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The Union’s Protected/Unprotected List

Today’s trade and Expansion Draft news is coming in unpredictable bursts and we’ll have a more reflective piece up tomorrow morning. This is what is known so far:

At around 5:35pm, the Union announced via Twitter that they have acquired defensive midfielder Brian Carroll from Columbus Crew. A post on the Union website minutes later said Carroll was acquired at the cost of “a conditional second round pick in the 2011 Major League Soccer SuperDraft and allocation money.” Carroll won the MLS Cup with DC United under Peter Nowak in 2004.

After numerous delays, The Union released its protected and unprotected lists at 6:20pm.

Philadelphia Union’s Protected Players:

1.         Califf, Danny  (DF)
2.         Carroll, Brian (MF)
3.         Gonzalez, Juan Diego (DF)
4.         Harvey, Jordan (DF)
5.         Le Toux, Sebastien (FW)
6.         Mapp, Justin (MF)
7.         Nakazawa, Kyle (MF)
8.         Orozco Fiscal, Michael (DF)
9.         Stahl, Toni (MF)
10.       Torres, Roger (MF)
11.       Williams, Sheanon (DF)

Generation adidas Players (exempt from selection):

1.         McInerney, Jack (FW)
2.         Mwanga, Danny (FW)
3.         Okugo, Amobi (MF)

Unprotected Players:

1.         Arrieta, Cristian (DF)
2.         Coudet, Eduardo (MF)
3.         Fred (MF)
4.         Jacobson, Andrew (MF)
5.         Knighton, Brad (GK)
6.         Miglioranzi, Stefani (MF)
7.         Moreno, Alejandro (FW)
8.         Noone, J.T. (DF)
9.         Salinas, Shea (MF)
10.       Seitz, Chris (GK)
11.       Zimmerman, Nick (FW)

18 Comments

  1. Wow. Painful. Salinas, Jacobson — ouch.

  2. It seems like Jacobson was the odd man out and Salinas was left out because of Carroll. Salinas or Jacobson is gone and I guess we will protect which ever survives first? Don’t know how I feel about the Carroll purchase and obviously I am disappointed to see the mess that is Jordan Harvey on the protected list. Would much rather have seen Salinas there in place of Harvey. Won’t judge Carroll until I see him in a Union jersey, but he certainly has the talent. Will be disappointed to see Jacobson go. Who goes first Jacobson, Fred or Salinas?

    • Coin flip between Jacobson and Salinas.

      • This was exactly my first thought. Personally, I hope we can hold on to Salinas, even at the expense of losing Jacobson. Then I think the obvious move is to protect whichever of those two didn’t get snapped up. The real wild card is who, if anyone, goes second? I could see Vancouver or Portland grabbing any of Fred, Moreno, Zimmerman or Arrieta. Also, WTF HARVEY?! Really, no one was going to take him so why use up a precious spot to protect him?

      • I am trying to remain positive and hope that Nowak/Hackworth were able to judge that Jacobson would go instead of Salinas. To me losing Salinas would hurt far worse than Jacobson because we have Okugo and now Carroll. At the moment I saw this I have to say my reaction to seeing Salinas exposed was that this could be the biggest mistake in the Union’s short history. I wish we could just get the expansion draft over with tomorrow. Anyone wanna start a petition to ban any more teams from entering MLS? haha

  3. Mike Servedio says:

    Carroll seems a like a decent pick up, but in a position that Philly already has so many guys at. To pick him up and leave Salinas unprotected has me concerned that the team will once again forgo any width. With the possibility of Coudet, Migs, and Jacobson coming back, and Torres, Okugo, and Stahl definitely returning, what do we do with all these central midfielders?
    Seeing Jacobson on the outside is a surprise. Was all that time at the end of the season an audition that he failed? Seemed like he had some promise to me.
    Kind of awesome to see both GKs left out. Neither deserved to be protected probably. Would be awesome to see the U go out and find a veteran for 2011.

