Upcoming offseason will be most significant in Sounders history
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Almost regardless of how this season ends, there is likely to be a lot of change at the top of the roster.

TD;DR (Oshan’s predictions)

  • Lodeiro probably leaves
  • Rusnak probably gets renegotiated to a max-TAM level player
  • Ruidíaz may get bought out or traded; he wants an extension but that would be hard to imagine
  • JP probably back
  • Heber probably gone unless he scores a boatload of goals in the rest of the season
  • Xavi probably leaves, either by having his option declined or by having it picked up and Sounders trading him
  • Hopefully Frei stays on a team friendly contract with a small pay cut
  • Cleveland may be headed elsewhere to let the other keepers in the pipeline get more time at lower cost
  • Rowe and Fredy probably won’t be back
  • Sounders will probably listen to offers for Vargas, RBW, and Leyva.
  • AB is probably gone given his age and so he can get playing time elsewhere, to free up minutes for some of the Defiance CBs
  • CR7 will have a bounce back year after the injuries; JMo will be back to his excellent form, Atencio needs more minutes, and Chu will be in the last year of his contract and out to prove that he deserves a big new contract.
  • biggest off-season priorities: new DP 10, new number 9 (maybe somebody younger to develop while Jordan starts up top for now)

What are your thoughts?

    • coys25OPM
      1•10 months ago

      You think Craig will stand pat and bring back the vets?

      • @CombatWombatEsqM
        2•10 months ago

        I think there’s a lot of space between moving ~65% of our total wage bill in a single winter window and standing pat, and I might more expect us to inhabit the space between those two extremes than either end of the spectrum. I would love for O’Shan to be correct here, but it’s the winter window – the secondary window for most of the world – and turning over two DPs and three TAM players, plus a bunch of squad players, all in a single window is almost unheard of.

        • coys25OPM
          1•10 months ago

          Yep. My guess is Lodeiro leaves and the focus is really on a quality 10. Ruidíaz probably stays though any extension before next season seems unlikely. More likely the team sees what he can do next year / if he can stay healthy and then makes a decision after that. But I guess they could try to move him and Xavi and open up a bunch of space and DP slots for next summer, while relying on JMo up top for the first part of the season?