
A couple weeks ago, I put up the New York Red Bulls roster prior to the beginning of the off-season. Mr. Soler and Mr. Backe have been busy since then, and over at our facebook page, members of the Viper's Nest Editorial Board have been clamoring for an updated post to sum up the salary and roster ramifications of the moves thus far.
Below is the roster, including today's signing of Homegrown defender, Connor Lade.
Name | Player Des. | Roster Des. | Base Salary | Total Comp. | Cap Hit |
Juan Agudelo | HG, GA | OB | 55000 | 85000 | 0 |
Stephane Auvrey | 60000 | 80000 | 80000 | ||
Medhi Ballouchy | 125625 | 125625 | 125625 | ||
Thierry Henry | INT | DP | 5000000 | 5600000 | 335000 |
Corey Hertzog | GA | OB | 65000 | 93500 | 0 |
Sacir Hot | HG | OB | 32600 | 33600 | 0 |
Matt Kassel | HG | OB | 32600 | 36600 | 0 |
Stephen Keel | OB | 44100 | 44100 | 0 | |
Connor Lade | HG | OB | ? | ? | 0 |
Joel Lindpere | INT | 90000 | 125000 | 125000 | |
Rafael Marquez | INT | DP | 4600000 | 4600000 | 335000 |
Dax McCarty | 155000 | 175000 | 175000 | ||
Roy Miller | INT | 99996 | 99996 | 99996 | |
Brian Nielsen | INT | 120000 | 120000 | 120000 | |
Tim Ream | 55125 | 62625 | 62625 | ||
Dane Richards | 145000 | 156500 | 156500 | ||
Carl Robinson | INT | 75000 | 75000 | 75000 | |
Luke Rodgers | INT | 180000 | 180000 | 180000 | |
Frank Rost | INT | DP | 545460 | 545460 | 167500 |
Jan Gunnar Solli | INT | 180000 | 180000 | 180000 | |
Teemu Tainio | INT | 159996 | 164996 | 164996 | |
TOTALS | 10 INT, 4 HG, 2 GA | 3 DP, 6 OB | 11,820,502 | 12,583,002 | 2,382,252 |
Roster moves since the off-season began:
WAIVED - Alex Horwath, Mike Jones, Tyler Lassiter, Marcos Paullo (INT), John Rooney (INT), and Teddy Schneider.
OPTION DECLINED - Chris Albright, Bouna Coundoul, Carlos Mendes (taken by Columbus in the Re-Entry draft.)
MYSTERIOUSLY SIGNED BY MONTREAL VIA MLS POLICY OF OBFUSCATION - Greg Sutton
SIGNED - Connor Lade (Homegrown). (Note, in the chart above, while we don't know his salary (I'll bet it is for one of the sub-$40,000 slots), we can be sure he is off-budget and will not impact our salary cap.)
While members of the front office have publicly spoken about Frank Rost departing, this move has not been made official and so he is still listed.
So, the team is currently spending $2,382,242 on the roster. The salary cap should rise to $2,800,000 for the 2012 season. This gives us about $420,000, plus 4 more off-budget slots (for young and low-salary types) of room. It should also be noted that in 2011, I calculate that we were using around $170,000 in allocation money to pay down our salaries to conform to last year's cap. The league's Policy of Obfuscation does not allow the amount of a team's available allocation money to be divulged, so there's no saying what we will have available in 2012.
Also, we currently have 10 International players, and it's anybody's guess how many of those slots we will have in 2012. I do know that the slot we got from DC in exchange for Austin da Luz was only for this season, and is being returned to DC on January 1. It is all but certain that Carl Robinson will not be on the roster in 2012, and Frank Rost's departure will bring us down to 8 slots. Hard to believe, though, that the Red Bulls won't look overseas to fill in some holes in the roster, though.
So, there you have the roster as of December 5, with whatever other roster and salary information I've been able to scrape together. What moves would you like to see the team make going forward? Where are our weak spots? Should we accept a transfer offer for either of our young stars, Tim Ream and Juan Agudelo, to boost our allocation dollars? Should the team work with the League, and Frank Rost, to find a way to bring him back without burning a DP designation on him? See anyone available in next week's second round of the Re-Entry Draft on which Mr. Soler should cast his eye? Let us know in the comments below.
