Salaries Galore!

Today, Steven Goff, in an article in the Washington Post (see also this article), listed the salaries of every team and player in MLS. Rather than write a detailed article about this, I'm going to list some of my general comments:

• There is a significant gap between the highest and lowest paid players on each team. It's fortunate that this hasn't caused significant amounts of resentment towards the league and towards some of the players with the higher echelon salaries. It's disappointing when 14 of D.C. United's 28 players are earning less than 36,500 USD a year, but the team is shelling out over 100,000 USD a year so Argentine forward Lucio Filomeno can sit on the bench. Even more disgusting is the Chicago Fire, where ace forward Chris Rolfe is making 50,000 USD a year while oft-injured, never-playing Tony Sanneh is the team's highest paid player at over 385,000 USD. Sweet gig for him, no?
• It should come as no surprise that Chivas USA is the highest paid team in the league, and that Paco Palencia is the league's highest paid player. In terms of cost for production, Palencia's salary of over 1 million USD is completely ridiculous. However, bear in mind that Palencia lends a sort of legitimacy to a club that sorely needs it among its Latin-American fans. Is it worth the cost? I don't know. Ask Antonio Cue.
  
• What is disgusting about Chivas' exorbitant payroll is that one of its eleven starters, defender Lawson Vaughn, is making the league minimum, a paltry 11,000 USD. Yes, he is listed as a developmental player, but the minute he starts more than one game, he should instantly get moved to the senior roster and given a starter's salary. If that means getting rid of Orlando Perez or Ezra Hendrickson and their 70,000 USD plus salaries, so be it.
  
• What qualifies some rookies for more money than others? Why is Patrick Ianni making more money than Ryan Cochrane or even Craig Waibel, when Ianni has never played any minutes in a senior match for the Houston Dynamo? Why is Marvell Wynne already the third highest player on the Red Bulls? I can understand that Wynne is a dynamic player, but 150,000 USD a year? Really?
  
• If I were Bobby Boswell I'd be pretty pissed that I was making less than David f-ing Stokes.
  
• Of Chicago's top three players, two don't even start (Tony Sanneh and Andy Herron). Are their salaries guaranteed to the point that the Fire can't even off-load them without a trade? (Oh, and John Thorrington's salary is also a joke. This team surely didn't do their cost-benefit analyses right, did they?)
• Dempsey is gone after this season unless he gets a massive pay raise. A player of his profile and caliber making only 80,000 USD a year makes the league look like a massive joke. Especially when he's making less than Jay Heaps and Joey Franchino.
  
• Look at the payrolls of the best teams in the league. Look at the efficiency of teams like the Houston Dynamo and New England (both clubs where no player makes over 200,000 USD a year). They also foster excellent values (players like Andy Dorman, James Riley, Brad Davis, and Kenny Cooper come to mind).
  
• Pete Vagenas makes 125,000 USD a year. No wonder Sampson starts him. He probably has orders from the front office. Because if he wasn't a starter, he'd be the most ridiculous waste of money ever (which he already is anyway).
• So much for New York being the subject of money conspiracies.
• The biggest thing that MLS needs to address before they get behind a "big player acqusition" agreement is the base salary. Players should not be making salaries almost below minimum wage in a league that pretends to be "major." Neither should rookies have to work two jobs just to get by. While I respect the league immensely for their financial sense, this just stinks. That's not an eloquent comment, but it's apt. The current salary structure is just unfair and the MLS Player's Union ought to do something about it.