7 More Players Not Likely To Be Here In 2012

One's gone... will the other one be joining him?

One thing that cannot be said about the New England Revolution this off-season is that they have not been making moves.  We might not agree with them and some might be lipstick on a pig but there is a lot going on.  Last week the Revs waived Alan Koger, Otto Loewy and Andrew Sousa.  Ok so they are not household names for Revs fans and didn't see any playing time, but today we learned of seven additional players whose future here is not certain.



We'll start with Pat Phelan, Kheli Dube, and Ryan Cochrane.  All three have had their options declined and will be entered in the Re-Entry Draft.  The players can choose to opt out if they re-sign with the club, but that would mean signing a contract for likely less than they are currently making. Re-Entry works like this:

"Teams will be able to select players who fall under the following circumstances:

* Players who are at least 23 years old and have a minimum of three years of MLS experience whose options were not exercised by their clubs (available at option salary for 2012).

* Players who are at least 25 years old with a minimum of four years of MLS experience who are out of contract and whose club does not offer them a contract at their previous salary (available at 2011 salary).

* Players who are at least 30 years old with a minimum of eight years of MLS experience who are out of contract and whose club does not wish to re-sign them (available for at least 105 percent of their 2011 salary).

Players who are not selected in the Stage 1 draft will be made available for the Stage 2 draft on Dec. 12. Clubs selecting players in Stage 2 will negotiate a new salary with any player not under contract. 

Players who remain unselected after Stage 2 will be available to any MLS club on a first-come, first-served basis."

Now we move onto Rajko Lekic, Monsef Zerka, Franco Coria and our very first DP Milton Caraglio.  All four of these players have also had their options declined for next season. According to Jeff Lemieux, Mike Burns said that "There was a fairly expensive purchase price to transfer him here permanently, so we declined that transfer price", in reference to Franco Coria.

Declining the transfer fee to keep Coria here at the end of his loan is an understandable move.  While Coria made a decent impact the transfer fees being demanded are probably not worth it considering that it would all play into his salary cap number.

What is mind-boggling to us is that we are letting Caraglio, our first Designated Player, go.  Caraglio has certainly show promise and we were looking forward to him getting a full preseason in next year.  A fringe Argentine National Team and EPL prospect, this had the potential to be the new face of the organization.  The best we can tell is that he was actually here on a loan and not an actual transfer, something the FO didn't let out until he was here for a while... this is why we often refer to the FO and Revs PR as an Iron Curtain of information.  Caraglio's transfer fee based is probably well into the 7 figure range, and we're guessing the Revs don't want to spend (big surprise).

It is supposedly a similar situation with Lekic and Zerka, the team seemingly wants to work out deals with all three but not at the money the players want. This new FO sounds strikingly like the old one...unwilling to spend on talent.  The players that many thought the Revs could rebuild around may not be here because the Revs aren't willing to spend... surprise surprise...