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2025 End of Season QA/Mailbag episode
1.8k Plays4 days ago
As we are in the offseason now, Aaron and Jeremiah answer a lot of questions posed by the Sounder at Heart Discord. They tackled some season review questions including which players overperformed their contracts in 2025, discussed several stadium issues including ideas on how to make Lumen a better option, and what is going on with Obed Vargas contract talks. The guys finish it out and answer various questions about the current and future roster. Even in the offseason there is a lot to break down.
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***
Nos Audietis is the flagship podcast for Sounder at Heart, which has been primarily listener supported since 2023. You can support us by becoming a paid subscriber, learn more here. You can also watch many of their shows on YouTube.
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“Diversions” audio provided by Sounder at Heart subscriber Lars; find more of their music here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sounders Achievement
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network. Here we go.
00:00:11
Speaker
Come on. Hey, O'Shaan. Let's go. The Seattle Sounders have done it. MLS Cup winners. Here comes Ruiz Diaz through the middle to crown it for Seattle.
00:00:25
Speaker
The Sounders rule the region.
00:00:58
Speaker
what was the thought process in terms of who you decided to use and who you didn't? Ever since I wrote a commentary that we didn't take the outcome seriously.
Sponsorship and Podcast Format
00:01:18
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters.
00:01:32
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Arietes on the Sounder at Heart podcast network. It is Tuesday, November 18th. We are doing this month's mailbag episode and and really probably the last mailbag episode of 2025.
00:01:57
Speaker
twenty twenty five The next one we do will probably be part of the 2026 season.
Offseason Adjustments and Challenges
00:02:02
Speaker
But anyway, I am joined by Aaron Campo and our producer, Lickett. We are going to get into these questions. But before we do all that, Aaron...
00:02:14
Speaker
Is the reality of the offseason, has it started to set in yet? It's kind of surreal this week, especially. Yeah, it is, man. This sounds more dramatic than it is, I promise. But I was talking my therapist about this.
00:02:26
Speaker
um Just about being like, yeah, I have this thing that is like a huge part of my life. And it's the routine of doing watching every the game every week and then doing this show every Tuesday, most, mostly every Tuesday. Um, and that going away is like, uh, maybe not the, like, it's not a bad thing necessarily. Like it's nice to have a little bit of the break. Obviously i would have rather had the break a month from now instead of now, but,
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, but it is strange, like just to have this like and I'm sure it's even crazier for you because it's I mean, it's your it's your day job, right? It's your well routine. so Yeah, you know, it's it's ah I would agree. You know, it went from, you know, a week and a half ago. I felt like I was sort of drowning and I had more things I had to do that. I had time to do them. And all of a sudden now I'm sitting here like.
00:03:18
Speaker
oh yeah, I could, I could write, I could spend two hours writing the story because I have nothing better to do with my time. And I was, know, I've been making afternoon plans with people and, uh, you know, I socially, I'm not, I'm not upset at all, but there does to feel this sort of absence of structure right now that is, feels a little different than in previous years. And I guess maybe that's when the centers are out two rounds earlier than they were last year.
00:03:45
Speaker
So You know, that's that's maybe a big part of it. But it is it's kind of weird to you know be this early in November and realizing that there's no more games left.
00:03:57
Speaker
i I keep waiting for the Sounders to release the end-of-season contract decisions that they are, you know, I'm sure now they'll release it tomorrow. Of course. Before this show even comes out. so i'll look like Remember when that was a thing? It does seem like they're sort of dragging their feet on it a little bit.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, which is interesting, right? Maybe they're hoping they don't, to you know, they can announce some happy news that people would rather hear than... Maybe. Who knows? Probably not, but who knows? i mean, maybe. i don't know. That's an optimistic way of looking at it, that they think that there's a chance of it. Yeah. But we're going to get into a lot of this stuff. We are, yeah. Any reason not to just sort of ah jump right in? I should also say, before we get into this, I just wanna to say thank you to our sponsors, Full Pool Wines and Hacks and Perments, but also...
