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Ah, the Re-Entry Draft, where teams get to scrape everyone else's barrels and pick off those deemed not good enough, or previously deemed too good and rewarded too handsomely. It goes on Friday, but Toronto FC got a jump on proceedings by scraping their own barrel and coming up with Jeremy Hall and Andrew Wiedeman. Both were left off the list put out today by MLS, meaning they're no longer available to other teams. "That's the best Re-Entry Draft withdrawl of the modern era" Paul Mariner sadly didn't comment.
Now this doesn't guarantee that they'll be back next year, there's no reports that TFC have signed them up, so it seems like they're still in the negotiating phase. (Edit: Wiedeman confirmed that for sure he'll be back, tweeting "Stoked to be heading back to Toronto for another season" at 11pm Thursday night. Who needs to wait for the team to announce it, not Andy. Decided it was for the best not to reply "for a lot less cash right?"). Unlike Eric Avila though, who's still very much on that list, it shows there's a good chance they will be back in red next year.
If that negotiation ends in a realistic place, I'd be fine with either of them being re-signed. Hall offers coverage for a few different positions and though I'd hope he'd be in the starting eleven a lot less than he was in 2012, he's a good option to have off the bench, just not for the $149,000 he was making last year. Wiedeman I'm less sold on, but let's face it, the bottom end of the squad is always going to be filled with players of his talent, it may as well have at least one more person in there who's familiar with his surroundings and teammates. Also both of them are young and could hopefully improve and be with the team for a good few years. Stability has never really been TFC's plan A, it wouldn't be the worst thing to change that.
What is a realistic price, well it's a lot lower than they made last year, I'd peg their value at about $80,000 and $50,000 respectively, Hall's experience and versatility getting him the larger valuation.
Moving on to the draft, after the somewhat predictable non-event that was last Friday's first round of the Re-Entry draft, where Maicon Santos was the only player picked up, by Chicago, things should be a lot more active in round two. This is where teams have no obligation to any of the players they pick, and are free to negotiate whatever deal they think makes sense, with the players of course equally free to say no thanks.
Any team that selects a player has 7 days to extend a 'genuine' offer to that player. If they do that and no agreement is reached, the team still holds that player's MLS rights. Duane Rollins told me on twitter that a genuine offer means within 5% of their previous salary (and I'm too busy/lazy to do the research so I'll take his word for it). A sensible provision that makes sure a team can't intentionally lowball a player and then hold his MLS rights hostage.
Teams are only allowed to renegotiate with their own players if the rest of the league passes on them first, and those not extended genuine offers or not selected at all become full on free agents available to any team on a first come first served basis.
Those rules mean that there'll probably be a lot more teams taking a chance on players and hoping they can get them on the cheap, though you'd imagine a lot of the tire kicking and early negotiation has already been done, at least unofficially.
Last year 10 players were picked (3 had gone in stage 1) and though none of them really lit it up at their new clubs, and some of them retired without signing, some of them did go on to play a decent amount of games, such as Mark Burch for Seattle, or Andy Boyens at LA.
So there's a minor amount of treasure to be found there, here's the full list of players available, as per MLSSoccer.com.
Player Team
|
Player Name
|
CHI
|
Nolly, Jay
|
CHI
|
Bone, Corben
|
CHI
|
Gargan, Dan
|
CHV | Angel, Juan Pablo |
CHV | Vagenas, Peter |
CHV
|
Califf, Danny
|
CHV
|
Moreno, Alejandro
|
CLB
|
Hesmer, Will
|
CLB
|
James, Julius
|
COL
|
Marshall, Tyrone
|
COL
|
Palguta, Scott
|
COL
|
Casey, Conor
|
COL
|
Freeman, Hunter
|
COL
|
Smith, Jamie
|
COL
|
Joyce, Ian
|
COL
|
Nane, Joseph
|
COL
|
Wahl, Tyson
|
DC
|
Chabala, Michael
|
DAL
|
Guarda, Bruno
|
DAL
|
Hartman, Kevin
|
DAL
|
De Guzman, Julian
|
DAL
|
Sealy, Scott
|
HOU
|
Clark, Colin
|
KC
|
Aiyegbusi, Olukorede
|
KC
|
Sassano, Luke
|
LA
|
Barrett, Chad
|
LA
|
Boyens, Andrew
|
LA
|
Jordan, Bryan
|
LA
|
Noonan, Pat
|
MTL
|
Thomas, Shavar
|
NE
|
Murray Tim
|
NE
|
Gavin, Blair
|
NY
|
Gaudette, Bill
|
NY
|
Keel, Stephen
|
PHI
|
Harrison, Chase
|
POR
|
Palmer, Lovel
|
RSL
|
Araujo, Paulo Jr.
|
RSL
|
Reynish, Kyle
|
SEA
|
Weber, Andrew
|
SEA
|
Seamon, Mike
|
SJ
|
Alexandre, Jean
|
SJ
|
Ward, Tim
|
SJ
|
Corrales, Ramiro
|
SJ
|
Gjertsen, Joseph
|
SJ
|
Stephenson, Khari
|
TOR
|
Avila, Eric
|
TOR
|
Cann, Adrian
|
TOR
|
Harden, Ty
|
VAN
|
Thorrington, John
|
There's not that many things that have changed from the list put out last Friday, Santos is obviously off the table, as is Ike Opara, one of the more intriguing names on the original list who's now with Kansas City, and Dan Gargan is now on there as well after presumably not coming to an agreement with Chicago. Then of course there's Wiedeman and Hall.
Are there people on there that are worth picking up for TFC? Sure, but it really depends on the price and whether there's a realistic chance of the players agreeing to come to Toronto for a salary that would make sense to TFC. There are some players who may take whatever they can get to continue the dream of top flight pro soccer in North America, some may decide it's not worth it and go try their chances overseas or outside of football completely rather than continue slogging away for the league minimum. Others, such as Danny Califf back when he went from Philadelphia To Chivas last year, maybe Conor Casey or Dan Gargan or quite possibly many others, may just straight up want nothing at all to do with TFC's chaos.
Having said all that, there's definitely some intriguing names there, plenty of players who could add depth, and that, as well as several starting positions, is something TFC still very much need. Players like Gargan, Hunter Freeman or Julius James, just to stick to those who've previous been at TFC, could all do a basic job at the right price,
There's not a lot that jump out as being potential starting eleven help, Danny Califf would fall into that category, but as mentioned earlier, I doubt he'd be too enthusiastic. Colin Clark and Tyson Wahl are also names that I'd put in that category, and of course let's not forget Chad Barrett. He'd obviously need a bit of a pay cut, but I seriously think he could do a very good job alongside Danny Koevermans or Eric Hassli, and let's face it, even if he were the 3rd choice behind those two, there's a good chance that he'd get plenty of games to cover for injuries or when they needed a rest. I'd love to see Chad back here.
When talking to Kurt Larson, Earl Cochrane said 'there's a good chance' that TFC will do something. Given the anorexically thin roster right now and given that they have the first pick and thus don't have to worry about any other club scooping up their targets, it's probable we'll get somebody, or at least get the chance to negotiate with them.
We'll have a live thread going tomorrow afternoon to follow the action, guaranteed to be a little more lively than last week's turned out to be.