MLS v. Twellman... to Transfer or Not to Transfer?

So we've reached February, and for better or for worse, Taylor Twellman is still a Rev.

For better or for worse?, you say. How could it possibly be worse?

Well, a couple of ways. First, he'd arguably develop better as a player overseas. While the MLS continues to improve, and the Revs have some of the best staff in the States, conventional wisdom is that the big fish in this pond needs to head over to the Big Leagues (even Big League Championship) to grow as a player, which is good for the National Team.

Secondly, Twellman wants to go. Badly. That means he doesn't want to keep playing here (espcially now that his boy Noonan is gone). Yes, Twellman is an exceptional player - but that's when he's happy. Now he's not happy. How will Twellman respond - by raising his play to the next echelon to draw an offer the league can't refuse? or by becoming a cancer in the locker room for the whole year?

But we know these reasons aren't what the MLS is listening to... with the MLS, the bottom line is always the bottom line. Money. The league has been ultra-conservative since day one to build a firm base that wouldn't repeat the NASL's failures, and in this goal it has succeeded admirably. The league has built local followings in most of its cities, only having to contract two teams and expanding from 8 to 14 with 2 more on the way (DuNord says Bigsoccer.com says MLS registered the domain "mlsinphilly.com"...). Thanks to the league-owned salaries and the low salary cap, teams are losing less money every year and some teams are even profitable now. More people want teams than the league can support, and the expansion fee keeps rising.

Okay, so now the league is established. That was Phase One. Sadly, Phase Two for the league seems to be a period of export. The MLS has been building its talent pool for a decade, and the world has noticed and wants a piece. And because the leagues overseas are so much more profitable (and free-market), they can offer big money to cherrypick our talent. And the Revs have been getting the worst of it.

Like a certain other New England team, the Revs have been the best in the league at assembling a team of stars. It may never have felt that way at the Revs like it did with this year's Pats, but consider Dempsey and Dorman's transfer fees and the ongoing interest in Joseph and Twellman. Who's next, Parkhurst? SuperDraft selection Michael Videira? It's going to get worse before it gets better. It's funny because, for as much as it looks like the Revs have been changing this winter, a lot of the Rev's practices have stayed the same.

Frank Dell'Apa, the Boston Globe staff writer who wrote the Twellman piece above, also wrote this analysis of the MLS's current status in the world transfer market. Here are the key facts - since the league owns the contracts with all the players, they are involved in all transfer negotiations and take a cut of every transfer fee and distribute it among the other teams. The team losing the player gets 2/3 of the fee, and can only use $500,000 on an allocation for a player's salary. The market values Twellman at a $1 million salary and will pay us $3 million for him, but the Revs would get $2 million from the transfer and be able to hire a replacement for $500,000 a year. And this is why the Revs say no - they can't justify letting Twellman go because $2 million (not $3 million) isn't worth getting a striker who's worth half what Twellman is worth.

Teams are effectively punished for developing good players, caught in a cycle of cultivating talent and shipping it out. But because teams get a raw deal in the transfer market, they block transfers, and the players play out their contracts and jump overseas on a free transfer. Then everybody misses out. Clearly there's a problem with this system.

I don't think the transfer fee split is the issue - maybe its the NFL fan in me, but I like the small market teams getting a cut. The issue here, as it always is, is the salary cap. The allocation needs to be a closer to the value of the player departing. Also, I'm not entirely clear on how allocations work - do they alleviate salary cap pressure at all, or is it just money to be used for the salary/transfer fee of the new player?

Of course, if the cap went up a bit, maybe we could pay Twellman the salary he's earned anyway. Or we could give the developmental players a respectable salary so they don't have to work second jobs at WalMart. Maybe that's the most important thing and the soccer-specific stadiums can wait?