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Off the Crossbar: The Offseason — Episode 2 — Expansion Draft projections

It’s time to get ready for the biggest, most important draft in Major League Soccer.

By Matt Montgomery, Trevor Brady, and Kyle Sipple
MLS: Real Salt Lake at Chicago Fire Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Hello, folks.

We’re back with a second episode. We’re still not available on other platforms yet (it’s coming soon, though! Don’t worry!)

This week, we’re talking about the MLS Expansion Draft. It’s an exciting thing, isn’t it? We’ve all made our lists separately, but you’ll find there isn’t too much variation between our lists. If you’d like to follow along, I’ll include some guides to making your own list below the podcast.

We also talked about David Ochoa and whether or not we think he A) should be the starting goalkeeper, and B) will be the starting goalkeeper in 2020. I think we all think he should be. You can listen to find out more about what we think, but don’t feel obligated.

Anyway, here you go. Also, we said that Nick Rimando was in Tampa early in his career. That should have said Miami. Whoops.

Make your own Expansion Draft Protected List

  • First, you must protect four (4) international players — the number of international players on the roster minus three, and I’m counting Pablo Ruiz as on the roster. We’ll see if that’s accurate, but I think you’ll struggle to come up with fewer than four to protect.
  • Second, you must protected 12 (twelve) players total. Designated players are not automatically protected and do not need to be protected.
  • The following players are protected automatically, according to the latest roster:

Supplemental Roster

  • HOLT, ERIK
  • SCHMITT, TATE

Reserve Roster

  • ARRIAGA, LUIS
  • BAIRD, COREY
  • HERRERA, AARON
  • LENNON, BROOKS
  • OCHOA, DAVID
  • VAZQUEZ, JULIAN

Retiring

  • BELTRAN, TONY
  • RIMANDO, NICK

The following players, then, comprise the 20 to select from.

  1. BECKERMAN, KYLE
  2. BESLER, NICK
  3. GLAD, JUSTEN
  4. HORWATH, ALEX
  5. JOHNSON, SAM
  6. KREILACH, DAMIR
  7. LUIZ, EVERTON
  8. MARTINEZ, DOUGLAS
  9. MULHOLLAND, LUKE
  10. ONUOHA, NEDUM
  11. PLATA, JOAO
  12. PORTILLO, JUSTIN
  13. PUTNA, ANDREW
  14. ROWE, KELYN
  15. RUIZ, PABLO
  16. RUSNAK, ALBERT
  17. SAUCEDO, SEBASTIAN
  18. SAVARINO, JEFFERSON
  19. SILVA, MARCELO
  20. TOIA, DONNY

Have at it!

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