Holy blazing lightbulbs, batman, it's a whole new world now!

Frank would be wise to pick up Carlos then... Ms. Jack did the math for me during her "free" period (the one teachers are assigned but always manage to work through rather than rest) on the player stats (another thing I usually eschew, preferring to watch actual play). Among the Forwards we have/had(?) Carlos is less effective than Lando and Alan-my-boy, and of course CoJones but he's a M and now the XO so I'm leaving him out of this... until one factors in amount of playing time, then Pavon is more effective but not as much as Lando.... and none of that matters in context of this expansion drafty thingy, S-I's and all that, but it was fun to bug Ms. Jack at work, since WGA's still on strike (gdmmit, studios just pay us the way you pay yerseffs for a change).

bluemeanies, Laurie, I owe you a beer apiece. This was not only fun but truly eddicashunal. :-)

bluemeanies, I'm in your debt. I'm still a little fuzzy on some things (allocations) but I think I have the general idea. Thank you... I can breathe again.

So, when Laurie's talking protection, she means LA makes a list of players that are not going into the pool for the expansion draft from which SanHo gets to pick, right?

Nope, just read an awful lot of big soccer for a couple of weeks and paid attention to the guys who either did or were real journalists or who actually followed college or had been watching the leagues shenanigans since 1996. Put it together from a bunch of incidents.

bluemeanies, do you work for MLS? Are you Don Garber in disguise? Thanks for the info!

No, I just have some of the rules that they say they follow though sometimes something happens and you think shouldn't they follow this set of rules instead of that one? Here's what I've gathered.

Discovery signings- This is a way for teams to sign USL players or foreignors with either very low transfer fees or on free transfers. I don't think DP's fall under this rule.

All player contracts are technically held by the league. Back in the day players would sign directly with the league and then be assigned to teams (leading to accusations of the league office having favourites). When they abolished this rule they introduced the discovery rules. Because the league can't bid against itself for one player on behalf of multiple teams if a team wants to sign an outside player they file a discovery on that player that means no other team may negotiate with them (at least without giving something up for that right, I believe there was a cat fight going on this year between NY and Columbus where Columbus filed first then the player would play nowhere but NY). I believe each team has a limited number of discoveries per year (6??).

Allocations: This system will hopefully soon be abolished, please. Here goes:

Teams acquire allocations in a number of ways including: Trades with other teams, sucking so bad that they miss the playoffs, sucking so bad that they almost missed the playoffs, being an expansion team or having a player on their team sold off overseas for a significant transfer. The monetary value of these allocations never matches the monetary value of the transfer. There are also allocations still out there that come from the era MLS gave them for player retirement. Allocations can then be used two ways that I know of:

1) To pay transfer fees and signing bonuses to significant overseas additions.
2) To pay part of some players salaries so they fit under the cap (this part is really done in darkness).

Of course they can also be used for trades if you are inept at using them yourself (RSL). Or you can sit on them like the Revs. They can also be split to partial allocations and end up in multiple places so the Marco Etchverry retirement allocation is still out there at a couple of teams that are not DC United.

Returning National team players: So lets say that instead of a foreignor from overseas you want to sign a player who has some caps with the US team. This should work the same way as with foreignors right? Wrong.

The allocations are ranked by a formula that is incomprehensible. If a US nats player be it only Connor Casey wants to return to MLS and not be a DP like Reyna the teams will look at this list. The first team on the list gets first rights of refusal and we progress down the list (Toronto grabbed Casey with the top allocation this year to extort his hometown team Colorado, I think it failed in the end). Or at least thats how they say its done.

Lotteries: Gen Addidas players signed outside of the draft (they happen and are frequently US youth national team players running home from Europe with their tail between their legs) are usually assigned by lottery with teams volunteering to enter and the lottery weighted by how badly the team has sucked over a year or so. That's how you got Sesay.

There are probably other things going on but this is basically my understanding.

Bluemeanies: You mean you have access to the "done in darkness" stuff? I want that!!

Do you want the other stuff (ie where MLS really goes nuts and I'm not sure I understand because a lot of it is done in darkness?)

