As I mentioned, last week the Players Union released the MLS salaries for 2024. Rather than doing a bunch of rework I'm stealing this table from Burgundy Wave. I hope Matt Pollard doesn't mind.
| Name | Base Salary | Guaranteed Compensation |
| Kévin Cabral | $1,950,000 | $1,950,000 |
| Djordje Mihailovic | $1,350,000 | $1,675,000 |
| Rafael Navarro | $1,125,000 | $1,452,708 |
| Andreas Maxsø | $1,150,000 | $1,342,500 |
| Zack Steffen | $900,000 | $900,000 |
| Lamine Diack | $750,000 | $864,150 |
| Sam Vines | $850,000 | $862,500 |
| Cole Bassett | $850,000 | $850,000 |
| Sidnei Tavares* | $525,000 | $750,600 |
| Lalas Abubakar | $665,000 | $702,125 |
| Omir Fernandez | $575,000 | $636,875 |
| Connor Ronan | $470,000 | $522,400 |
| Marko Ilic* | $420,000 | $442,850 |
| Jonathan Lewis | $410,000 | $435,000 |
| Keegan Rosenberry | $400,000 | $400,000 |
| Sam Nicholson* | $350,000 | $385,313 |
| Miguel Navarro* | $300,000 | $339,000 |
| Aboubacar Keita* | $240,000 | $270,313 |
| Jasper Löffelsend | $230,000 | $255,833 |
| Sebastian Anderson | $150,000 | $150,000 |
| Michael Edwards | $130,000 | $130,000 |
| Calvin Harris | $125,000 | $127,000 |
| Moïse Bombito | $89,716 | $107,928 |
| Oliver Larraz | $100,000 | $105,375 |
| Darren Yapi | $89,716 | $100,549 |
| Daniel Chacón | $90,000 | $97,750 |
| Jackson Travis | $89,716 | $92,216 |
| Rémi Cabral* | $89,716 | $89,716 |
| Adam Beadury | $71,401 | $75,568 |
| Kimani Stewart-Baynes | $71,401 | $72,401 |
| Wayne Frederick | $71,401 | $71,401 |
| Nate Jones | $71,401 | $71,401 |
Lets take a look at this from bottom to top. Everyone up to $400K base is arguably making the appropriate amount (or is underpaid in the case of guys like Bombito and Larraz). I originally thought Harris was not living up to expectations but reviewing things for this post I realized we only paid $200K in GAM for him and he's only getting paid $150K, so I have to say he's doing a good job. The next name on the list, Jonathan Lewis, is not. At $410K for a winger that's played for only 101 minutes without a shot on goal is a lot, especially when we paid $650K in TAM to get him initially. He paid 1188 minutes last season and had 1 goal with no assists.
The next major name standing out as being paid out of line with his contributions (ow or high) is Lalas Abubakar. He's a top-10 paid player and yet is clearly a substitute as Maxso and Bombito are out playing him. A max salary player is a lot of money to keep on the bench.
Next up is Cole Bassett, who is probably underpaid, certainly compared to the other top-10 names on this list. He's even technically below Sam Vines. Speaking of Sammy, he is not the player that left Colorado in the middle of 2021. He had a disastrous night against FSL and despite the lack of an obvious replacement I think Armas really has to consider sitting him down for a couple of games to see if he can get back into his groove. Right now he's not helping anyone at left back.
Now we get to the glaring red flag on this roster (well, one of two of them). Diack. On loan her through July he's played...16 minutes. Essentially we've paid him $50K a minute so far. Plus the loan fee, whatever it is. This is a guy that was on loan to Nantes, the Rapids approached Nantes about acquiring him, and Nantes was convinced enough of our interest that they exercised their purchase option on Diack from his Turkish club so they could turn around and loan him to us with a purchase option. And yet he can't even make the gameday roster for 2 of the 3 games in a 3 game week. This is another Marko Ilic disaster and hopefully we've learned from that and don't exercise the purchase option.
Next up Zack Steffen, who's been Mr. Inconsistent this season. He's had really bad games, like Portland and last weekend, but then he's also had some good games and made some impressive saves. Unfortunately we need the 4th highest paid keeper in MLS to be more than inconsistent. Using advanced stats he's currently the worst keeper in the league, but again that's largely due to the games he's been really bad in.
4th through 2nd, Maxsø, Navarro, and Mihailovic, all fall into the same category for me. They are producing solid performances and mostly aren't hurting the team, but they aren't producing at a level to be top 5 paid players on their team. Really the top 3 paid players because, as we'll get to in a second, the number for Cabral is misleading. They need to step it up to earn their salaries (and transfer fees) but I don't get worried when I see them in the lineup.
Then we get to the other red flag on the roster, Kevin Cabral. First of all the Galaxy are paying half his salary, so from the Rapids POV he's actually the 4th highest paid player, not the 1st. Not that it changes anything, he's grossly overpaid for what he does. Add to that we shipped $1m in GAM to LA just to get him and in the last season+ we've essentially spent just short of $3M on a player that's managed 1805 minutes, 3 goals, and 4 assists (and i think the assists have been generously helped with the use of secondary assists). We knew it at the time and nothing in the last 48 games has changed this opinion.
He is a horrible waste of salary, an international slot, and a DP slot and the best thing the Rapids can do is to use the new additional buyout being added midseason and move on from him.
He is a horrible waste of salary, an international slot, and a DP slot and the best thing the Rapids can do is to use the new additional buyout being added midseason and move on from him.
So that's it. Really we only have 4 players of note who are meeting or exceeding their expectations & salary (Bassett, Bombito, Harris, and Larraz), we have another group that are playing well enough but not up to expectations or just isn't getting enough time to know, and then a important group of high paid players who aren't anywhere close to earning their money. Until we fix that we're only ever going to be a "in the hunt for a playoff spot" team.
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