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With NYC FC and Orlando City SC joining the league in 2015, MLS needs to do an expansion draft because that's the only way to ensure they have enough players to take the field apparently. Therefore, we here at SB Nation must do a Mock Expansion Draft. We here at Once a Metro were asked to provide a list of players from the New York Red Bulls that were protected and not protected. Below is that list of players followed by how we came up with this list.
Protected | Unprotected | Auto-Proteced |
Bradley Wright-Phillips | Peguy Luyindula | Matt Miazga |
Lloyd Sam | Ruben Bover | Connor Lade |
Dax McCarty | Ryan Meara | Santiago Castano |
Luis Robles | Marius Obekop | |
Ambroise Oyongo | Ian Christianson | |
Roy Miller | Ibrahim Sekagya | |
Jamison Olave | Armando Lozano | |
Chris Duvall | Eric Stevenson | |
Thierry Henry | Kosuke Kimura | |
Eric Alexander | Richard Eckersley | |
Tim Cahill | Damien Perrinelle | |
Michael Bustamante | ||
Saer Sene | ||
Bobby Convey |
First, let's start with the Automatically Protected players to explain what is going on there. Miaza, Lade, and Castano are all unavailable as they are Homegrown Players who are currently not on the Red Bulls Senior Roster. This means that they do not have to be named for protection, so they will be on Red Bulls past the expansion draft.
Now, onto the rest of the list. First, we had two assumptions that we made to complete this list. Since Henry has not officially announced his retirement, we're assuming that he will have to be protected. Additionally, we're assuming that both Henry & Cahill will have to be protected as we are unsure of if their contracts contain no-trade clauses. So, how did we come up with the list?
First, we took a fan vote towards the end of October on who you would protect. Out of that vote, we had a ranking (1-25) that was half of the equation. The second half was a vote between the members here at Once a Metro. We took an average of the votes (fan & OaM) and used the fan vote rankings as a tiebreaker, although honestly we only cared about ties in numbers 11-13 (because we can pull a player back after one is selected). Here's how our rankings came out:
Rank | Player | OaM Rankings | Fans | Average | Weighted Total |
1 | Bradley Wright-Phillips | 2 | 1 | 1.00 | 2.00 |
2 | Lloyd Sam | 9 | 2 | 3.67 | 5.67 |
3 | Dax McCarty | 8 | 3 | 3.67 | 6.67 |
4 | Luis Robles | 10 | 4 | 4.67 | 8.67 |
5 | Ambroise Oyongo | 17 | 5 | 7.33 | 12.33 |
6 | Roy Miller | 15 | 6 | 7.00 | 13.00 |
7 | Jamison Olave | 15 | 8 | 7.67 | 15.67 |
8 | Chris Duvall | 22 | 7 | 9.67 | 16.67 |
9 | Thierry Henry | 14 | 10 | 8.00 | 18.00 |
10 | Eric Alexander | 22 | 9 | 10.33 | 19.33 |
11 | Tim Cahill | 17 | 12 | 9.67 | 21.67 |
12 | Peguy Luyindula | 11 | 16 | 9.00 | 25.00 |
13 | Ruben Bover | 34 | 11 | 15.00 | 26.00 |
13 | Ryan Meara | 26 | 13 | 13.00 | 26.00 |
15 | Marius Obekop | 34 | 15 | 16.33 | 31.33 |
15 | Ibrahim Sekagya | 22 | 18 | 13.33 | 31.33 |
17 | Ian Christianson | 41 | 14 | 18.33 | 32.33 |
18 | Eric Stevenson | 41 | 17 | 19.33 | 36.33 |
19 | Armando Lozano | 34 | 19 | 17.67 | 36.67 |
20 | Richard Eckersley | 37 | 20 | 19.00 | 39.00 |
21 | Kosuke Kimura | 34 | 21 | 18.33 | 39.33 |
22 | Michael Bustamante | 41 | 23 | 21.33 | 44.33 |
23 | Damien Perrinelle | 46 | 22 | 22.67 | 44.67 |
24 | Saer Sene | 48 | 24 | 24.00 | 48.00 |
25 | Bobby Convey | 50 | 25 | 25.00 | 50.00 |
The only difference between the fan vote and the combined vote is Tim Cahill. We seem to value him more than someone like Ruben Bover (who came in 11th in Fan Voting). Do you agree with this list? Who would you protect ahead of the Expansion Draft? Let us know in the comments.