    • Quantity does not mean quality and you can bet Coudet will not be back even if not picked which you might say the same for Stahl- the Union could drop either- the contracts are not guarenteed. Therefore, we have Okugo and Migs and Brian Carrol is much better than both of them (hopefully Okugo will improve) the guy did just play 90 mins for the USMNT and has been a stalwart for one of the top 3 teams in the league for the last couple years. I think he is a great addition. Also, Jacobson is not a DM but more of a box-to-box guy in the mold of Michael Bradley. He does not sit back well with an AM but plays best when using a flat 4 across the middle which Nowaks game plan does not encourage.

      I am very disappointed about Salinas. When you look at our list we still have no width other than Le Toux (who I think is more effective as a forward than a wing). Torres could blossom into a more wide player but right now his game still has him playing more like Fred as opposed to Brad Davis.

      I, like I guess everyone else, will wonder how Salinas was left off for Harvey and Nakazawa-his free kicks are awesome but he is completely ineffective in the run of play.

      • Dont discount the width play of Torres and Mapp. Neither has the same speed or tenacity as Salinas, but both arguably serve better crosses. I am disappointed to see Salinas out there too, but so were his admirers in San Jose.

  4. Does Stahl have an international status that entered in to the mix. The rules include this “Clubs are restricted in the number of international player(s) that they may make available. Clubs may make available a number of international players equal to their total number of international players minus three, provided that if a Club has three or fewer international players it may make available not more than one.”

    • Yes, he does. He counts as an international. That’s why he was protected, I imagine. It was him or Coudet, basically, and Coudet is 36 years old and coming off an injury, so no one’s going to take him.

  5. Dan can you clarify for me if the Union can lose 2 players in the first round of expansion draft? ie. Could Vancouver select Salinas and Jacobson from the Union? Also if no one is selected from the Union by Vancouver do we still get to protect a 12th man or is that only if we lose someone?

    • Once a player is selected from your team, you get to pull one back. Its not done so much by round as pick. Meaning that Portland and Vancouver could not conspire to each pick from the same team each round negating their +1 protection.

      Yes, technically one team could select two players from the same team, but again, theres an extra protection slot in there.

      If no one is selected, there isnt a reason to protect a 12th guy. ie, if neither PDX of VAN come after our exposed players, we wouldn’t need to protect extra players and, in fact, we might break out in spontaneous dancing and shouting.

  6. Part of me hopes that Nowak/Hackworth looked at the current rosters of Portland (?) and Vancouver (?) and figured they wouldn’t want Salinas or Jacobson. I agree with all of you, these are the guys I’m most disappointed to see left out.

    But probably the biggest disappointment is the protection of Harvey. This means we’re going to see this guy start and play another complete season. I’m not going to repeat the critque, with so little technical skill, or risk taking in his passing, he should be defensively effective, but he isn’t.

    Maybe we’ll lost Moreno, or a goalie. Or Migs.

    • Agreed, the fact that Nowak/Hackworth believe Harvey should be starting left back next year makes me cry. Arrieta caused less problems at the back than Harvey and he was out of a job in a second. Any team that watches video of the Union will know all they have to do to beat us is wait for Harvey to pull up and attack his side.

  7. A note for others reading this post. We can’t simply look at our list and figure out whats going to happen – so much of this has to do with talent available league wide. For instance, if you review the available players, you will notice almost half the teams left a young, usually fast winger available Ashe, Nyassi, da Luz, etc. Salinas, while inherently valuable to his fans, not only has to be measured against available options, but against other wing players, other midfielders, other salaries, etc. that are out there.

    • Alexandre and Warner from RSL, Wes Thompson from Colorado and Boggs from NE and on and on. The Union list looks pretty meager in talent compared to teams like RSL, Seattle, Dallas, and NE (Bobby Shuttleworth when Onstead, Greenenbaum, Josh Sanders, both Union keepers, Dystraka, Greg Sutton are all available). Truly it will come down to how our players fit their system: basically only Knighton, Jacobson, Salinas and Fred are viable options (Fred barely) and the list of available players is pretty deep at all three of their positions- really what there isn’t is forwards and CBs.

  8. Shocked to see both Salinas and Jacobson left exposed, but I understand that the technical director at Vancouver is Tom Soehn, former coach of DCU … i.e. Andrew could possibly be snagged by the ‘caps, Salinas pulled back and protected, thereby ensuring only one of our keepers is pegged to depart.

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