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Vancouver opts for top 2011 MLS Draft pick, Portland to select first in Expansion Draft

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The Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps took part in an Expansion Priority Draft on Monday and the result saw the Whitecaps choose the option of having the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 MLS Draft.

Portland will pick second in the MLS Draft and will have the second pick in each round of the draft while the Whitecaps will have the top pick.

Vancouver chose having the top pick in the 2011 draft over a variety of other roster building mechanisms, including having the top pick in the MLS expansion draft.  The Portland Timbers will have that distinction, giving Timbers head coach John Spencer the first crack at players left available by the existing 16 MLS teams.

VANCOUVER– First pick in the MLS SuperDraft

PORTLAND– First pick in the Expansion Draft

VANCOUVER– USSF Division- 2 Pro Player Priority on opening of signing period

PORTLAND– Designated Player Ranking

VANCOUVER– Allocation Ranking

PORTLAND– Discovery Ranking

VANCOUVER– Waiver/Re-entry Draft Ranking

PORTLAND– Lottery Ranking

What did you think of the selections? Curious to see who Vancouver winds up with at No. 1 in the MLS Draft? Any chance John Spencer doesn't draft a Houston player with his first expansion draft pick? 

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Draftsite has Brian Ownby of Virginia as the number 1 pick and Brian Kinne of Monmouth as number 2. And trades here. I don’t think there’s any Generation Adidas players included such as Omar Salgado.

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  2. But I think it’s only a 1 player thing. As in, after Vancouver and Portland each pick 1 USSF-D2 player (not from their current team) then the priority for USSF-D2 players reverts to the discovery rankings. Anyway, I do agree that Portland should have picked that over the DP ranking.

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  3. Many fewer USSF-D2 players to choose from, much less $$ needed to sign them = much larget chance of acquisition collision. While not ridiculously useful, certainly a lot more useful than DP ranking.

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  4. It is not ridiculous. Just because you may not understand how sports businesses are managed doesn’t make it ridiculous….arcane, perhaps…ridiculous, no.

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  5. So the 3rd good thing they got was USL priority? If there is 1 awesome USSF-D2 player they both really want, then that comes into play, otherwise it’s as useful as DP ranking. Anyway, I interpreted Jesse’s point as being that Portland had messed up priorities and my counterpoint was that they were basically damned by the coin toss and it was hardly a reflection of their priorities.

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  6. also interesting, who the top players are coming out of college this year, or playing in college, or whatever. who are the potential top picks that we can keep our eyes out for during the college season is really what i want to know.

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  7. Jesse’s point is that Vancouver got 3 very good things to Portland’s 1. DP ranking is pointless, the chances that both of them would be after the same DP is very, very slim. Whereas the allocation ranking is much better and chances are they’d be able to make use of it.

    At least according to what I’ve read, the discovery ranking, waiver ranking, and lottery ranking are to determine whether they get 17th or 18th priority as opposed to allocation ranking (and the other high chosen ones) which is 1st or 2nd priority.

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  8. How about an article about how the expansion draft will work? Since there are two expansion teams, does that mean each existing team can lose 2 rather than only 1 player in the draft? Are there going to be any other differences?

    Also interested would be to see some early predictions on who won’t be protected and then possibly taken by portland and vancouver…

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  9. The Designated Player ranking comes into play when two MLS clubs wish to negotiate with the same player. In this case, the club with the higher ranking receives priority.

    However, Soehn says the chances of this occurring are slim. “The likelihood of that isn’t that high,” he said. “I don’t know that the Designated Player priority has as much weight as people have been putting on it. Everyone has different needs and looks at different players, so when you’re looking at one guy from your list, the chances that another team is looking at the same guy is a bit smaller.”

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  10. It all came down to a coin-flip so it was already decided that Vancouver was gonna come out on top before today’s proceedings. So once Vancouver chose the SuperDraft, you could argue Portland should have chosen Expansion or Allocation. But without a sure thing of a player coming in via allocation, Portland would have been fools to take that over the Expansion draft. And then Vancouver took Allocation and everything after that is pretty meaningless so it didn’t really matter how it shook out. Basically, Vancouver was guaranteed to get 2 good things over Portland’s 1.

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  11. MLS Draft, USL Priority, Allocation, Re-Entry Draft >>> Expansion draft, DP Ranking (wtf), discovery ranking, and lottery ranking. Portland got PNWed.

    Except for the expansion draft, Portland’s priorities help them should Vancouver and PDX ever be competing for the same players out of the whole wide universe of soccer players. Not very likely. By contrast, the USL priority, allocation order priority, and re-entry draft give Vancouver an advantage over players the two clubs could conceivably be competing for.

    Nice job ‘Caps.

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  12. I would love it if the Timbers wore blue unis, so I could call them the John Spencer Blue Explosion. Alas, no such luck.

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