Smug. That's what Garth Lagerwey must be feeling today after some crafty dealing to bring Justin Braun to the club. And if that indeed is what he's feeling, nobody really can blame him after we pulled off what could turn into a very good trade indeed. We've lost a conditional draft pick — so perhaps our top pick in 2014, but it could be second or third round — and we've gained a striker. Oh, and Montreal, from whence he came, have agreed to pay a portion of his salary for the remainder of the season.
Braun, a Salt Lake City native, is a quick, strong striker with some height to him. He saw some success at Chivas USA, but when the Expansion Draft came-a-knockin', he was sent off to the doldrums in Montreal, ripped from the side where he'd developed from a promising Utah community college player into a functional (if rather unglamorous) MLS-level forward.
Alongside his ability, Braun brings with him a not inconsiderable salary — in MLS terms, at least. Having only recently released Cody Arnoux, our side is found needing another striker, and preferably one more in the Saborio mold than not. But Arnoux's salary was likely at the minimum, and the most recent MLS Players Union release pegged Braun at around $100k — about double Arnoux's, which would seem to indicate that we needed to offload salary concerns somehow. How would we do that? The mind boggles.
Garth Lagerwey, as always, found a solution. We kept our existing players, didn't make any salary adjustments (at least none that are publicly known) and Montreal agreed to keep part of Justin's salary. Now, they had two new players coming in — the well-known and well-regarded Allesandro Nesta and the less-of-either Dennis Iapichino. With Braun out and a draft pick in, Montreal had made sufficient squad room, but getting Real Salt Lake to pick up Justin Braun may have taken some work. Or at least some hard-fought negotiating.
Waiving Justin Braun was out of the question, as his $100k salary would have continued to hit the cap, and that wouldn't have done Montreal any favors. The July 1 contract guarantee date had come and gone, and their opportunity vanished with it. Likewise, few teams have room mid-season to pick up a player at that charge, and it would seem that teams weren't leaping at the opportunity to sign the kid.
Of course, we learned last night that RSL had been looking at Braun for some time, having considered signing him before the Expansion Draft. It wasn't to be, such was the nature of the Draft, but when we got a chance to grab him, we took it. With both hands, too, if you'll pardon the metaphor, as only the goalkeeper should be grabbing anything with both hands (unless the thing which is being grabbed is a trophy — we really don't want a trophy being run over by a bus.)
So we get a fifth striker in our squad, Montreal gets some of their salary cap back they can splash on a new player and a draft pick, and everybody's happy. We've got a local boy in the squad in the form of a promising young striker who has proven MLS goalscoring ability. While that may not speak to our system directly, it speaks to something. Under the tutelage of Jason Kreis, he may well yet be a top American striker. We'll see, right?
Note: I don't actually mean that there was any swindling involved. If you got that impression from the headline, I apologize, I guess.
Comments