2021 Salaries!

Editors note, this is apparently the 2100th post on this blog in about 13 and a third years.  That's about 3 posts a week.  Hopefully there's some quality among the dreck.

Before we get into it, one quick roster note, Yaya Toure was loaned to the Springs for the season today.

For the first time since 2019 the MLs Players Union released salary info today.  This was as of the roster freeze date on April 15th so its already a little out of date for some teams, but the Rapids haven't made any changes since then.  Here's the full list for Colorado.  The first number is their base salary, the second is the guaranteed salary for 2021.  An important note, these don't map directly to salary cap hits due to things like transfer fees and GAM/TAM buy downs but at least for the Rapids I think the relative cap hits equal the relative difference in salaries largely.

So, some interesting numbers there.  Going in alphabetical order.

• Acosta is making a million dollars?  That I didn't expect.  Highest base salary on the team.  As long time BigSoccer poster Stan Collins pointed out, Acosta might be the first career American MLS player without a notable National Team career or a high-profile position (striker, attacking mid, keeper) to break the 7 figure mark.  Certainly there hasn't been more than one or two before him.
• Now we see why Dallas was willing to give Barrios away so cheaply.  $650K is a lot of salary to take on.  So far he seems to be earning it but he's got a high bar to meet.
• Cole Bassett is underpaid, significantly.  He makes less than Beitashour!
• Benezet might be the worst Rapids signing since Boli.  On top of his $650K salary (T3rd highest on the team) we paid a $500K transfer fee to get him and gave TFC $50K for his rights.  All for a guy who's gotten 27 minutes as a sub so far this season and managed all of 5 starts and 30% of possible minutes last season.  Unless he makes a major contribution the rest of the way he needs to go at the end of the season.
• Mezquida is probably a bit overpaid for this team, given the number of midfielders we have in rotation in front of him.  $350K is a lot for a guy who might get spot starts and probably isn't the first choice off the bench.
• Namli on $1.2M guaranteed is about what I expected.  Not sure he's earned that yet but given that he's technically on loan we do have an out.
• Sam Vines got a well deserved raise!
• Danny Wilson is now at a number that matches his contributions.  A lot of Rapids fans like to complain about him given his original salary, but $275K for a MLS-level backup/spot-starter CB is just about right.  He is who he is at this point and shouldn't be the focus of so many complaints.

Overall this is a really balanced list with only one sore thumb (Benezet), generally better than the Rapids have done.  Colorado has the 5th lowest salary total in the league at $10.1M, about $2.2M below the average.  They do have the second lowest amount of their salary (43%) tied up in their top 5 players, just ahead of RBNY.  Miami leads the league with 70% of their salary going to their 5 highest paid players.