MLSCore: How MLS Teams Are Built By Year
A different way to analyze MLS team building
With the release of the MLS Roster Profiles, we’ve seen so many people be creative when analyzing a roster. From looking at supplemental spots to GAM left and more, there have been various ways to see the ideas of sporting directors.
I wanted to try something a bit different. Often, across other major American sports leagues, you can analyze a team’s flexibility when it comes to spending by analyzing when their contracts expire. MLS is a bit more complex when it comes to the traditional sports leagues. For one, it’s not as simple as a contract amount when looking at how much cap space a player will take off. There are various other fees, including the respective transfer fee paid by the club for the player. Second, compared to traditional soccer leagues, there’s one key difference: MLS has option years. A team can exercise an option on a player, making some years not guaranteed in a deal.
The idea with this exercise is to see what guaranteed deals are on the books for a team each year. Yes, those players may have option years on their deal as well. Essentially, if a team wanted to, how fast could they turn over a roster? In theory, a club can decline every option year if they want to and move on. That’s not going to happen in reality. For example, I expect St. Louis City to exercise its option on Henry Kessler for 2026, a player whom they spent a substantial amount of money on.
I also only focused on the senior roster just to hone in on the primary roster build versus some of the supplemental pieces, who do not count against the cap.
Finally, this isn’t perfect. I did my best to try and get the newest additions after March 3 to the sheet, but I may have missed some players. Overall, it should be close to accurate.
Let’s dive in.
As you can see, we have a lot to break down.
2029: Closer Than You Think
For one, 2029 is a long time away. Yet, there are four players with contracts that extend that far. Those players are:
Nicolás Dubersarsky (Austin FC)
Luca Orellano (FC Cincinnati)
Lucas Sanabria (LA Galaxy)
Telasco Segovia (Inter Miami)
Three of the four are U22 Initiative Players, while Orellano’s contract length pushes him to the TAM threshold. My guess is this helps with pushing him out of the full DP Range and making that amortized deal TAM eligible.
These deals go beyond the current CBA, which expires at the end of the 2027 season. The three U22 players should still be on those cap hits, but the question will be whether there will be rule changes that are done with the initiative. These deals also may look good in retrospect, with MLS’s cap continuously increasing year after year. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 2028, we saw an even bigger cap and these contracts taking up smaller amounts.
A Busy 2026 Offseason Coming…
… for potentially the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City. Houston leads the league with 16 guaranteed deals that expire at the end of the 2025 season, while SKC has 13. Now, again, do we expect Houston to decline all 16? Of course not; some names you’d recognize that have options include Artur, Ibrahim Aliyu, Jack McGlynn, Amine Bassi, and Sebastian Kowalcyzk. However, they have the flexibility across their entire roster to make some changes. Franco Escobar, Gabe Segal, and Andrew Tarbell have no options on their deal. The Dynamo have room for a lot of turnover if they would like to do so.
SKC has a bit of a different story. They are clearly in a rebuild and, after firing Peter Vermes, may have as close to a clean slate as possible if they choose. Both U22 initiative players, Logan Ndenbe and Robert Voloder, are expiring with no options. Joaquin Fernandez and Erik Thommy are amongst TAM players that also have no options for the seasons after. Willy Agada is another player who can be let go. For a club that will have a new coach coming in, they can drastically evolve this team if they choose to play in a different style of play.
Four teams have 12 players that are expiring in 2025: Cincinnati, Miami, Orlando, and St. Louis. Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Luis Suarez are the big names here. There have been rumors of a Messi extension, but nothing about his friends. Is there potential for a change? Could Miami retool for one last Messi run?
In the case of Cincinnati, the team with the most TAM players on its roster, there is a lot that could be done here, especially if the team suffers the same fate as last season. A lot of their TAM players have options such as Corey Baird, Yuya Kubo, Teenage Hadebe, Obinna Nwobodo, Miles Robinson, Matt Miazga, Sergio Santos, and DeAndre Yedlin. The players are combining to make $8.65 million this season. A lot of room to utilize cap space if Chris Albright wants to go in that direction.
More of the same
Don’t expect too much change when it comes to teams like the New York Red Bulls, New England, and Austin FC. In the case of Austin, the team has eight players tied up from 2027 onward, including all of their DPs and their lone U22 player. A lot of their new signings have been locked up to these longer deals, with their core on the team for the near future.
When it comes to New England, there’s been a clear roster-building plan with their player recruitment. While we haven’t seen it translate on the field well, many of their TAM players and U22 players have contracts expiring in 2027. Both of their DP’s, Chancalay and Carles Gil, have expirations in 2026, with options in 2027. Only 4-5 players are on deals that can end in 2025.
