clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Expendables: Who Red Bulls left available in our Mock Expansion Draft

Because we can only protect 11 players...

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

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.