Analyzing MLS Roster Strategies 2024

Here at Sportsology Group, we are deeply interested in learning more about what drives success within global leagues, and specifically, the MLS. Aided by this new access to information, we decided to study the current roster profiles of the three CSOs who have been voted the best in the league for the past two seasons by a group of their peers: Tim Bezbatchenko of Columbus (since departed the Crew for Black Knight FC, owners of Bournemouth in the EPL), John Thorrington of LAFC, and Ernst Tanner at Philadelphia. Furthermore, as a bonus, we decided to also examine the roster of Atlanta United. This is due to the fact that CEO Garth Lagerwey is no longer technically considered as CSO in the survey, but he won it by a wide margin the last season he was a part of it. We’ll look to examine this new information, coupled with salary data provided by the MLSPA, and see what interesting decisions we can find within the rosters while providing brief commentary based on this publicly available data.

Los Angeles FC

Eduard Atuesta as a DP

While it’s become more common for clubs to utilize a DP designation on players who can be bought down using allocation money (AM), the specific choice of Atuesta is interesting. LAFC have three non-DPs who earn more than Atuesta and can also be bought down: Ilie Sánchez, Aaron Long and Mario González (currently on loan). However, while it would take roughly $6K in AM to cover Atuesta’s difference from his current salary to the Maximum Salary Budget Charge (MSBC), it would take around $584K, $576K and $928K for those other players listed respectively (it is unclear if Mario González is a Special Discovery player, however his Transfermarkt profile was used to source his transfer costs to calculate the amortized annual budget charges added to his salary).

Therefore, our hypothesis is that LAFC wanted to conserve as much AM this season for any potential future moves they might make in the upcoming secondary window, and thus, chose the player that had the lowest salary that was over the MSBC to give the DP tag to. Essentially, if they believed there was a scenario in which they wanted to bring in two senior DPs (more on this later) and make additional transactions that would require notable amounts of AM to complete, the conversion of Atuesta to a non-DP should not become an obstacle with regards to AM spend.

Furthermore, as a player currently on loan from Palmeiras, Atuesta’s general position as a DP is flexible for LAFC. The club has an option to purchase the player on a contract until 2027 potentially.

Stipe Biuk as a U22 Initiative

With Biuk out on loan currently, LAFC is able to hold three other U22 Initiative (U22i) players on their roster: Omar Campos, David Martínez, and Cristian Olivera. If Biuk wasn’t on loan, it wouldn’t be possible to have four different U22i players on the active roster at the same time. However, it has been widely reported that soon the league will allow for that scenario to exist. Under this new rule change, teams with only two DPs will be allowed to have four U22i players on the roster AND will be given $2 million in AM.

With Olivier Giroud set to join the club as a DP this summer, this would give LAFC three total DPs. At the end of the season, if LAFC should choose that they want to maintain their four U22i players with that status, they have a path to accomplish that. Assuming Atuesta’s purchase option price, amortized across the length of the contract, combined with his annual salary is less than the maximum amount a player can be bought down from (~$1.68M in 2024, meaning Atuesta’s purchase option would have to be less than ~$3M), they could buy him down to a non-DP slot. Finally, not only then could they get their 4 U22i players, but also they would receive that $2 million in AM we hypothesize that they might be in need of.

Philadelphia Union

Alejandro Bedoya - Player Professional Development Role

Although we believe there are other clubs that have this designation on their roster, according to the released roster profiles, the Philadelphia Union are the only club in the MLS this season who are utilizing a lesser-known roster mechanism: the Player Professional Development Role. While there are a notable number of details behind this designation that warrant a separate deep-dive, the net of it is: with league approval, one player on a club’s roster per year can have an additional job with the club which can pay a salary up to 50% of the player’s unadjusted salary budget charge for the year (maximum of $75K). It is our understanding that this additional salary is not included in a team’s salary cap considerations.

As reported towards the end of last season, there had been some back-and-forth on whether or not Bedoya was going to end up getting resigned. Now with this new contract, which gives him the dual role on top of being a player of “player development and front office specialist”, Bedoya could be making up to $525K ($450K guaranteed compensation + max of $75K in additional income for this second role with the club). Last year, Bedoya’s guaranteed compensation was $1.06M.

DP Strategy From Here

Although reports indicate that Julián Carranza is on the way out, is on the way out, the Union are in the same boat entering this upcoming transfer window: they have two Senior DPs and one U22i player. Where do Philly go from here?

While the club has become a part showcase, part revolving door of talented youth players, they’ve also maintained the core of their club. Bedoya, Andre Blake, Jack Elliot, Jakob Glesnes and Kai Wagner are now going on five seasons together. They’ve achieved this rare feat of MLS roster continuity in part due to the use of AM. Currently, they use approximately $1.9M to buy down that group of players (remove Bedoya, insert Tai Baribo). This would match nicely with the $2M in GAM that the club would receive under the new regulations in 2025 while only having two DPs.

