[OC] Need another DC United podcast in your life? Episode 1 of the Capital City Soccer Show is up now!
I have a pathologic need to think/talk about this team so figured I would record and share it. Episode 1 is looking at the salary cap, GAM figures, and comparing last year's roster to this years. I took a look at what spots we have open to upgrade and what free agents I think could help this team.
Episode 1: Holiday Salary Cap Breakdown
I'm also dropping here some visual content that I made to help myself understand the state of the roster. This is all heavily based on the work done by Soccerwise in their salary tables/depth chart, so please go subscribe to them for access.
First up is a visual breakdown of last year's salary cap vs. this year's. Each square represents about $71k in salary (aka the reserve minimum). Red means DP, blue means U22, and yellow means TAM. It's a little tricky to directly compare given I played with the rectangle sizes of some players to make them fit, but I still think it's interesting to look at:
The first thing to notice is just how much space we have compared to last year. Tons of the big contracts are gone and we've basically only added small salaries. Peglow and Jun Hong are still unknown, but at least Jun Hong's cap hit will be small given he is U22. I think we should be expecting some higher profile, TAM-level signings in the rest of the offseason. Hurts to see the enormous black hole that is Klich's DP spot.
As an aside, some of this is for sure wrong as at least KDP and Bartlett have signed new deals which will increase their salary, but I don't think it'll change the overall picture too much.
Next is a depth chart for us in both the 3-4-3 and 4-1-3-2 since Lesesne seemed to alternate between both. Again modified from Soccerwise's depth chart (seriously, go subscribe). Color coding is the same, though I also included grey to mean someone who can step in in a pinch but is better elsewhere.
The way I see it, there are five spots of need: depth for either fullback, starting level CB, and winger/attacking midfield starters. Fullback depth should be cheap and easy, and I think Antley will figure into that as well when healthy. Given we've dropped 4 TAM level contracts, we for sure have space to bring in high-level starters in the other spots. As mentioned in the pod, I really, really hope that's not how they see Peglow, because his career history does not indicate a difference-making attacker. In my mind, Stroud should be pushing a TAM guy for the RW spot, and KDP and Pirani should be in a 3 man struggle for the other two starting attacking spots along with a TAM attacker.
Anyway let me know what you think! This is a new format for me so still ironing out a lot of kinks. Solo rambling for 30 minutes is tough but hopefully it's at least intelligible. Happy new year!