With the news that Giles Barnes won’t be transferred/loaned to Blackburn, I’ve had a number of people ask me if the Whitecaps could still add a Designated Player, while keeping Barnes salary on the books. Using the MLS Player’s Union numbers from last September, we can get a close approximation to just what the Caps salary budget might look like heading into the 2017 season.

1. Barnes – $480,625 (DP)

2. Laba – $480,625 (DP, INT’L)

The Designated Player threshold is always calculated at 12.5% of the year’s total Salary Budget. Any player with a total budget charge (salary + fees) greater than the threshold is classified as a DP, unless bought down with Allocation funds.

3. Reyna – $150,000 (TAM, INT’L) – $600k TAM (TRANSFER)

Targeted Allocation Money, or TAM, are funds that can only be used on players who’s budget charge exceeds the DP threshold, but who’s total charge is less than $1m. Yordy Reyna is the only player the Caps have announced that they’ve used TAM on so far this season, so for the sake of this exercise, we’ll assume that they bought him down to the allowable minimum ($150k), and that his total budget charge came in at $750k ($250k salary + $500k transfer fee). This leaves the Caps with $600k of the $1.2m TAM each team started 2017 with. It’s possible that the Caps could have leftover reserves of TAM from the previous season, but because we have no way of knowing, we’ll assume that all of that was spent on Techera and Bolaños last year.

4. Ousted – $378,933 (INT’L)

5. Techera – $345,000 (INT’L)

6. Waston – $318,125 (INT’L)

7. Bolaños – $253,500 (INT’L)

8. Dean – $191,000

9. Williams – $171,500 – $200k GAM (TRADE)

General Allocation Money, or GAM, is the life blood of the MLS transfer system. Teams exchange GAM, rather than real funds, when buying or selling assets from each other, and to also use buy down any player’s salary budget up to the minimum ($150k). Each club received a $200k allotment of GAM at the start of the 2017 season, with clubs who missed the 2016 playoffs, or qualified for CONCACAF Champion’s League competitions receiving extra allotments. With the Caps missing the playoffs, and qualifying for the CCL quarterfinals, they will receive $600k GAM total for 2017.

The final way to acquire GAM is through the transferring of players outside of MLS for fees. Kianz Froese was transferred to Fortuna Düsseldorf, but because he was only transferred for future incentives, the Caps wouldn’t receive any extra GAM at this time.

The only GAM the Caps have announced using so far this season, was in acquiring Sheanon Williams from Houston through trade. Again, because the actual amount of GAM exchanged wasn’t announced, we’ll have to assume a valuation for the trade – based on recent trades where the Allocation figures were announced (Dax McCarty – $400k and Molino -$650k), $200k seems like a fair number for Williams. This leaves the Caps with $400k GAM left to use for 2017, plus any reserves, which we’ll again assume don’t exist for the purposes of this exercise.

10. Harvey – $165,000

11. Manneh – $157,000

12. Hurtado – $121,091

13. Edgar – $113,416

14. Mezquida – $88,000 (INT’L)

15. Jacobson – $87,500

16. Parker – $84,750

17. Nerwinski – $80,000

The Caps haven’t announced Jacob Nerwinski’s signing yet, but having cleared a roster spot through the Froese transfer, it has to be a foregone conclusion now. I’ve given him a similar salary to Parker because that’s what makes sense to me.

18. Flores – $68,385 (INT’L)

19. de Jong – $65,000

20. Tornaghi – $65,000

MLS only use 20 players on a team’s roster when calculating the total salary budget, they call this the Senior Roster. (I bumped both Marcel de Jong and Paolo Tornaghi up to the 2017 minimum, since both were earning the 2016 minimum last season.)

21. Greig – $0k

22. Richey – $0k

Kyle Greig and Spencer Richey were added from WFC2 this offseason, as a result we have no published figures for their salaries as of yet. Based off of previous USL signings, I’m going to assume that they’ve both been signed to league minimum contracts, thereby allowing them to be placed off-budget.

23. Levis – $0k

24. Teibert – $0 (HG)

The 4 spots players occupy after the Senior Roster are called the Supplemental Roster. These spots can only be used on players making the senior minimum for 2017 ($65k), Homegrowns, who can earn up to $120k over the senior minimum, and Generation Adidas players, who can earn whatever the league signs them at, and yet still remain off-budget.

25. Davies – $0 (HG)

26. Bustos – $0 (HG)

27. McKendry – $0 (HG)

28. Seiler – $0

Finally, the last 4 spots on an MLS roster are called the Reserve Roster. These spots can only be used on players earning the Reserve Roster minimum for 2017 ($53), Homegrowns, and Generation Adidas players, all of which must be under the age of 24.

LOANED – Adekugbe – $0 (HG)

Sam Adekugbe is on loan at Brighton, so his salary won’t hit the budget until his loan expires and he re-joins the team.

(DP) – Designated Player – 2/3, (INT’L) – International – 8/10, (HG) – Homegrown

2017 SALARY BUDGET: $3,845,000

TOTAL SALARY: $3,864,450

10% RAISE: $275,320

I’m including a 10% increase in salaries, which I calculated on the non-DP/TAM players since their budget charges are not fixed.

***SALARY BUDGET SPACE***

$3,845,000 – ($3,864,450 + $275,320) = -$294,770 Salary Budget Space

As you can see, based upon my model, the Caps are nearly $300k over the Salary Budget limit, but this is where the $400k of GAM we have left becomes important.

-$294,770 + $400,000 GAM = $105,230 Salary Budget Space

We can get a bit more space by using what’s left of the $600k of TAM on either Giles Barnes ($756,250) or Matias Laba ($720,500). We’ll go with Laba since we can get his budget charge down to the $150k minimum.

Laba – $720,500 – $570,500 TAM = $150,000

We can then take the difference between Laba’s DP budget charge, and his new minimum charge, and add that to our over all budget space.

($480,625 – $150,000) + $105,230 = $435,855 Salary Budget Space

So in conclusion, after adding up the Senior Roster, and exhausting all known GAM and TAM resources for 2017, it would not be possible for the Caps to add a Senior DP at this time. That being said, there’s obviously a number of unknown variables that could easily create the extra $44,770 of budget space with which they’d need to add that Senior DP.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below, you can also add me on Twitter at @GlassCityFC, or email me at glasscityfc@gmail.com.

PS. MLS is fucked. 🙃