Waive Bye-Bye: Martino, Gray, Babayaro

By: Laurie | March 4th, 2008

The waiver news is in. Out the door to help the Galaxy make the salary cap: Kyle Martino, Kelly Gray and Celestine Babayaro.

I think we all knew Kyle Martino and Kelly Gray wouldn’t be back, right? When you don’t even go on the preseason tour, or get sent home in the middle, it’s not a good sign. Martino in particular breaks my heart, but what can you do?

Who saw the Celestine Babayaro waiver coming, though? Not me. I thought Ruud picked him specifically to come in and fill a niche. Guess it didn’t happen. Granted, he didn’t light the field on fire when he played the other night, but neither did anybody else, really. (I blame jet lag.) It would have been nice to give him a chance to settle in and see what he was capable of. Now we’ll never get the opportunity.

So what does this mean for our left side? Martino used to play left mid, although I don’t think he was a natural lefty. Now we’ve got Mike Randolph. With Ante Jazic out, that’s it for veterans, isn’t it? (And does it strike anybody else funny to be calling a guy who made his MLS debut less than a year ago a “veteran”? That’s what second year players are, though. On this team at least.) And there’s at least a fair chance that we’ll be missing Mike for Olympic qualifiers and possibly the Olympics as well.

Besides Randolph and Jazic, we have rookies Michael Gavin on defense and Ely Allen, who I’m guessing we’ll see at midfield. Anybody else? If you’re a rookie and want the chance to sink or swim, I guess the Galaxy is the team to be on.

The waiver draft is today also, but if we couldn’t afford to keep the mid-salary players we have, I’m not sure we’d be doing well to pick up any new ones. But I could be wrong.

At least they didn’t waive Ante Jazic while he was injured. That would be cold.

They’ll probably pull a Chris Albright and wait till he’s healthy to dump him. Am I right?

Some Related Galaxy Posts:

Category: Player News, Preparing for 2008, Transfer Rumors

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Shak

Its a shame that Babayaro and the Gals have parted ways, but one thing is for sure the Gals have lost out on having a great player and person on their team. No doubt Baba will bounce back stronger.
Colin

I'm really starting to think that Alexi and the rest of the front office are masochists. Martino, Gray, AND Babayaro, REALLY? Why don't we just waive Donovan, Ruiz, Klein, and Xavier and get our team down to the bare bones already? I think if Alexi had the opportunity, he'd travel back in time and waive Cobi, Eduardo, Campos, Hernandez, Ceinfuegos, etc. etc. etc.

I'm really starting to like Drew Carey's plan with the new Seattle team to let the fans vote for the GM...
Dan

Martino and Gray would both look good in Revolution Blue. Babayaro on the other hand, he doesn't look good in any colors.
justin

according to http://blog.washingtonpost.com... only three teams picked players D.C. United bolsters its defensive corps by claiming Jeff Curtin, the former Georgetown standout who was let go by Chicago after two seasons. Houston takes forward Kyle Brown (Real Salt Lake) and Chicago acquires defender Brandon Prideaux (Colorado), and we were not one of those teams so this means all those players are able to sign with any team under a new contract. So we could sign any of those players to a new lower contract.
Frank

Babayaro's play against Seoul was obviously below par, but I thought the Gals might give him time to assimilate to the MLS game. Perhaps, they have found someone else they'd prefer to go after with the allocation $$. Still a surprise cut.
Josh

Yeah, you cannot waive an injured player as per MLS rules.
Melissa

I remember when Ian Russell got waived from the Gals he was technically injured and someone somewhere mentioned its against MLS rules to waive an injured player (perhaps it was mentioned here?). Anyhoo, I think thats the reason why Lalas can't dump Jazic... yet. I kind of feel that Russell quit anyways and the whole waive deal was what the Gals officially said about it for whatever reason.