Major League Soccer’s busier-than-ever draft season began on Wednesday afternoon with the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft. But rather than close the door on what was ultimately a failed project, the draft left fans with more questions than answers.
For this week’s Wins Column, I’ll go through some of the questions I’ve got and provide a glimpse into what the future may hold.
1) Why did the league determine the draft order through a weighted lottery? More importantly, does anyone else think this thing was rigged?
A glance through the league’s roster rules reveals that the order for all other draft-style player acquisition mechanisms (such as the SuperDraft, Re-Entry Draft, Allocation Ranking) is done by reverse order of finish from the season prior. No ping pong balls, no advanced algorithms, no money sliding being slid under office doors. It’s a system that’s foolproof, promotes parity, and is more transparent than your bedroom window.
But for the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft, MLS decided to take a gamble on a lottery system. The non-playoff clubs, as well as the two expansion sides, each got two envelopes thrown into the garbage-bin-turned-bingo-ball-spinner compared to one envelope for each playoff side. That’s 22 envelopes to 10 in favour of non-playoff teams, yet four of the first five envelopes selected belonged to playoff teams. The only non-playoff envelope of the first five picked just happened to be Commissioner Don Garber’s brainchild, New York City FC.
But wait, if MLS was really rigged wouldn’t NYCFC be picking first? And if they really did favour New York than why did the New York Red Bulls get the third-last pick? Good points, until you look at it from a “there’s a chance this could have been rigged” perspective. Was NYCFC set up to get Chivas’ best player because he didn’t fill a need for top pick holders FC Dallas (or at least that’s what the league thought, but I’ll discuss Dallas later)? Were all of Garber’s other favourite children (the Red Bulls as well as the L.A. Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders) recipients of bottom-five picks to offset NYCFC’s “luck”?
Were picks not able to be traded because nobody wanted them or because MLS didn’t want their plan for NYCFC to fall to pieces? Was the draft not live streamed because the league thought it wouldn’t be worth it or because they knew that somebody would spot the dudes in ski masks and black jumpsuits throwing some of the envelopes into a paper shredder?
2) Was FC Dallas’ hand drawn for them?
Arguably, yes, as hard as that is to fathom for the team that had the first overall pick in the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft.
I get the sense that FC Dallas didn’t want to select Dan Kennedy. But looking back at their situation, their other options weren’t really existent.
FC Dallas finished 2014 tied for four best in goals scored with 55. Forwards and midfielders don’t sound like too much of a priority from that statistic. But consider that three of the four teams that outscored the Hoops are in the Conference Finals and all of a sudden the need for offensive talent emerges.
Erick “Cubo” Torres fits the youthful, Latino-leaning attacking mold of FC Dallas perfectly. But because MLS is still negotiating his rights with Chivas Guadalajara, Torres and his 15 goals from 2014 weren’t available. Chivas’ next-best goalscorer had a mere three goals in 2014, a mark that eight FC Dallas players reached or bettered this season.
Dallas’ backline conceded the seventh-fewest goals in 2014, a good-but-not-great mark that could be made better if captain and centre-back Matt Hedges had a more solid partner.
Even at 35, Carlos Bocanegra would have been a good short-term addition had he not chosen to retire. The alternatives, Bobby Burling and John Kennedy Hurtado, aren’t really upgrades compared to Hedges’ current partner Zach Loyd, and Loyd is the only one of the three under the age of 30.
The only position left was in goal. Well, that and the role of mascot, but frankly Chivas’ mascot looks way too scary for a younger audience. Trading out of their position would have been brilliant, but trading picks wasn’t allowed and even if trades were in play Dallas’ state of desperation would have been exposed with a weak return.
So even with two starting-caliber goalkeeper already on the roster, FC Dallas used the first pick in the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft on Kennedy. They have overtaken Philadelphia as MLS’ best collector of goalkeepers, which will surely result in them losing one without any return in December’s Expansion Draft.
But it’s better to have loved and to have lost than to have never loved at all, right?
3) Did Toronto FC commit robbery or miss the memo?
Time to channel my inner Drake here:
“Dispersal Draft Day, Marky Delgado. Sliding down the table faster than lukewarm gelato.”
Not quite Toronto vs Everybody level, but pretty good if I do say so myself.
According to the reviews, Toronto cashed in big time with the pick. MLSsoccer.com’s Matthew Doyle called him “the cream of the crop” of Chivas’ academy system. In her Chivas USA Dispersal Draft preview, Alicia Rodriguez, widely regarded as the most knowledgeable source for all things Chivas USA, said that Delgado “has potential in spades”. In a mock draft conducted by club blog administrators, Big D Soccer (a subsidiary of SB Nation) Managing Editor Drew Epperley picked Delgado first overall.
Even for a 19-year-old with 37 appearances to his name and experience playing across the midfield and the outside defensive positions, that’s a lot of positive energy.
Sound familiar for players TFC has drafted? It should.
Maurice Edu arguably remains my favourite player in Toronto FC history, yet the #1 SuperDraft pick in 2007 AND MLS Rookie of the Year that same season was traded overseas within just two years. Sam Cronin and Stefan Frei were both drafted by Toronto in 2009. Both left for a combined sack of peanuts and handful of Monopoly money, and both have fit in brilliantly with their new clubs. Joao Plata and Luis Silva hit double-digit goal totals this season. Take a gander as to which team drafted them both in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
Toronto FC’s draft history has had moments of promise that have never properly been capitalized on. So long as Mark Bloom gets the raise he so deserves, Toronto should have both of their starting fullbacks from 2014 in tow for 2015. As for the midfield, Michael Bradley and Jonathan Osorio seem to be the only two locks.
Once again, there is the potential for something. But then again, 13 clubs didn’t take him, and seven of those clubs passed altogether. It might take time to see whether Toronto struck gold with this pick. Fans can only hope for enough time to finally be given.
4) Will the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft have any impact on the rest of the offseason?
In my opinion, not really.
Dallas have three goalkeepers, one of which they need to trade in the span of a four hour transfer window before losing them for nothing two days later in the Expansion Draft. And even if they can offload one of their shot-stoppers in that time, they still might lose one to New York City FC or Orlando City SC.
But save for Kennedy, the Chivas USA Dispersal Draft was dominated by people like me: ‘90s kids still finding their feet. They could all be left unprotected, but nobody is predicting it will matter too much, at least in the short run, what club they play for.
Regarding Torres’ negotiations with MLS, I’m quite sure both he and Chivas Guadalajara will be looking for substantial money. If he comes back to MLS, he will almost certainly be a Young DP.
IF Torres is back, nobody at this point really knows how he will be assigned to a club. Any club with a DP slot to offer and money to spend will most certainly throw their hat in the ring. Dallas remains my ideal fit for Torres, but MLS doesn’t want to add another city to the list of places they show bias towards. At least not that explicitly.
Rumour has it that Chivas USA’s crosstown rival, the L.A. Galaxy, have interest. That whole bias thing comes into play again, as does the issue of parity by adding yet another hitman to the league’s most potent attack.
I have a good feeling that the Canadian clubs are all out of the picture, even though he would fill a big Camilo-sized hole in Vancouver. Aside from the Houston Dynamo, there aren’t any other MLS clubs that I can easily see Torres playing for. But hey, I’d be content if he ends up playing anywhere North of Chihuahua.
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