Anyone who knows anything about MLS will be the first to admit that it's a strange league. Unlike the four major sports, the Commissioner seems to have full reign to change rules as he sees fit. Normally the rules he alters deal with how foreign or returning players are allocated to teams. You see, unlike the other sports, MLS is a single entity: players sign with the league and then are dispersed to clubs in an attempt to avoid Cosmos v2.0. The one area that has long been a problem is what happens to players when their contracts are up. Again, unlike the other leagues, there is no such thing as free agency in MLS. When players are out of contract, their options are limited because their team still hold negotiating rights to them.
This resulted in many players being squeezed out of the league with the most notably situation that of Kevin Hartman. Hartman was a 12 year pro whose contract was not renewed by KC after the 2009 season, yet KC still owned his rights (for what I think is 5 years, but I could be wrong). Hartman wanted to stay in MLS, but if KC didn't trade his rights, then he would either have to move to Europe, go to the USL or simply retire. He had no leverage.
Luckily Hartman got a trade to FC Dallas (who he led to the 2010 MLS Cup Final), but not every player gets that lucky. So in the recent round of contract negotiations, the players and the league came up with a system to give the players more flexibility. The league was still unwilling to give full free agency. Instead, they opted for something called a Re-Entry Draft. It's a complicated thing, but here are the rules in a nutshell:
If your contract is not renewed by your current team, you are eligible for the Re-Entry Draft. The Re-Entry Draft has two rounds. In the first round, teams can pick players and must pay them comparably to their current wage. The scale is sliding, but basically if you are picked in the first round and you are an 8 year veteran, you have to get at least a 5% raise. If you are not selected in the first round, you are eligible for the second round in which you must negotiate a new salary with the team that picks you. The team has exclusive negotiating rights but is not required to sign you.
When you look at the list of players available for today's Re-Entry Draft, you get the sense that their won't be a lot of movement in the first round. Besides Juan Pablo Angel, Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Jimmy Conrad most of the guys are available because they get paid too much already (case in point: Tyrone Marshall and Nick Garcia) and I doubt that other teams would want to give them a raise. While I expect Conrad to go to DC to help sure up their defense and Angel to go to LA to make their offense even more potent (and I would have said Schelotto to Seattle prior to the Montero DP signing), I don't really expect to see any movement until next week. I'm not necessarily saying there aren't any quality players available, it's just good business to wait until you can sign them for less. This Draft is a step, albeit a crooked one, in the right direction, but with the strict salary cap it is going to prove to be killer to a lot of veteran players who will have to take a salary cut.
I will be back later today or tomorrow with the earth-shattering results, if there are any. In the mean time, if you understood this post, what with all the head-scratching rules and overabundance of parenthesis, give yourself a pat on the back.
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