00:04:45
Speaker
This is, as i always like to remind people, if you want to be submitting questions to the mailbag, you have to be in our discord and to get into our discord, you have to be a supporter or above member of sounder
Sounder at Heart Community Benefits
00:05:02
Speaker
at heart. So that's the $75 a year level.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's a lot of fun. i think this is a cool little side perk of it, but not maybe the main reason you want to be in our discord, but you know, lot of lively conversations, even right especially in the offseason. Honestly, i think the most value going get out of Discord is in the offseason because people are really looking for stuff to talk about.
00:05:24
Speaker
true. It's true. We are. Yeah. Like, you can get away with not really, you know, being in the Discord during the season because there's just a steady stream of news but to get your Sounders fix. But if you really want to get your Sounders fix, you probably got to get in there. yeah Yeah. So, yeah.
00:05:42
Speaker
Anyway. What we got? What do we got? All right. We're going to start off with some questions that are sort of, ah you know, just looking back at the season that was. And the first one is from look forward.
Analysis of Sounders' Performance Issues
00:05:51
Speaker
The Sounders fell short late in games on set piece defending out and out brain fart red cards and post leagues cup fatigue. I chalk much of that up to mental fatigue and switching off. Brian systems are based on offensive and defensive intensity. How can the team improve mental toughness and resilience?
00:06:09
Speaker
you know this is a great question. and i think I'm I'm keep going back and forth on how much of the Sounders struggles were this sort of mental toughness issue, because that kind of came up a few times throughout the year. And I don't know if I totally buy that. It's a mental toughness issue.
00:06:30
Speaker
Although, I don't know, maybe maybe that's how you... you know i think that's in some ways encapsulated by the last game, right? They they jump out to a 2-0 lead, they go up a man, and then they give up two set-piece goals...
00:06:43
Speaker
while up a man where they lose marks, what, you know, when there's, when they have a extra player on the field, it's, it's sort of in inexcusable. And is that a mental fatigue issue? is that, is that something else?
00:06:55
Speaker
I don't, I don't know what it is. i I thought that, you know, it was fun to make fun of Steven Lenhart being the mental skills coach, but I actually thought he did a pretty good job. Like I, yeah the players seem to love him. i don't really,
00:07:13
Speaker
I don't really think it's his his problem per se. i I don't know. i don't i don't I don't have a good theory here. Yeah, I mean, it is one of those things where sports that are a random number generator sometimes. And i just don't find any of the narratives that you could build from a lot of this to be especially satisfying. and And not in a, like, I don't like that story. So, but in a, just like, it doesn't really...
00:07:41
Speaker
it doesn't really track for me so well. Like I think if, if there's well switching off and mental fatigue, like I don't think that they get that goal from Jordan Morris late, you know, against Minnesota to tie it back up. Right. Like, um, I, I do, I have serious questions about the set piece organization, about the set piece tactics, about, you know, like, cause I think that that's just to me, the most plausible explanation for it.
00:08:05
Speaker
The brain fart red cards. I mean, Danny Musavsky has a reputation as being a little bit of a certain way. ah New who also has a right. Like, I don't think those were necessarily.
00:08:16
Speaker
Well, they were they were unexpected. But if you were going to say, here are some red cards that are going to happen, which guys do you think are most likely to be responsible for them? New who and and Danny probably would have been, you know, pretty high on my list of of guys. I mean, yeah.
00:08:32
Speaker
if you're going to put together a list of possible ways you could get a red card. Yeah. The Sounders check, check, checked off a lot of those boxes. There was not a good through line to this type, you know, the, you know, the Georgie Manungu is a great example. It's like this guy rips off his shirt while he's sitting on a yellow card and he gets a second, a second red or second yellow. Like, is that a,
00:08:56
Speaker
Is that a coaching issue? I don't think it is. i think that's just a player losing track of getting lost in the moment. right And then they had, you know they had a couple red cards that were players getting kind of innocuous second yellows.