RBNY is in that boat with only five players guaranteed deals ending in 2025. Again, it seems like they’ll have more room to maneuver in 2026 if they’d like to, with both Chupo-Moting and Forsberg’s contracts having options in 2027. Overall, the teams will have to transfer out players or find solutions for them if they want to overhaul the roster.
Not Now, But Later
When doing this work, some teams struck me as clear outliers when it comes to roster building. There seemed to be some sort of pattern with a couple of teams when it comes to the expiration dates, but for one of them, it’s just truly something different.
If the San Jose Earthquakes wanted to, they could have the most overhaul of any team in the next two years. They have 11 contracts that expire in 2025 and another seven on the senior roster in 2026. In fact, no player has a guaranteed deal past 2026 across their entire roster. There are a lot of ways the team can go with this build. They can bring in more of the players that coach Bruce Arena wants. They can clear TAM room through Mark Anthony Kaye, Josef Martinez, Amahl Pellegrino, Rodrigues, and Bruno Wilson. I mean, there in itself is a lot of changes that the Earthquakes can do and build that middle of the roster. They are the only team not to have players past 2026 across MLS.
Nine teams have no one under contract past 2027: Colorado, Minnesota, Columbus, DC, Orlando, Nashville, SKC, Toronto, and, of course, San Jose.
The Colorado Rapids have made some splashes this off-season and seemingly want to keep the group together for multiple years. Multiple key players have deals ending in 2027, and it almost looks like an intentional move. We’re talking Djordie Mihailovic, Rafael Navarro, all of their U22’s, Reggie Cannon, and Sam Vines. All in all, that number is nine on the senior roster. Again, I wonder if they are a team anticipating some sort of a drastic change with the CBA and wanting a fresh roster when that comes, or if it’s just about keeping a group together for a couple of seasons.
The same can be said about Minnesota United, who have eight guaranteed deals ending in 2027. Again, their core group of players, which includes both of their DP’s and two of their four U22’s, are under deals until 2027. The one aspect that makes this interesting is that many players, such as in the case of Colorado, have option years in 2028. Remember, when players have option years, their amortized fee goes off their tag. Therefore, Kelvin Yeboah would only be on the books for his salary, and his fee would be gone from any equation. Let’s just say he doesn’t get sold and goes the length of his deal; we could see Yeboah on a TAM deal when we hit 2028. It all depends on what happens with the CBA.
Wrap Up
This isn’t a perfect way to analyze a team, but it’s just something different I wanted to try. You can play around with the data above, but it’s different to see how some teams have a lot more wiggle room, while other teams are locking down players for a lot longer time.
Do I think there’s an optimal strategy to this? Honestly, I’m not sure. First off, every team should be signing U22 players to deals that have option years in the season they turn 26 to avoid any Dejan Joveljic situations from happening. I wouldn’t worry about the years in that instance.
When it comes to the CBA expiry at the end of the 2027 season, that’s when it gets a bit more interesting. If I was a team, I’d look to have a younger player signed for a longer period. Owen Wolff is an example I think about quite a bit. Sign him to a U22 deal that has him on your books until the 2031 season, when he will be 26. He obviously may not stay at the club for that long, but you’re signing him at money that, regardless of if the U22 initiative stays or goes, should be lower than the cap increase.
Let’s not use a U22 in the next example. Let’s just say in 2025, a player is standing out for you. Sign him to a deal that puts him into the 2028 year guaranteed with an option for 2029. We saw this in the NBA with the new CBA and TV rights deal. When those hit, the old contracts look like bargains compared to the new deals that are being funded by new money pumped in.
That’s it. I’d keep the powder dry for 2028 unless you just have some outstanding players ready to go. We just don’t know what could happen in the next labor talks. Could MLS scrap their system completely and go flat cap? Maybe. Could MLS keep their system as is and just increase the salary cap? Yup. With so much uncertainty going into 2028, I’d say keeping the most flexibility (unless you’re dealing with HGs or if you think you can get a good value deal for a player performing) would be priority number one if I were a technical director. I understand you’ll more than likely have players signed for the 2028 season in 2027, especially with newer deals being signed for DPs and whatnot.
Hell, we excluded it in our analysis, but putting options for 2028 that remove the amortized amount is just so smart. If I could, I’d try to offer older DPs a 2.5+1 deal. Sign them in the summer, get them with two years, and then offer a sizeable bump in the option year. They would shed the DP tag in all likelihood, benefit from the boost in money in ‘28, and help the team with clearing up the cap in a year where the cap should increase.
Can you get a good deal on a contract before the new CBA? Probably. Teams who are studying this will have a headstart in 2028 and, much like F1 teams who nail their cars with new regulations, will hold that advantage for 1-2 years before everyone else catches up.
We’ll see how teams will stack their roster as the years creep on. Hope you enjoy this FAMily, I love you all.
Till next time.