There are I believe 3 main ways of signing a player in MLS- the college draft, discovery signings and allocations. Sometimes for US youth players signing outside the draft there are lotteries. Additionally when expansion comes there is an expansion draft like we will experience next Wed (all lists due Tue).

Believe it or not the easiest of these mechanisms to understand is the draft. For all drafts what basically happens is that there is a pool of eligible players from which team(s) can select. For the MLS college draft this is basically all senior college players plus generation Addidas.

Gen Addidas players are players who one MLS coach has told the league office "hey, I want that guy" who is either a high school student or college non-senior. They then might sign a contract prior to the draft, decide they're leaving college but heading to Europe instead or really want to start or finish college. If they sign the contract they are in the draft pool, if not underclassmen are supposed to not be elligible. The coach who picked the player out for Gen Addidas must use his last college draft pick on that person if he gets passed up all the way to the end.

The college draft then has the teams picking in an order pre-ordained by finishing position last year (with any potential expansion team picking first) with last first and champs last each round. Picks can be traded. Except Gen Ad players there is no obligation for either the team or the player to eventually agree to a contract but no other MLS team can sign a player you selected for 2 years after the draft. Players who don't sign either go to Europe, the USL or real jobs. There are four rounds to the superdraft plus 4 more rounds of supplemental draft the following week.

The expansion draft is also designed for team(s) to pick out of a list of players but these are players already signed to the league. This is actually the first time that the rules have been consistent through two exp drafts with the Chicago/Miami draft being considered favorable to new teams the Chivas/RSL draft harsh and the Toronto draft not bad.

This draft San Jose will have eleven picks. Its ability to pick any player it damn well pleases will be restricted in three ways: 1) It can only pick one player from anyone team (no I want all of Houstons reserves). 2) all existing teams will have submited a list of 11 players that are off limits (that list having to include all but one senior international, see above) and 3) They cannot pick Gen Ad players. The end product must meet roster rules for all teams except expansion teams are granted extra youth international spots. The expansion team inherits the terms of the players current contract so salary, years left ect matters.

I don't think there is any other draft worth mentioning except the one that god forbid will never happen again. When the league folded Miami and Tampa they had a dispersal draft where the players from those two teams were sent to other teams in the league. Not a good draft.

Concise? Lol. Here's the start of my 10 page attempt.

Teams can have 28 active players on a their rosters. 18 of those players are considered senior roster players who make a min of approximately 30k and a max of approx 400k. The DP rule allows one player above the max and trades to allow 2 players above the max if you can get another teams DP. All senior players together must earn less than the cap which was 2.3 mil last year.

The other 10 players are classified developmental. A developmental player is either on the lowball 13k junior dev or 18k senior dev contracts or a gen addidas player. Gen Addidas is a program sponsored by Addidas to offer salaries worth skipping some or all of college for to extra talented young players and provide them with college scholarships if this pro thing doesn't work. I think Altidore is the highest paid current Addidas player. Also a player must be under 25 to be dev.

Internationals. For US teams Native players are considered either US citizens, persons in the US with asylum (don't laugh, there are at least 2 current MLS players in this status) or persons with a green card. People not falling into any of those categories are internationals. Teams are limited to 4 senior internationals (ie foreignors over 25 years old). Teams also have youth international spots for foreignors under 25, 3 naturally but they can be traded. An under 25 on the senior roster can be counted as a senior international. Do not ask about how they handled this in Toronto its complicated.

If a player is injured during the season the team can put him on injured reserve for the rest of the year and hire another player to make numbers but is still charged his salary to the cap.

Next post: drafts

Jack, maybe CoJones could videotape his sessions with Ruud and post them on the internet to educate us all.

:-)

Sometimes I wonder if I was watching the same matches, reading these comments... In most of the matches I saw, Pavon was making chances, and putting the ball on goal more often than not. True not as often or as consistently as was needed, but that could easily be said for the entire side, frankly. Pavon was no better or worse than most of the other players, except Kelly back-to-the-goal-backpass-only Gray who is atrocious all the time. Lando made way more money and produced even less goals proportionally--well, okay that's my gut talking (I'll go look it up later).

