MLS The Daily Kickoff

By Anonymous (not verified), November 1, 2022
MLS Soccer

By Sam Jones
Good morning, y'all. Your pal Sam here. Let's soccer.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

EVERYBODY, MEET ST. LOUIS CITY SC

MLS Kickoff Story
It's, once again, time for yet another Expansion Draft. That means a couple of things. It means you have another new team (29 total!) to get acquainted with, and it means any article we write about every team in MLS is somehow going to be even longer unless we give each team like five words apiece. Prayers for the editors at The Mothership.Anyway, as we've learned over the years, Expansion Drafts are cool because it's really the first tangible moment in an MLS team's history. It's the first set of actions that truly resonates with the rest of the league. I mean, all but five teams have to compile a whole list of players the newbies can just take. It's like a new kid showing up to class and the teacher demanding you to give them your toys. You might have heard about a new kid coming before that, but now it's real and personal.The good news, though, is generally those toys aren't your favorite. Teams can protect players from being taken in the Draft, but there's a limit (12 total & homegrowns) to how many they can protect. Generally, that leaves expansion teams scraping the bottom of the barrel. This year though … man, I think it's a testament to the growth of the league that you can look up and down the list of eligible players and see guys that have made genuine impacts for their team in recent history.Now, part of that is because teams are being clever and listing players that are still technically under contract with their current team but are set to become free agents after the Expansion Draft. You could take ex-Columbus Crew winger Derrick Etienne Jr. tonight, but he'll be a free agent in about a week so…probably don't do that.Teams have also wised up and realized you can dare teams to take on heavy contracts while protecting players more likely to be taken. I don't think the New England Revolution truly think of DP forward Gustavo Bou as expendable, but he's there on the list. He's definitely one of the best players on that list, but St. Louis very likely aren't going to use him in one of their three DP spots. It's risky, yet smart. Other teams have gotten burned in the past by refusing to put high-profile contracts on the list and losing out on quality players they could have protected.That being said, there are still some pretty incredible and plausible names on this list. Tom Bogert has a piece on it in "The Reading Rainbow" (it's cool, LeVar is a friend) that you should read, but here's the TL;DR: Philadelphia Union midfielder Alejandro Bedoya, Nashville SC midfielder Dax McCarty, Nashville SC winger Alex Muyl, Houston Dynamo FC center back Tim Parker, Charlotte FC forward Andre Shinyashiki and Bou.Bedoya is older (turns 36 in April), of course, but just signed a one-year deal with the Union in September. You'd have him short-term, but who better to set a locker room culture in year one? The same goes for McCarty, who's already done the expansion thing. The rest of the group is just solid players who have been productive in their MLS careers in some way. There are also a whole bunch of solid keepers who would make a ton of sense for most expansion MLS teams, but St. Louis gave a max TAM deal to Roman Burki… which, whoo boy, y'all should know how I feel about paying big money for goalkeepers in MLS.Anyway, St. Louis have a chance to genuinely bolster their roster tonight and make waves at their coming-out party. That's a big deal for a club that seems set to bring us the next great atmosphere in MLS. Tonight will help us get a little closer to figuring out if they're set to bring us the next great expansion team too.

AND OTHER THINGS

THE READING RAINBOW

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