00:09:12
Speaker
You know, I think of Kalani Kosarianzi and Reed Baker Whiting where it was like, i mean, I guess those are yellow cards, but then the Sounders, you look how many times the Sounders did that to an opponent and then didn't get the red card you know so it's such an inconsistent thing i don't know yeah i i think that's um there's definitely a concern we talked about this last week i believe um but the sounders did give up a lot of leads but they didn't they did they didn't lose out and out lose any games from giving up those leads right
00:09:49
Speaker
They didn't fall apart. And they also had a lot of leads, I think, is the other thing, right? Like, yeah, there there weren't that many teams that blew more leads than they did, but there also weren't that many teams that led more games than they did. So, you know, it's it's it's kind of a tricky one. I just, ah I don't know. It's one of those things that feels like a trend and and feels like something that should be explainable. But the more I think about it and the more you and I have conversations about it,
00:10:14
Speaker
I just think it's one of those things that feels that way without necessarily having a satisfying explanation for it.
00:10:25
Speaker
we'll We'll give it some more thought, though. and And who knows, maybe by the end of the offseason, have a Well, good answer for you there. It was a good question. yeah Just not that we didn't have a satisfying answer. All right. So this is from Eric and he this is ah this is a, it's an interesting one.
00:10:42
Speaker
What three players over perform their contracts this year and what three players underperform their contracts. I would personally exclude missed, for injury, but this is your
Player Performance and Roster Evaluation
00:10:52
Speaker
choice. I'm speaking by yeah Eric by there. I think, I think you almost have to like, can you really blame Paul Areola for, you know, doing his ACL?
00:11:00
Speaker
Right. Sure. That would be the, ah the most underperforming of Jordan too, I guess would, would fall into that camp. He did play, but he missed a lot of the season. uh two of the three overperformed are slam dunk easy obad and daniel sobski um obad is not making any money at all and i think by the end of the year was playing like a borderline all-star um and i know he made the all-star team but there were maybe political reasons for that um but you know i think it showed like he
00:11:31
Speaker
is capable of being a best 11 player right now. If he can be consistent with his performances, Danny Masofsky, you know, yeah makes what I think was a fair wage for, for where he's at in his career and what he's done. And he scored 18 goals in all competitions. So those two are easy.
00:11:49
Speaker
ah and Paul Rothrock, I guess also is, is quite easy as well. no Now that I think about it, um, you know, he, he's not making any money either. And, uh, he, he had quite a good year.
00:12:01
Speaker
um Underperformed is a little tougher for me. um i would say would probably put Pedro. I mean, i don't think Pedro missed enough time to fall into the.
00:12:22
Speaker
ah Exclude, you know, missed for injury, but when he was available, he was mostly pretty good. So maybe he doesn't count. That's a tougher one for me. I don't know. I don't. ah That is a really tough one because the players at the top end of the, you know, like I guess maybe Ferreira, you could maybe argue under, like, even though I thought he was good, i suppose you could argue that at 1.8 million, he didn't put up the numbers you'd expect for a a player at 1.8, but really i don't, you know, maybe Ryan Kent again, ran kind but that's mostly injury. Yeah.
00:13:01
Speaker
I don't know that anyone absent injury really was an under, like there was no one that I felt really like this was a sunk cost. I can't believe that. the And I think that sort of speaks to the really um most impressive thing about the Sounders roster is that they got a lot of value out of almost every spot on the roster. We didn't even mention Kalani Kosa-Rienzi who had three goals and two assists. Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
while making $80,000 as a right, you know, as a right back, ah you know, I think you, you probably have, you know, five to 10 guys on this, on this, right Kim Kee, he, you know, was very good for a player who,
00:13:43
Speaker
you know, was making the league minimum. Essentially Jonathan bell was a perfectly, you know, he was almost making the league minimum. Andrew, Tom, we could go, like I could lay, I could name five or 10 guys at the bottom end of the sounders salary scale and say, all of them were massive over performers. And then in the high end,
00:14:03
Speaker
I mean, maybe Jordan. Sure. You know, he, he was hurt. So I think Jordan has, has to, you know, I think, I think you have to include injuries. Otherwise you, you don't have a list. Right. Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think Kent is the only player who I look at and say, he played enough for me to have a sense of what kind of contribution he should have had. And ah you know, but, but I still think that's unfair to him because he came in and, you know, he hadn't played in forever kind of a weird situation. he had Five assists in like 800 minutes. And he had some games where he looked unplayable. jar Good numbers. um I think Jesus and Pedro did struggle pretty mightily at at the front half of the year. So maybe you could put them in that category, but I just don't have any concerns about either one of them going forward. So,
00:14:51
Speaker
I mean, maybe that's where I land, right? Is it fair to say, you know, Pedro, Jesus, Jordan underperformed, but not in a way that makes me concerned going forward. Because by the end of the year, they'd all they'd all either gotten back to health or or kind of figured out um how they fit into the team and and how to be effective. And so that's, you know, not the not the worst way to come out of it.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah. um All right. ah Okay, you're up, I guess. Oh, yeah. This one is from Hapaz, I think is how how you would say that. With the Sounders playing a lot of games this year, how should they better rotate their lineup?
