Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Hohlbein Selected in First Stage of Re-Entry Draft

The first stage of the re-entry draft was today. The draft took a grand total of 5 minutes as all but two teams passed in the first round and those two passed in the second round. With the first pick, DC United selected Joseph Ngwenya of the Houston Dynamo. Heading into the draft a lot of speculation surrounded whether or not DC would use the first pick on Jimmy Conrad to help solidify their back line. Instead DC went for a cheaper option, and one to help their forward line that scored an MLS worst 21 goals last season.

The only other selection was by the Columbus Crew who picked up Sporting KC defender, Aaron Hohlbein. While everyone seemed to be predicting that Conrad would be the Wizards player selected, Hohlbein in the end made the most sense for most clubs, as he makes the league minimum $40,000 while also being fairly experienced making 43 appearances for KC in league play. Hohlbein's KC career looks to end with just under 3,500 minutes in league play (3,496), in 41 starts in those 43 appearances. He also scored two goals in the 2009 season for KC. In all competitions Hohlbein played in 48 games, 46 starts, and 3,945 minutes played. For the Crew he fills a much needed backup role in the center back position as they currently have Chad Marshall and Andy Iro to start but need to replace Eric Brunner who was taken in the expansion draft.

Now the teams have a chance to renegotiate with players not selected. This means that KC has a chance to renegotiate with Conrad and Josh Wolff. Overall I still thing it's unlikely that either one is going to be back next season playing in the new stadium in a SKC jersey. But we'll have to see over the next few days as the team has the ability to renegotiate through Monday.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why don't you think either of them will be back?
Jimmy has been huge for this team. I don't think he wants to end his career anywhere else and would be willing to sign at reduced salary.
Plus, why would they parade him around in the new jersey if they were just going to let him go?
If there's any player I want to see in the new stadium, its jimmy

Anonymous said...

I don't expect him back either, while he's been the "face" of the team, the side of the team that does that sort of thing (marketing) is different from the side that decides who is playing. I also think the stripping of the captaincy caused more problems behind closed doors than people thing.

As for why they paraded him around in the jersey, see my above comment about the marketing side vs the player side.

MOUFWASH said...

best of luck to him, meet his dad tailgating before, seems like good people

MOUFWASH said...

Thomas played the big lumbering CB role better than Jimmy did last season. I agree with Mike, I dont think he will be back. Have to think we will either bring someone in or we will see the CB pairing from the last game of Besler and Thomas, which I think is for the better.

Reepicheep said...

The day Vermes took the "C" from Conrad you could be sure it was his last season with the Wizards.

The renaming gig where they (SKC) made Conrad and Bravo model the new jerseys was very akward, bordering on embarrassing. I don't know how they got Jimmy to do that.