Thursday, October 20, 2011

Expansion Draft Rules Out

Once again Kansas City runs the risk of losing one of their players in this year's expansion draft to help fill the roster for the Montreal Impact. Yesterday MLS released the date as well as the basic rules for the draft.

The draft will be held on November 23, 3 days after the MLS Cup final in LA. The rules really haven't changed from the previous years when teams have entered the league. Like the 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006 expansion drafts, teams will only be losing at most 1 player to the expansion Impact. Generation Adidas and Home Grown players on the teams "off-budget" roster do not have to be protected. Outside of those, teams can protect 11 players. When it comes to teams' international players, they have to protect at least 3 of their international players, if a team has 3 or less internationals they can only expose 1 international in the draft. Designated players don't have to (but can be) be protected, unless they have a no-trade-clause.

I won't be touching on who the Wizards will protect until after they are eliminated from the playoffs, but for those that want to think about it now, here are a few things to remember. Teal Bunbury is very likely to graduate from the Generation Adidas program this year meaning that he would have to be protected should KC want to make sure they keep him. Jon Kempin and Kevin Ellis are both on the "off-budget" roster, as home-grown players they are therefore automatically protected. Finally, KC currently has 10 internationals on their roster, 3 of which will need to be protected for the draft, here are the current internationals on KC: Korede Aiyegbusi, Omar Bravo, Julio Cesar, Aurelien Collin, Daneil Cyrus, Jeferson, Peterson Joseph, Jimmy Nielsen, Craig Rocastle, and Milos Stojcev. The no-trade-clause for the DPs is an unknown for Bravo and Jeferson at this point, but if Jeferson has to be protected that throws a major wrench in KC's protection plans.

3 comments:

aletheist said...

I believe that Korede Aiyegbusi is also occupying an international slot. My understanding is that Daneil Cyrus does not count since he is on injured reserve. I wonder, though, if this means that SKC must protect 4 internationals, since the rules say that you can only expose 3 fewer than your number of slots--and 9-3=6.

aletheist said...

Never mind, the rule actually refers to the number of international players, not the number of international slots.

Mike said...

Actually you are right, I'd forgotten that Cyrus was on IR and his international spot had come available again. Aiyegbusi is still an international.