Using Protection

The San Jose expansion draft is going down on next Wednesday 11/21. Does this seem too soon to anyone else? Someone from the Revs or Dynamo won't even be done celebrating their championship yet when he's forced to move out to the west coast.

Anyway, I'm not going to go through the entire DC United team and who's going to be protected, because you can already get that here or here. As point out on the Insider, it seems like there are 8 players who are guarenteed to be protected: Emilio, Fred, Olsen, Simms, Namoff, Burch, McTavish, and Perkins. So that leaves 3 more slots and a lot of great players.

There's more than one way to look at this. Because not only do you have to consider which players you want back at DCU, but I think you also need to consider which players the Quakes are likely to find the most attractive.

So with that in mind, I think we need to protect Christian Gomez. There's a decent chance that he will be leaving the MLS next year, but if I was the Quakes, I would be willing to take that risk and select Gomez if he is available.

It's the exact opposite for Moreno though. Moreno is less worth the risk, because I think he would sooner retire than move his entire family to San Jose. Moreno knows that we want him back in DC, but I don't want to risk pissing off Gomez by not protecting him.

The next guy we protect is Rod Dyachenko. After his two assist performance in the second leg of the Chicago series, Rod has got to be in high demand. If we don't protect Dyachenko, then he is gone. No doubt about it.

And lastly, we need to protect one of our center backs, but I'm so torn as to which one. Greg Vanney is older, with a higher salary, but San Jose would be smart to take him if he's available because he'd be an instant starter and a leader, and you could maybe even give him the captain's armband. Bobby Boswell is younger with a lower salary, and still a lot of experience, but with the desire to go overseas. So its going to force Kevin Payne and Tom Soehn to make a big decision right now which player they want around next year. And I guess it really depends (just like everything else this offseason) on the future of Moreno and Gomez. If they are sticking around, then you keep Vanney to try to win now. If they are gone, then we sort of need to start rebuilding, and then we need to keep the younger Boswell.

Either way, I'm also leaving Brian Carroll exposed, so he could be taken. But I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that San Jose takes a gamble and selects Guy Kpene.