While baseball fans eagerly hang on to every miniscule transaction during the offseason, the MLS Draft is the real place where significant headway is made. Whereas drafts from the other major professional sports pull players out of their respective collegiate pool, the MLS Draft contains players from all over the world as well as the NCAA. Even though the league is in its fourteenth season, it is still struggling to find its identity. That’s why teams like the L.A. Galaxy will be looking to revamp the bulk of their team during today’s draft, which is happening right now on ESPN2.
Assuming that David Beckham returns from AC Milan and Landon Donovan comes back from Bayern Munich, Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena needs to find nine other starters to make the team competitive in 2009.
Already, Arena has found one — Jamaican national team goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, who was signed in December.
One move the Galaxy made Wednesday was to acquire New York Red Bulls’ midfielder/forward Mike Magee, a 2003 first-round draft pick who played for Arena in New York. Magee, 24, was a starter on the Red Bulls team that reached the MLS Cup final last season. The Galaxy gave up a second-round pick in the 2010 draft for Magee.
Arena is there, along with Galaxy assistant coach Cobi Jones and Tom Payne, the team’s president of business operations. The Galaxy has five picks in the draft, but only the first-round pick — and the third pick overall — is worth anything.
Because of the Galaxy’s salary-cap issue — with Beckham and Donovan accounting for a significant share — Arena could also be tempted by one of the 2009 Generation Adidas players (nine young players identified by MLS as likely future stars and who do not count against cap).
In that case, University of Akron forward Steve Zakuani, who led the nation in goals in 2008, could be the target. But Zakuani is projected as the likely No. 1 draft pick and, if so, would be gone by the time the Galaxy makes it first selection.
Zakuani, already targeted by English clubs, reportedly has been guaranteed a contract worth between $150,000 and $200,000 by MLS.
Generation Adidas Players? Looks the MLS is wising up and has realized that a $2.8 million salary cap is ludicrous if you want to draw established (i.e. foreign) talent into the league. In other news, due to David Beckham’s popularity, teams can now have up to four designated players that total up to $20 million in salary. So, these are your A-Rods, Sabathias, and Mannys. However, if the franchise elects for this option, the remaining members of the team will then have a cap of $100,000. What?
Sounds like the MLS is still severely confused. They’re split between trying to run a league that cultivates young players into stars on the cheap and attempting to become an instant success with expensive European talent.
Just drop the cap. If anything, try to land a blue chip European talent on every team. Then continue paying the young players and mid-level stars the same wages they’ve always been paid, which is next to nothing compared to other sports.
