SANDY, Utah — Some good news came Real Salt Lake’s way courtesy of the league’s recently released roster rules. If you’ve been wondering how the team, already straining the salary cap limits, was going to fill out an expanded 30-man roster, these rules provide some helpful illumination.
The team has 24 players currently under contract, with one of them, Luis Gil, being a Generation adidas player. The new rules allow for a roster consisting of 20 players that form the salary budget. Another four spots are available for Generation adidas and Home Grown players, as well as players making at least the league minimum salary. The final six spots are for “apprentice” players, which are full roster players and can include Home Growns, but they must be under 25 years old.
With that as background, how does this impact RSL? Well in a number of ways, really.
First, the current 24 players fit nicely into this structure. The 20-man roster will likely be filled out, although the rules do allow teams to leave spots 19 and 20 vacant. In RSL’s case, this would require adjustments (trades, loans, etc.) to free up these two elective spots. Although eliminating two salaries that impact the cap is something the team would ideally like to accomplish, that probably won’t be the case for 2011.
[inline_node:324207]The next four spots (21-24) are filled out by Gil and three teammates on the RSL roster at the league minimum. Since these four spots do not count against the cap, it gives RSL some much needed cap relief as they try to fine tune the roster. Again, barring some sort of roster movement, there should be no open spots in slots 21-24.
As for the six apprentice spots, Real Salt Lake have approached a couple of college players with Home Grown offers, but those kids have chosen to stay in school. It’s believed that Tony Cascio (junior midfielder, UConn) and Nick DeLeon (junior midfielder/forward, Louisville) were among those contacted by the squad.
Perhaps it’s more likely at this point that any Home Grown candidates for 2011 will come from their current crop at their youth academy, several of whom have spent the past 10 days training with the first team in Casa Grande, Ariz.
RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey indicated at the beginning of preseason that the team would likely sign one or two Home Growns, but it’s unknown whether the failed attempts to sign the college prospects has impacted this plan.
Lagerwey has also mentioned that the team will not fill out the roster.
“We have 24 guys under contract. We think we’re going to go into the season with as many as 26 guys, and so there are one or two roster spots open on our club – more likely one,” he said.
This means that between two to four of these six apprentice spots could go unfilled. In fact, there is some incentive to keep two of these positions open, as the league rules give $35,000 of salary cap allowance for each of these that remains unoccupied. The combined $70,000 will be a sight for sore eyes as the team tries to “buy down” the salary cap impact of having a roster loaded with quality and depth.
One unlikely way that the team will add players is through the foreign market. RSL are still suffering from a deficit of international spots (they traded away two spots early in the team’s existence). While the new rules addressed international spots for Canadian-based teams, it left the rules for the rest of the teams in the league essentially intact. The team does currently have one international spot available, but the cost of a foreign player may be too steep to absorb.
So where does this leave the roster? Well, one or two additional players will make the squad, most likely occupying apprentice spots. These will come from a combination of Home Growns, draftees, and even potentially young trialists. With the luxury of depth among the current roster, the team can be patient making these additions and could take up until the start of the season to do so.
