Sunday, March 04, 2012

The Roster As Is

The roster compliance deadline passed for Sporting KC without incident last week. KC is currently sitting below the roster max of 30 players, and is set on internationals currently. As of this moment, KC has 28 players currently on their roster. That only includes the players that are currently under contract, even if they are not in camp currently, and will likely not play a role in the team this year. If that stays the same, KC will have 2 more roster spots that could be used for one of the remaining 5 trialists.

Right now, I don't know who the players are that fit in roster spots 1 through 20, that count against the salary camp, or those that are considered cap exempt, in spots 21-30. But here's a look at the roster as it stands now with my guess as to who fits where.

Salary Budget Players
Matt Besler
Teal Bunbury
Julio Cesar
Aurelein Collin
Bobby Convey
Birahim Diop
Roger Espinoza
Michael Harrington
Kei Kamara
Eric Kronberg
Chance Myers
Paulo Nagamura
Jimmy Nielsen
Lawrence Olum
Jacob Peterson
CJ Sapong
Luke Sassano
Seth Sinovic
Graham Zusi

That's 19 of the 20 "Salary Budget Players" the team can have. There's one more player that likely fits into that group. Of the 9 remaing players, there are 2 players specifically that I would consider being the final "Salary Budget Player."

Those two are Korede Aiyegbusi and Michael Thomas. In the end I'd lean more towards Thomas just because of his experience in Sweden or AIyegbusi who has played sparingly over his 2 seasons in KC.

So if one of those two is the salary players, the other is "off budget" along with the following:

Dom Dwyer (GA)
Kevin Ellis
Cyprian Hedrick
Peterson Joseph
Jon Kempin
Soony Saad
Konrad Warzycha

As I stated above, as of the last preseason game, there were 5 players that were still fighting for 2 final roster spots, those 5 included 3 supplemental draft picks and two trialists. Included in that group is Stefan Antonijevic, Kyle Miller, and Shawn Singh, the 3 supplemental draft picks, Mozzi Gyorio and Sacir Hot, two trialists that have joined the team in preseason in Florida. KC could also opt to not sign any of those 3, instead leaving those roster spots open in case the team needs to fill a spot. Another point to remember is those spots don't have to be filled by the 10th, they could be left open, and signed weeks later if the team wanted to.

I'm leaving out the two goalkeepers, Scott Spangler and Steve Angevine, because if they're signed it means that KC has likely put Kronberg on IR and they'll take his roster spot until he comes off.

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