00:15:36
Speaker
I think the the main thing that we have to look at is at defensive midfielder at the double pivot. Although early on in the season, I assure you that will not be happening. You know, if, ah you know, assuming all, you know, assuming they're everyone's playing it straight here,
00:15:54
Speaker
you know Christian Roldan is going to be making a final push to make the US World Cup team. Obed Vargas likely making a push to make the World Cup team. Those guys are going to want to play every single game they can, I assume.
00:16:10
Speaker
And I can't imagine that Brian is going to be inclined to rest either one of them. That's going to be... So I think that's going to be a challenge. I think...
00:16:22
Speaker
And I honestly, other than the double pivot, I thought we did okay at rotating. yeah Like the Sounders had, you know, a lot of it was forced by injury, but I don't think there were a bunch of injuries that were the cause of overuse.
00:16:37
Speaker
maybe Jordan early in the season. I think that was maybe the, the one exception to that is, you know, Jordan does his hamstring in whatever game nine of all competitions. And he had played in every game up to that point. I think he had played at least 45 minutes in every game.
00:16:57
Speaker
So maybe that's, you know, so maybe Jordan specifically is a player who maybe you try to rotate a little bit more, but I would imagine next year will be easier because, you know, this year they didn't have as much, you know, if they had known Danny Masofsky was going to have the season he had, I suspect he would have gotten more minutes early on in the season.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think that the the key thing is um Brian doesn't want to break up that defensive midfield pivot. And I think that that's a pretty consistent thing with coaches. like that is the That's the engine room. It's, I think, a lot of the time the most important thing to a team's identity and the way they play.
00:17:39
Speaker
um But I don't think you're always going to have the luxury of having guys that are that durable in those spots. And so... um Maybe the retort to that is, but we are that lucky right now, and so we should just ride it while we can. But it definitely makes me nervous trying to do that again, you know, to have those two guys play that many minutes. um And maybe that's a problem that we won't have to worry about next year because we'll get into for reasons we'll get into and later. But yeah, I think that and that's why i would really like to see them go and get another defensive midfielder that, you know, you feel like Brian can trust and be willing to play a little more frequently.
Negotiations and Leverage at Lumen Field
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, so we got a whole bunch of questions about the stadium slash sale of the team. And i think I'm going to sort of try to wrap, kind of consolidate questions from SoccerDevil87, Tim Hamilton, and Chris S. And ah essentially what they are asking about is how do we how do we go about...
00:18:49
Speaker
improving the situation at Lumen Field. I think, especially in our community, there seems to be a general sense that we don't want to leave downtown and that Long Anchors is not seen as a ideal fallback option.
00:19:09
Speaker
And i think there's just a lot of frustration with the current paradigm between the sounders being very clearly sort of second class citizens and now speak nothing of the rain while first and goal is doing my first goals is having a motocross event on February 15th, which is wild to me. I am shocked that Lumen field is even available. I would have thought that the grass installation would have already started by then, but apparently it's not, but that kind of speaks to the way first and goal operates Lumen field, which is,
00:19:53
Speaker
they just get i mean ah there's ah a weird thing i'm sorry there's a question here aaron how what what would you think realistically what can the sounders do to help the their situation at lumen i think that the key thing is going to be getting first and goal to view the sounders leaving as a ah plausible threat right i think that It's easy for the sounders to say, well, we're exploring this option. you know We're willing to do it.
