The List is Life, Part I

Alright, I'm not going to spend hours trying to navigate the labyrinthine expansion draft rules to try and figure out all of the permutations, but I figured that I'd provide my "protected list" for the expansion draft. The lists are due today at 3 PM, so I'll see if I can narrow it down by that deadline ;-).

First off, let's eliminate most of the developmental players, because one of the conditions of the draft is that Seattle has to offer any developmental player drafted a senior contract. Though the expansion of rosters to 20 senior players (more on that later) does give them a bit of extra leeway here, I don't think that they'll take that route. The two that I'm going to to give a pass to Round 2 are Quavas Kirk and Pat Carroll.

I'm not even sure if we'll need to protect Kirk as MLS hasn't produced a list of who's graduating from Generation Adidas (at least not that I've been able to find). If he's still GenAd, then we don't have to protect him. Also, I'm not sure what the rules are concerning Janicki, since he's technically on loan. Since we own his MLS rights, I'm going to consider him (and Khumalo) in play, and thus pass Janicki on to Round 2 as well.

The rules state that we don't need to protect DP's, so Emilio and Gallardo don't need to be on this list. So that leaves us with the 18 senior and international players to sort through. I'll weed out a few of those right now . . .

Dyachenko - duh
Mediate - an expansion team can't afford to gamble on a health risk who is a proven backup at best
Khumalo - a lower-division player in his late 20's without proven MLS experience, does Seattle spend a valuable international spot on him--doubtful

Everybody else has some merit to recommend protecting them, so I'll give them a pass to Round 2, where we'll attempt to whittle the 18 remaining players down to eleven. Who's left, you ask?

Carroll (Pat), Janicki, Kirk, Fred, Doe, Martinez, Peralta, Crayton, Burch, Guerrero, McTavish, Moreno, Namoff, Olsen, Quaranta, Simms, Vide, Wells

Check back later for Part II.