The first number is the base salary in the contract, the second number is the 2022 guaranteed compensation number, which includes things like guaranteed bonuses and other benefits that aren't in the base salary.
For the first time maybe ever I look at this list and don't think "Player X is getting paid WHAT?!?!". There are a few players not living up to their salaries yet, but that happens every year. There's nobody I look at and think "that number is really out of line with his play in recent years". The closest is Zardes, who only had 9 goals last season, but that's after 3 straight years of double-digit goals. So its really hard to say he's overpaid this year.
There are some notable numbers here though. Max is surprisingly low on the base salary. We paid a million to get him, but at only $212K base salary it really does appear he's a signing for the future. Maybe we're expecting too much out of him this soon?
Trusty jumped from $375K to $718K with his move to Arsenal. And it might be more than that. As I understand it the number the union lists for loaned players is the salary their MLS team is paying them, that might just be a portion of the overall salary.
Kaye got a bigger raise than I expected in preseason, not that he doesn't deserve it. He just about tripled his base pay from $235K to $700k.
Bassett also got his salary tripled, from $150K to $450K, and is arguably still underpaid.
Mezquida took a large pay cut down to $84K. There were rumors he looked around before re-signing with the Rapids, who reportedly really like his locker room presence. I have to assume there wasn't another team giving him a significant offer if he took that kind of cut.
Looking at what some of our former Rapids are getting, Badji is getting $500K from Cincinnati. Good for him. Get paid. But I'm glad the Rapids aren't paying him that much. As you can see Shinyashiki is still listed as a Rapid in the salary info but Charlotte has taken on his $150K. Kort Ford got a $10K raise in his new contract in Kansas City, so its looking like that move was more about getting playing time and a fresh start than money.
The Athletic (paywall) had a good analysis of salaries across the league. The Rapids have the third lowest salary total in MLS, with only Charlotte and FSL bellow them. However had we not traded for Zardes we would have been the only team under $10 million in total salaries. Along those lines the Rapids spend the least amount on their top 3 and 5 paid players as a percentage of their total salaries. Zardes' salary makes the Rapids only the 5th lowest in percentage of salary spent on their top paid player. Colorado is also evenly balanced across GK+D/M/F, more so than almost any other team, with the percentage splits being 36%/35%/29% by position. That's the 4th highest percentage in the league spent on goalkeeper and defenders.
All told the Rapids are spending about $660K in GAM to buy down players making over the max salary ($612, 500). That list is Bryan Acosta, Michael Barrios, Mark-Anthony Kaye, Jack Price, Diego Rubio, and Auston Trusty. Gyasi Zardes is a DP, so KSE is paying out just under $900K out of their own pocket to cover his salary. My educated guess at the beginning of the season was somewhere between $700K-$800K so I wasn't too far off (and I was too generous).
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