00:20:20
Speaker
I think everybody at First and Goal knows Long Acres is is not a good solution ah and knows that even Long Acres is probably not a possibility with the ownership group right now and the amount of capital that's in the ownership group right now with interest rates being the way they are, with with you know the economy being the way it is.
00:20:39
Speaker
So I think that they have to get into a position where them saying we will leave and we will take what 40 dates a year with us um is has to be a plausible threat. And I think if the Sounders can get into a situation where they're getting a better share of the revenue, um you know, where the rain are not put into a position where they have to schedule around the Sounders to make it as cheap as possible. Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
to where they are viewed as they're look, they're never going to be viewed as equal tenants to the Seahawks. And that's just kind of the reality, but something closer to equals, right? Not just like it feels to me ever since the separation of the the business operations of the Seahawks and the Sounders that the Seahawks have treated the Sounders like they treat motocross promoters or concert promoters or whatever, just like ah just like another another, you know, tenant or whatever.
00:21:36
Speaker
And i just, I don't, I don't think that that's ah a relationship that can last in that way. So the Sounders have to get a bigger share of the revenue. It's probably never going to be as good of a revenue situation, but there's gotta be,
00:21:51
Speaker
you know, ah ah point at which everything you lose by leaving downtown, by giving up the, you know, the capacity, right? Like when you do have a big game, um, where if first and goal can give some that it makes more sense to stay downtown than, than to leave.
00:22:12
Speaker
Um, And i just i hope they can find it because i I hate the idea of building a new stadium somewhere in the city on a lot of levels, like from a non-sports perspective, because there are a lot of things the city needs more than another stadium.
00:22:26
Speaker
I hate the idea of building a stadium in the suburbs for a lot of different reasons that we've talked about on the podcast um a million times before. But I also hate the the idea of the Sounders being left behind because they can't compete with teams that do have better stadium situations. So...
00:22:44
Speaker
and Right. it's it's a very It's a very tricky one. I mean, I think... I do think that new ownership or new money, at least, ah which just probably means new ownership,
00:22:57
Speaker
can do something to affect that. Cause I do think that there's a, there's a numbers aspect to this that I don't know that the Sounders have ever properly leaned into between them and the rain. They're bringing in, you know, they brought in close to a million fans this year.
00:23:10
Speaker
They filled 40 dates yeah on the Lumen field calendar. I can't, I can't believe that Lumen field is just gonna be like, Oh, well, you know, it was nice having you.
00:23:24
Speaker
We'll we'll figure it out without you. It's just not worth the trouble. Right. like That doesn't seem. I mean, I feel like this that doesn't. This would have to step in at that point and be like, what are you doing? Like letting like this is, you know, this is a huge source of revenue for for for the state.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. it's it's a it's ah It's a weird one. And i will yeah thing i will say one of the things I've learned in discussing all this over the years, there just aren't that there really aren't locations even in Seattle that are going to be Lumen Field. Like they they every every single location is a downgrade of some sort. Right now.
00:24:08
Speaker
That doesn't mean that the trade-off wouldn't be worth it. Like you could maybe talk yourself into, but like no one, nowhere is going to be more accessible than where it is now. Right. I mean, people take the ferry to games. Yeah. they're Including players, right? Including players.
00:24:25
Speaker
ah So I think, and that's, that's the thing that's so tough of a selling point, I think for the Sounders, like, is that nothing about leaving for the game day experience or sorry, not the game day experience, but the logistical experience, right? Like maybe once you're in the stadium, you can make it a million times better and maybe the atmosphere is better. yeah And maybe, you know, ah it would be nice to have grass full time. Right.
00:24:52
Speaker
But nothing about like, Well, but you're going to have to take three trains now instead of one or you're going to have to drive to the game or you can't take the ferry anymore. Right. Like all of that stuff is just more impactful to, i think, what people enjoy. and And so it's just such a tough sell because ultimately the sounders are right. Like we need more revenue.