Given their young crop of players that continue to excel, the Union could then use those four U22i spots to keep Homegrown players who might be on the senior roster in the near future / next season (Quinn Sullivan, Brandan Craig) to the U22i slot budget charges (Ages younger than 20: $150K, 21-25: $200K for 2024). Given that Jack McGlynn and Nathan Harriel both signed extensions in the last 18 months (both their second contracts with the club), they are no longer eligible for this designation.

Columbus Crew

Overall Flexibility

When evaluating the Crew’s roster spotlight, no individual decision immediately jumps out. The whole picture put together though, is pretty impressive.

Their three top earners are all DPs (Diego Rossi, Cucho Hernández, and Darlington Nagbe), with Nagbe below the Maximum Targeted Allocation Money Amount (MTAMA). In total, the amount of TAM currently used by the club for players over the MSBC in 2024 is an estimated $1.1M *. Seeing that LAFC is using at least an estimated $1.6M to buy down players (Jesús Murillo’s purchase price is unknown), Philadelphia is at $1.9M, and Atlanta is at least $2.2M (Xande Silva’s purchase price is unknown), this a low amount compared to the Crew’s peers in this piece.

Given Nagbe’s salary, the club currently has the flexibility to add another U22i player, another DP, or if the rules change as we’ve previously mentioned, the ability next season to add another 3 U22i players and receive $2M in AM (Alexandru Matan will no longer qualify for a U22i slot next season if he signs a new contract with club as his current deal expires at the end of this season). Furthermore, they have multiple open international roster slots to work with.

All of this in the broader context that they currently possess the 21st highest payroll in the MLS a season removed from winning MLS Cup and being CCC finalists this season. This efficiency is further emphasized by an analysis we completed at the conclusion of last season which showed that they received some of the most Goals Added for AM spent on TAM players.

*It should be noted that as of the writing of this the Crew have just signed Dylan Chambost, and are in the process of selling Aidan Morris while acquiring Aziel Jackson. These transactions will no doubt change the specifics of what we wrote above.

Atlanta United

Bartosz Slisz’s Five-Year Contract

If you pay attention to European Football, you’re probably aware that in May 2022 Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital acquired a majority stake in Chelsea. You’re also probably aware that Boehly is a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Finally then, you might be aware that after that transaction, Chelsea began employing contractual strategies that resemble those of MLB franchises: long-term player contracts. Chelsea, which is subject to PL and UEFA (most years) salary regulations, realized the power of long-term contracts in that they allow clubs to spread out transfer costs across a longer time horizon. The result? Lower annual player costs, helping alleviate total spend against those salary regulations. In Slisz, Atlanta United have employed a similar strategy.

Slisz is one of only five players in the entire MLS (approximately just under 0.1% of all players in the league) who is signed to a contract till 2028 (this is admittedly not inclusive of all five-year player contracts though). This fraternity of sorts drops to just two when considering TAM players alone (two others are U22i players, and the other is a Young DP)*. When digging deeper into Slisz’s contract and transfer cost, it becomes clear why this was a necessary move by Atlanta.

Slisz’s guaranteed compensation for 2024 is just $830K, however, his transfer fee was an estimated $3.46M. Dividing that acquisition cost by the number of guaranteed contract years (five) and adding that to his salary this season comes out to $1.523M. This is notable because, if his contract was only for four years, his 2024 budget charge would have been $1.696M. Because this is just over the MTAMA of $1.684M, this would have meant Slisz would have had to have been considered a DP whose salary could not be bought down. Therefore, it is the long length of Slisz’s contract which saved Atlanta from a potential roster headache.

Long-term contracts are of course not silver bullets without consequences. The potential downside is that if Slisz doesn’t pan out, Atlanta would be liable to own his contract and its costs for the entirety of five years. However, even if Atlanta in that scenario couldn’t find a trade/transfer partner to offload him to, one of the recent MLS rule updates would come to the club’s advantage in this particular hypothetical: teams now are able to buy-out two players’ contracts per season.

With this in hand, starting next year, Atlanta would have eight total “buy-out slots” available for the rest of Slisz’s contract. This therefore would de-risk the scenario in which Slisz doesn’t meet performance expectations from a salary cap perspective.

Furthermore, as outlined by the 2020-2028 MLS CBA, the MSBC will be around $883K in 2027 (2028 not available). Even if we assume that Slisz’s contract has a ~7% escalator and grows by that amount every year (based on an average of recent player contracts signed with Lagerwey’s oversight), that means his guaranteed compensation in 2027 will be ~$1M. Therefore, while it requires almost $840K in AM to buy his contract down in 2024, in 2027 we predict it will only cost $641K. So in conclusion, given the nature of the CBA, this long-term contract’s annual relative costs should actually go down.

*Notably, two of these five players are members of the Los Angeles Galaxy. The Galaxy’s CSO is Will Kuntz, who spent time as Director of Player Relations in the league office.

Article Assumptions

• Players’ transfer costs are paid out from a cash flow perspective equally across the length of the contract, and thus their salary budget charges are amortized equally across the length of their guaranteed contract.
• Loaned-out players had their full salary/budget charge covered by the team they were loaned to.