Before the 2015 season began, this image began floating around the interwebs that caused quite a reaction from fans and season ticket holders alike:

The wording sure did put a foul taste in many of our mouths but it did make me wonder if there was any validity to what the Hunts have preached as their vision plan for taking this club to the top. The salary cap structure in this league makes it challenging to fill a roster from top to bottom with quality players capable of playing at the highest level but, as a team like the LA Galaxy has shown, getting several big name players can really boost your chances of winning trophies. Bringing in such players also has its challenges as the better known they are, the higher the chance they are still active on their respective national teams and with MLS running through the summer, that means a lot of games missed due to tournaments and international call ups.

So that's what we'll dive into here. Do the Hunts actually have a solid plan in place or are they just full of of hot air and, as some of you have claimed, just too cheap to take Dallas to the next level?

The History

Since the survey mentioned the MLS Cup, we will start there as a baseline for defining success. I will also stretch it a bit by saying a team was successful if they made it to the MLS Cup finals but walked away empty handed. Cruel, but at least they were in the championship game with a chance of bringing home silverware. For the sake of this piece, we'll go back to the previous four MLS Cup winners as our sample size.

At first glance this looks really bad for the Hunts. Without even looking it up, most fans can tell you that the Galaxy had three big name DPs on their roster in each of their championship seasons.

The Criteria

While the MLS Cup is one way to define success, I am on the side that actually thinks the Supporters, Shield is more valuable and harder to obtain than the MLS Cup. So for the sake of this exercise I'm opening both the Supporters' Shield and the US Open Cup as measures of success as well. The Open Cup is a little dicier because of the randomness of the tournament, but winning a trophy is still winning a trophy.

Past Supporters' Shield Winners

Past US Open Cup Winners

Year Winner Runner Up 2011 Seattle Sounders Chicago Fire 2012 Sporting Kansas City Seattle Sounders 2013 DC United Real Salt Lake 2014 Seattle Sounders Philadelphia Union

So we've established that the MLS Cup, Supporters' Shield and Open Cup wins or getting into the finals would be a deemed a successful season/team.

The Definition

"Acquire a star" is pretty ambiguous and even though the front office defined that as DP level, the wide range of players considered a DP is too vast to be considered equal. So for the sake of this argument, I will only consider someone a "star" if their salary commands over $1 million. I landed on that figure because FC Dallas has never paid a player seven digits before - this should line up with their definition and the fans' definition of who would count as a star.

The Results

MLS Cup Winners and Number of "Stars" on their roster.

Year Cup Winner Cup Runner Up 2011 3 0 2012 3 0 2013 0 0 2014 3 1

Supporters' Shield Winners and Number of "Stars" on their roster.

Year Winner 2011 3 2012 0 2013 2 2014 2

US Open Cup Winners and Number of "Stars" on their roster.

Year Winner Runner Up 2011 0 0 2012 0 0 2013 0 0 2014 2 0

At this point, LA and Seattle are prime examples of signing "stars" and have the most proven track record of securing trophies from those player acquisitions. It's clearly in their transfer market plan to always have three of their DP slots used whether as a boost in salary of a current player or to bring in someone via the transfer market and they have mastered the art of executing that plan well.

The counter point though is the other teams - who have either won something or taken their team into a Cup final - have also produced relative success without breaking the bank. Obviously spending money doesn't automatically equate to success, as you can just take a quick look at Toronto FC who haven't even made it into the playoffs despite their large payroll. Which probably has more to do with the lack of coaching stability and an established identity than the players than just the money issue.

And on top of that, there's this tweet from Taylor Twellman in response to Montreal crashing out of the CCL finals:

An in-depth look at the real issue for @MLS teams competing in "free market" tournaments like #CCL. #MLSvLigaMX pic.twitter.com/Y6LbZG88cV — Taylor Twellman (@TaylorTwellman) April 30, 2015

This does help the Hunts' case regarding their plan on how they conduct their business in the transfer market, although their case was specifically for the MLS Cup and this tweet was about balancing a team over the course of a tournament.

In the end, we still don't really know conclusively about which transfer market plan is the best. There seems more to it than just splashing the cash - having a coach in place who knows how to build his team can do the trick but that's for another article. Perhaps Oscar Pareja prefers not to have that "star" player on his roster given his proven track record with youth players and developing them.

Since the evidence doesn't point to either way, perhaps the Hunts do have a point to their method. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing just one "star" player come to Frisco just to boost overall excitement and attendance. But I certainly wouldn't want to throw Michael Bradley money around at this point.