00:25:16
Speaker
But ultimately, that's not my problem. You know what mean? Like that you you're selling me and an entertainment product here. Like you needing more revenue is not relevant to me in any way. Like no other...
00:25:28
Speaker
ah entertainment producer would try to take that tact of being like, well, we're making this change that sucks for you and in most ways, but like, you know, we need to wet our beaks a little bit more, right? Like, that's just not ah a great selling point. Whether or not it's, I mean, it's, I've totally accepted that it's the reality of the situation, but it's still a ah very tough sell for the Sounders.
00:25:50
Speaker
let me just end this portion of the conversation on this. If someone from the Sounders would ever like to come on the show and have a open and honest conversation about the trade-offs and and sell us on Long Acres, they are more than welcome.
00:26:07
Speaker
We would love to... hear that And I think that is actually one of the things that is sort of acting as a dragging force on this whole thing is that we were two years into the Sounders first like openly acknowledging that that Long Acres is a viable stadium location.
00:26:26
Speaker
We have had almost no public. pitching on this. There's been no vision boarding. there's you know It's just been ah in the most vague terms of saying like, yeah, we think we can improve the situation if we go to Long Acres and we wouldn't it be great to have grass and wouldn't it be great to have a... But it's like, no, you got to sell this. If you want this to work, I feel like the at this point, the the the well is becoming pretty poisoned.
00:26:53
Speaker
And it's going to be a real battle to sort of turn things around public sentiment wise. So anyway, that's just, ah that's my pitch. If anyone is interested in listening. Yeah, I would, I would love to be a, be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
00:27:09
Speaker
ah So similar to the stadium topic, we got a lot of questions about Obed and there's a lot of overlap. I want to thank Aaron R. Ken W Jughead and Twimberly23 for, for asking questions here. But ah the gist of these is, and so I want to clear up a couple of things because these are a few things that came up in the questions.
Obed Vargas Contract Discussion
00:27:26
Speaker
um For one, Obed cannot sign a pre-contract this summer. He's not old enough to do that. So he can let his contract run out, but he, unless something has changed that I'm not aware of, he cannot sign a pre-contract until he's 23 so That's one thing.
00:27:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Is that that is my understanding. Like I said, maybe something changed. um But my understanding is that you have to be 23 years old to sign a pre-contract.
00:27:58
Speaker
Maybe that's just a UEFA thing. um i mean, that would be a significant. yeah Presumably, that's where he wants to go play. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:10
Speaker
But anyway, go go on and um ah i'm I'm researching this while you do. Please do. it Please. Please fact check me on that. But that is my most recent understanding of this one. Right. um The other one is that the Sounders cannot unilaterally sell him to another team.
00:28:26
Speaker
Right. So the Sounders can't say weren't signing a contract and we're not getting any better offers for you. So we've accepted the Tigres offer for however many millions it was. And you you go, you know, go to Mexico.
00:28:40
Speaker
They can't do that. Obed has to has to sign a contract. So. um That's just two points of clarification. um But generally, the concern seems to be, A, do you think the Sounders would just let him walk on a free um if they can't resign him or ah if they can't ah find a ah buyer for him this winter?
00:29:01
Speaker
um B, do you think there's a possibility we could get what we value him at? The Sounders could get their valuation? And if if not, what do you think it would take for them to get to accept an offer see after Obed move syrup, what will we call the roll down double pivot?
00:29:26
Speaker
Just so you know, ah just to throw a real stand on a, on a silly note, I suppose. Yeah. So i best I can tell, i think you only have to be 18. Is it 18?
00:29:41
Speaker
To sign a pre-contract. I believe so. I don't, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that that's the ironclad situation. But ah I don't know that it makes a huge, like the pre-contract aspect of it. I don't know if that's a, I don't know if that's really a driving force in this whole thing.
00:30:04
Speaker
ah Because the reality, whether he can sign a pre-contract in summer or he can wait it out until next winter, either way, he would have to play here.
00:30:16
Speaker
His contract has him playing for the Sounders through 2026. he's not going to leave. But functionally...
