Alex Ring is a designated player. That news came as a surprise when Austin FC announced last week that the club and its captain had agreed on a new contract that will keep Ring in Austin through at least 2023.
And on Monday, it was confirmed that DP midfielder Tomás Pochettino had been loaned to River Plate in Argentina for the entirety of 2022. There are reasons for both of these maneuvers, but you read that correctly: Austin is losing one of its three DPs from 2021, and replacing him with a player who was already on the roster.
It’s perhaps the least flashy way that Claudio Reyna could have utilized his top-end roster spots following a disappointing expansion season. But we already know that the Austin FC sporting director, and the club as a whole, prefer balance over flash. And there’s a method to this madness, provided you peek under the hood.
Let’s take a look at the options Reyna had, starting with the one he chose, and analyze the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Ring as a DP
Why it makes sense
Let’s start here: Whatever dreams you had for a splashy DP signing this offseason weren’t going to happen. Sebastián Driussi is the star, and Cecilio Domínguez is second in command. Signing a big name would have required moving one of those two.
That’s because Austin FC has chosen to be a Young Money club. Verde took pride in utilizing all three U22 Initiative spots during the first year of the new rule, signing Rodney Redes and Žan Kolmanič to deals that save on the salary budget and could result in lucrative transfers.
But using all three spots comes with a catch. It limits how much money the club can spend on its third DP spot. Let’s go directly to the MLS roster rules to (hopefully) avoid confusion.
If a Club elects to sign a third Designated Player, the number of U22 Initiative Slots would be impacted in the following way:
- If the third Designated Player is a Young Designated Player, the club will have all three U22 Initiative Slots.
- If the third Designated Player is age 24 or older, yet is at, or below, Maximum Targeted Allocation Money Amount ($1,612,500), the club will have all three U22 Initiative Slots.
- If the third Designated Player is age 24 or older and is above Maximum Targeted Allocation Money Amount ($1,612,500), the club will have one U22 Initiative Slot.
Ring satisfies the second bullet. He’s a DP, but his salary is somewhere between $1 million and the max TAM amount. And in reality, Ring was already he third-highest paid player at the club, making significantly more than Pochettino did last season.
Essentially, promoting Ring to DP status is a TAM play. The money that Austin FC would have used to “buy down” his salary below $612,500 can now be spent elsewhere on the roster. Assuming that he got a raise — Ring made almost exactly $1 million in 2021, according to the MLS Players Association — Reyna bought himself an extra $400,000 or more in TAM.
Especially now that Pochettino is off the books, that is a significant windfall. We’ll likely learn the next phase of Reyna’s master plan sometime in the next couple of weeks.
What’s the downside?
Let’s not beat around the bush. Austin FC didn’t have enough quality in 2021. Particularly at forward and in defense, the squad needed reinforcing this offseason. Free agent signings Maxi Urruti and Ethan Finlay will help with the attack, as will having a full year with Djitté and a healthy Danny Hoesen.
But my biggest concern with this DP maneuver is that the club limited its ability to go after a game-changing center back. Austin FC was after 24-year-old Finnish national team defender Leo Väisänen, but according to a source, Verde didn’t offer him enough money.
I can understand not wanting to waste a true DP spot on a center back, but if this was truly the top target and Austin let him walk over some TAM savings? They’d better have a good second option lined up.
Transfer fees are calculated into a player’s salary budget hit (spread over the length of the player’s contract), so making Ring a DP — while it might be a responsible decision given the current roster makeup — limits how much can be spent on incoming players.
And while I can admire the hard line that Reyna seems to draw in negotiations, always waiting for the best possible deal, I can’t help but feel that he’s a bit handcuffed right now by not having a third DP spot to offer. Do you think a South American or European club cares how much TAM is in the Verde coffers? Not even a little bit.
Keeping Pochettino
Why it could’ve worked
Here’s an option you might not have realized was possible. Making Ring a DP didn’t necessarily mean that Pochettino had to go. It just meant that he would have had to lose the DP tag. That would have required some TAM.
Pochettino was making just over $640K, and was signed to a four-year deal with a transfer fee of $2.5 million, which would have presumably made his budget hit around $1.3 million. So most of that TAM that was saved by promoting Ring would’ve had to go directly toward paying for Pochettino.
And of course, there was more to consider with Pochettino than the salary cap, most of which I covered when his move to River Plate became official. In the end, letting him go on loan worked out best for all parties.
What’s the downside?
Had the club kept Pochettino on the books, it’s unlikely there would have been room to add a player like rumored midfield signing Jhojan Valencia. The hope is that the Colombian adds some needed grit. You just have to hope it doesn’t come down to salary or a DP tag.
Leo Väisänen (or another center back)
Why it could’ve worked
It’s not conventional, but Austin could have saved its biggest roster spot for filling its greatest need with a DP center back.
While this is generally a no-no when building a roster, as elite attackers cost more than defenders, there’s a case to be made that no expense (within the confines of the third DP spot) was too great to lock in a marquee defender.
Especially if the goal was to pull a younger player from outside MLS, like Väisänen, that was always going to require a transfer fee. As it stands currently, you have to wonder if Reyna is after a blockbuster trade, targeting a team with extra starting-caliber center backs such as the Colorado Rapids, who added Aboubacar Keita from the Columbus Crew earlier this month.
The Rapids would get a hefty sum of TAM or GAM, but a move like that is likely more manageable than a foreign transfer would be at this point. The other option is to look for a free agent, but look what happened with Matt Besler last year. Staking your defense on an out-of-contract center back is risky.
What’s the downside?
We’ll know more when the roster is set and salary numbers come out, but it’s possible Ring was demanding a max TAM deal. If that’s the case, and you believe he’s as valuable as Austin FC seems to, then it makes sense that you’d go ahead and lock the captain in rather than letting him play out the last year of his contract in 2022.
Save the DP spot
Why it could’ve worked
If you’re an extremely online MLS fan, you likely noticed that Austin FC got dragged for making Ring a DP. Some fans and pundits thought it was a weak move for the 12th-place team in the Western Conference to use one of its three franchise tags on a player who was already on the roster.
And to be fair, they have a point. But given the roster rules laid out above, that’s just a perception thing. The reality is that Austin wasn’t going to make a blockbuster signing this offseason, so saving the DP spot would have only been to save face.
What’s the downside?
The way the rules are constructed, it makes very little sense to hold onto DP spots in modern MLS. The Ring maneuver is the perfect example to illustrate that.
Unless you’ve got to make room for a megastar signing in the summer, like Toronto FC is doing with Lorenzo Insigne, you’re better off promoting a player who’s above the max TAM threshold to use that money elsewhere.
There’s nothing in the rules that says a DP tag is permanent, so whenever an opportunity comes along to add a more valuable player, just shift some money around and remove the tag. I think we’re going to see a lot more moves like the Ring promotion, and only time will tell whether being a Young Money club is worth the strings that are attached.
