Just one hour after the MLS Expansion Draft ended, Minnesota United and Atlanta United have completed a trio of trades involving their recently acquired players.
Minnesota announced that it traded fullback Chris Duvall to the Montreal Impact in exchange for Costa Rica international winger Johan Venegas.
#MNUFC has acquired @Johan_VenegasCR from @impactmontreal in exchange for expansion draft pick @chrisduvall91. pic.twitter.com/RQYccLvLZH
— Minnesota United FC (@MNUFC) December 13, 2016
Duvall was Minnesota’s first pick in the draft and will replace Donny Toia, who was dealt by Atlanta to Orlando City in exchange for the Lions’ first-round pick in the 2017 MLS SuperDraft.
Atlanta wasn’t done, though. After selecting Toronto FC goalkeeper Clint Irwin, the club traded him back to TFC for fullback and Georgia native Mark Bloom along with general allocation money.
It would help if there weren’t a bunch of out-of-contract, free-agency, or retired players available. Too many rules (Generation Adidas, homegrown, non-domestic player requirements) makes it confusing…
This is a way for teams to get rid of unwanted players as much as it for new teams to acquire players.
If any of these guys were truely wanted, they would have been protected. Available means replaceable.
I’m in favor of protecting more than 11 players. Maybe 16, so only journeymen are involved here.
Agreed. I do think that a team should be able to protect their first 18… That would be the starting 11 and the 7 most important players for their bench. Then all others players are open game.
This would make the transition for the players being traded a lot easier to take as well. A player would know that they are not seen as being “in the 18” and should look for greener pastures somewhere else. That will also send a clear indication for the selecting teams about what value the player actually has in that Organization thus making trade deals and player swaps much clearer after the initial selection process.
Limiting the number of protected players helps to keep the balance of parity that MLS needs to keep fans of newer teams interested. I do agree with another poster that I hope eventually the league moves beyond the need to even have an expansion draft when introducing new clubs to the league. But this is not that day.
I really hope this is the last expansion draft –
but if it isn’t, there absolutely needs to be a 1 mo. trade ban imposed on players that are picked. If a team doesn’t see anyone to fill their needs then give them GAM/TAM instead. Ultimately this is what they end up with anyway once they trade the player off.
I feel that players are being needlessly interrupted in their playing careers just because they become a trading chip. They are being acquired not for the skills that could help a new team, but because of their trade value. They end up just being a cash commodity – just give them GAM/TAM instead.
+1
I like the idea of just giving “Garber Bucks” to the newest teams. It would be a really cool case study to see how a team builds a roster using that mechanism versus the expansion draft. I’m curious to see if the player quality/value would be equal under one acquisition mechanism compared to the other.
In truth, there were quite a few good players in that list… But not any great players. It seems The “Garber bucks” mechanism can purchase a real game changer for your team. Or at least give you a higher quality player that can be acquired using GAM/TAM while filling out the team with a few more lower quality players.
There has been an argument made that a team that has more consistent quality throughout the 11 is a better team. I am not sure that that is true… Maybe it is. But it seems to me that having a handful of star players (3) with a few (3) of lesser players makes a team much better than having a team with a starting 11 of “very good professionals”.