In all the talk of who is available and how much they’ll cost, there have been some smaller details easily overlooked about Wednesday’s second stage of the MLS Re-Entry Draft (2 p.m. Eastern). At this point, we know about the 32 players who are available. I even tried to make sense of how much salary cap room each team has remaining.
A Quick Reminder: Second Stage Of MLS’s Re-Entry Draft Rules
Now, we’ll look at how those players are going to be picked:
- All 18 teams (including the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps) will take turns picking until all the players have been chosen or all the teams have chosen not to pick at least once. If a team chooses to skip their turn, they are no longer eligible to make later picks.
- The order of the draft is reverse order of finish with DC United picking first, the Whitecaps drafting in the No. 17 spot and the Timbers drafting in the No. 18 spot. Neither the Whitecaps nor Timbers are likely to make many picks since both were allowed to renegotiate contracts with players chosen in the Expansion Draft, which is basically the same rules they as this draft.
- Once a team chooses a player, that team has seven days to make a "bonafide" offer. What, exactly, that means has yet to be determined. In any case, if no agreement can be reached after seven days other teams are able to sign him on a first come, first serve basis. Assuming the team has made a "bonafide" offer, the team has "rights of first refusal," which basically means they will be given the chance to match other teams' offers.
The first stage of the Re-Entry Draft was largely uneventful, with just two players being chosen. This was mainly the product of teams being forced to pick up the options or at least grant raises the players being chosen.
Players chosen in the second stage can have their contracts renegotiated. The significant difference from years past is that teams can no longer sit on a player’s rights if no deal can be reached. The old setup severely limited player movement as teams ran no risk of losing a player’s rights without being compensated.
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