One thing this conversation is teaching me is that I really really don't understand the MLS draft-transfer system. When Laurie starts talking about protection and stuff I'm thinking Trojans or Mafia? On FSC's FFF the other day they mentioned how CoJones ;-) is necessary to teach Ruud the MLS system.... I'm thinking I do as well. I just don't understand it. I remember trying to figure out the pointy-ball draft system when I was a kid and ending up shrugging... pointy ball is hardly a sport in any true sense anyway. Kind of like baseball... it's a math thing more than an artful sport. Math = ick.

Help me understand. Anyone have any links or concise explanations on how MLS draft, protection, etc. works?

Hey, cut it out you guys! You're not playing fair!

Mag, I think this is the one Laurie was looking for, during a recent research project was it?
http://justjared.buzznet.com/g...

Damn, Mag, don't hit me with these kinds of photos without warning! (And I mean that in a GOOD way.) ;-)

Whew. I think one of my kids must've turned up the thermostat when I wasn't looking.

One way or the other Pavon needs to go. From what I
saw this year he wasn't going to go after the 50/50
balls and make something happen; instead waiting for
the game to come to him. Until we're much better in
the midfield, we need our forwards to make it happen.

Xavier is an interesting situation. I know some people
don't like him but I do. He made some egregious mistakes
but predominately seemed a wall on D. But, he didn't
play at all down the stretch or in either of the
"friendlies". Either his injury was worse than was let
on or he's on his way out as well.

Hi.
If this is not the best place to post it...sorry.
Laurie,you have something like "caption the photo"
look at this one:
http://buzznet-00.vo.llnwd.net...

and this
http://davidbeckham.fans-onlin...

P.S. You know,in case you were looking for something intresting.

Protect Harmse and Jazic so we can trade them to TFC for Maurice Edu. TFC needs Canadian players as desperately as we need good strikers.

I'm thinking Pavon was a Lalas choice and not Yallop so its likely Pavon will be traded back down to S. America for another player (rather than waived). Yallop did bring Jazic over to the States from wherever he was playing before (Russia?) so I won't be surprised if Jazic asks to be left unprotected or requests a transfer.

I'm waaay overly attached to the Chivas squad to see any of them go - even if it is to the team closest to my house.

Do you guys think LA is keeping Xavier or dumping him too?

actually, thinking about it Chivas is probably going to lose Cunliffe or Merlin. They aren't protecting four forwards when they have only 11 spots. I'd take Merlin in heartbeat if he was unprotected. Though Yallop might pass he has before.

Bluemeanies, I know, I know... I'm just mentally kind of hoping that Frank would take him off our hands and then he wouldn't have to go through all the emotional trauma of getting dumped. Emotion is not logical by definition. :-)

I'm with you as well, My mom loves Pavon because she her self is Central American, and i myself like the guy, but i feel in this team he just cant find his groove, hopefully Yallop picks him up and does good in San Jo.

There is a difference between unprotected and waived. Unprotected means that SJ can have the player for free but if they don't take him you still have him. And if you don't have some players unprotected who you would be happy to bring back your team is in a sorry state. You could also protect all the S-I's if you wanted too, btw, the rule says only one may be unprotected not that one must be unprotected. But Pavon unprotected makes sense because you know who you're dealing with.

In Pavon you have a player who is 1) older, 2) expensive, 3) spottily productive at best and 4) was benched in favor of younger forwards by the coach who is going to be picking. All of these factors make him exactly the type of player Yallop won't choose and if he detaches his brain and does chose him he won't be as missed and you wouldn't pull a Jason Kreis on him. Leaving him unprotected lets you protect someone Yallop might want because Yallop is taking his forwards from some other team, like will NE be able to protect Christman? Houston Ching, Jacqua & Ngwenya (though Jacqua might be not on Yallops good list)?

I couldn't agree with you anymore on Carlos Pavon,time for him to go. Hopefully he'll find a home elsewhere.