Austin FC isn’t going to break the bank just so you’ll buy a jersey. If the words of Anthony Precourt, Claudio Reyna and Josh Wolff didn’t make that clear, the release of player salaries by the MLS Players Association on Thursday should.
The breakdown shows a clear hierarchy, with an emphasis placed on MLS experience. As you might expect, designated player Cecilio Domínguez is the highest-paid player on the roster at $1.736 million guaranteed. After that, three non-DPs from within the league (Alex Ring, Danny Hoesen and Matt Besler) are on higher figures than the other DP Tomás Pochettino.
What’s more, three players on supplemental contracts (Dani Pereira, Jon Gallagher and Jared Stroud) have earned starts already for Austin FC, a sign that Reyna and Wolff accomplished their goal of finding undervalued talent from their MLS rivals and the SuperDraft.
There’s plenty more to dive into, but let’s start with the numbers. Here’s the Austin FC roster organized from highest salaries to the lowest. The first number is guaranteed compensation, which includes things like bonuses, marketing bonuses and agent’s fees, annualized over the length of a player’s contract. The number in parenthesis is the base salary. For the purposes of this discussion and reporting, we’re going to focus on guaranteed compensation (the first number).
Austin FC player salaries 2021 (MLSPA)
Cecilio Domínguez — $1,736,000 ($1,530,000)
Alex Ring — $1,095,000 ($1,000,000)
Danny Hoesen — $716,667 ($650,000)
Matt Besler — $650,000 ($650,000)
Tomás Pochettino — $642,447 ($582,447)
Jhohan Romaña — $420,000 ($420,000)
Diego Fagúndez — $400,000 ($400,000)
Rodney Redes — $385,000 ($385,000)
Nick Lima — $350,000 ($350,000)
Julio Cascante — $317,500 ($290,000)
Andrew Tarbell — $283,333 ($275,000)
Ulises Segura — $269,125 (240,000)
Héctor Jiménez — $250,000 ($250,000)
Ben Sweat — $250,000 ($250,000)
Žan Kolmanič — $225,000 ($225,000)
Aaron Schoenfeld — $210,000 ($210,000)
Brad Stuver — $160,000 ($150,000)
Sebastian Berhalter — $122,250 ($85,000)
Brady Scott — $121,236 ($115,000)
Dani Pereira — $99,793 ($81,375)
Jon Gallagher — $81,375 ($81,375)
Kekuta Manneh — $81,375 ($81,375)
Jared Stroud — $81,375 ($81,375)
Freddy Kleemann — $63,547 ($63,547)
William Pulisic — $63,547 ($63,547)
Aedan Stanley — $63,547 ($63,547)
Grain of salt
If you’re new to MLS, the first rule of thumb with the MLSPA numbers is that they only tell us so much. Unless they’ve been reported, we don’t always know the exact transfer fees for players, the length of their contracts or whether the team is using TAM to “buy down” their salaries for the purposes of lessening their hit on the salary budget.
All of these items (and I’m sure there are more) factor into the number that goes on the MLS salary budget spreadsheet that I’m pretty sure was the focus of a never-released National Treasure sequel. (I’ll let you decide which MLS reporter was portrayed by Nicolas Cage.)
Long story short, it’s a guessing game. But these numbers are all we get, and their release feels like a national holiday. Much like other holidays, the MLSPA salary release was skipped over due to COVID-19, so this is the first time we’ve seen player salaries since 2019.
Designated players
As you probably know by now, each MLS team gets three designated players. These are usually the highest-paid players on the roster and they only count $612,500 (maximum salary budget charge) against the salary budget. The rest of their salary (plus transfer fee, etc.) is paid for by the team owners.
So it’s no surprise that Domínguez ($1.736 million) is the highest-paid player on Austin FC. What is a bit more unusual is how low Pochettino’s salary ($642,447) is compared to the maximum budget charge. We’ll dig deeper into what that means in a moment.
Allocation money
Another thing you’ll notice is that there are several players who aren’t DPs but are making more than the maximum budget charge. That’s totally allowed because of a mechanism known as allocation money.
Allocation money (commonly referred to as GAM and TAM — general and targeted) allows teams to “buy down” the contracts of their higher salaried players to pay them above the league maximum while not impacting their DP spots.
It would appear that Austin has at least three players (Ring, Hoesen and Besler) who fit into this category.
Elephant in the room…
Fans will want to focus on Hoesen’s salary, which is higher than Pochettino’s and significantly higher than Gallagher, who replaced the Dutch striker in the starting lineup against Sporting Kansas City.
While it is eye-catching, I think it’s more a symptom of a larger issue that MLS teams commonly find themselves facing: strikers are expensive, and good ones are rare. Another way of looking at Austin FC’s current position is that it is paying less than $800K combined for its two forwards (not including Aaron Schoenfeld who’s out with a knee injury).
If we think that Austin FC is trying to sign a DP striker this summer, then Hoesen’s output will become less of a talking point. His large salary is one of the reasons I was surprised (floored, actually) to see him taken in the expansion draft. But again, MLS teams — especially lower spending ones — make silly decisions around strikers all the time. Drafting and paying Hoesen is pretty far down on that scale.
Back to Toto
OK, so I mentioned that Pochettino’s salary is low for a DP. Beyond signaling that Austin FC isn’t here to blow big money (again, we already knew that) this means a couple things about the roster construction moving forward.
First, it means that Pochettino could pretty easily be bought down with TAM (or GAM) to make him not a DP. That would give Austin FC the ability to sign two more DPs instead of just one.
Second, his salary is well below the Maximum Targeted Allocation Money Amount ($1,612,500). This matters because of the new Young Money (under-22 initiative) mechanism. Pochettino’s lower salary means that Austin is free to sign both a DP who is 24 years or older AND a third Young Money player (Rodney Redes and Žan Kolmanič being the first two). They could do this without using TAM (or GAM) to buy down Pochettino.
Value adds
It’s super early, but if I were to make a top five based on their value (output versus salary), it would look something like this.
Brad Stuver
Jared Stroud
Tomás Pochettino
Jon Gallagher
Dani Pereira
Other candidates to crack this list at some point this season include Rodney Redes and Žan Kolmanič (because they only count $200K against the salary budget), Kekuta Manneh, Sebastian Berhalter and Diego Fagúndez (if he continues to lead the team in goals).
That’s a pretty good list of players who are expected to contribute while not commanding cap-busting salaries.
Higher than expected
Other than Hoesen, the only players I’d toss into this category are Jhohan Romaña (who’s been earning it as a nailed-down starter) and Aaron Schoenfeld. Brady Scott had to get a senior spot because he was taken in the expansion draft, and Andrew Tarbell’s salary is 22nd in MLS among goalkeepers — another sign that Reyna and Wolff might’ve expected him to earn the starting role over Stuver. Matt Besler is also expensive, but you'd expect him to be with his resume and experience.