00:30:24
Speaker
they're not going to be able to transfer him in the sun. If they don't transfer him now and they don't re resign him, if they don't either re resign him to a longer extension or transfer him now, that is essentially closing the books on his tie. Like the sounders don't really have much control over what he does at that point.
00:30:48
Speaker
So I don't know. The pre-contract thing is, is that big a deal? And you're right. There is It's important that he wants to go wherever the Sounders send him because he needs to sign... and He's going to have to sign... and He has to come to terms on a new contract with that team.
00:31:06
Speaker
like that's just that's That's just the functional reality of it. That said, i I do think that the Sounders are really in a position where they have you know this is going to go one of three ways. Either they're going to figure out a way to get him signed to a contract extension, and that's the that's the one that I think most Sounders fans are hoping for because that's the one that's going to lead to the best outcomes, especially for the Sounders.
00:31:34
Speaker
The Sounders could, if they don't sign him, ice i I think this would probably, you know i would like to think that that would happen early. They would figure this out early in,
00:31:46
Speaker
in this off season and then go into overdrive and tell, basically tell Obed, look, we're going to try to find you the best option, but we would really like, like you can't do that. Like, don't you, you can't, you can't put us up against the wall here where we're risking losing you for nothing. Right.
00:32:07
Speaker
So i would think that they would work with his people, but be working really hard to find someone to take him off their hands.
00:32:17
Speaker
And that probably means selling him at half a third, maybe even less. So I don't know what their internal valuation on Ovid is. but let's just say it's $10 million. dollars I would think on the high end, they'd probably say, look, look, we can get 5 million for Obed. We got to take that, uh, which, you know, that's a bummer. This is a player that they thought was going to be a huge transfer and $5 million dollars transfer is not nothing, but it's not, that's not anything crazy.
00:32:52
Speaker
That's not a ah huge number in MLS anymore. Uh, And then, of of course, there's the option where they don't move him. He doesn't agree to an extension.
00:33:03
Speaker
and then it gets it gets interesting because on one hand, Obed's a very good player. Why wouldn't they want Obed to help them win as much as they can?
00:33:15
Speaker
But then there's another element of, on some level, it's like almost like the cudgel they have is to say, well, we're not going to play you every week because we have to figure out what we have here.
00:33:28
Speaker
And so, sorry, Danny Leyva is getting some your minutes. Snyder Brunel is getting some your minutes. um Alex rolled on, like you said. yeah ah l a Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
I don't have a good looking after the rolled on. The Broldons, I'm sure is what they'll be called. I'm sure. But yeah, I mean, yeah I don't know. it's it's a it's It's a relatively un... This is not something the Sounders have had to deal with before.
00:33:56
Speaker
ah You know, Reed Baker Whiting, for instance, theoretically was in the same situation last year. They ran his contract all the way down to basically the end of the year. And then he re re-signed it and was like, oh, great. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
But I think that probably is Reed probably had less suitors, a lot less suitors than than Obed presumably does. Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, it's almost an uncharted waters for MLS generally. Like, I can't think of a ton of prospects like this that haven't been sold um or stayed in the league. And I think to to some extent, right, the Sounders have a lot of blame here for.
00:34:37
Speaker
letting it get to this point, just not getting that just not getting the deal done. But at the same time, i don't think really at any point before the summer, I would have looked at Obed and said, that's a guy that needs to be on a max U22 deal. Like I thought very highly of him as a prospect, but he hadn't really shown the kind of consistency of playing at like a sustained high level until this summer. And that's a lot of money to,
00:35:03
Speaker
commit to it to a guy like that. And he probably wasn't to sign a deal that wasn't that max deal. So, and honestly, even if the Sounders had offered it to him, you know, the day of the PSG game, as soon as that game was over, maybe he still doesn't sign it. Like maybe he he's, he's just determined to move on a free. So it's ah it's a tough situation.
00:35:23
Speaker
um I, I understand that Obed and his, his representatives want to do the best thing for him and that's what they should do. But the Sounders should also do the best thing for themselves. And if that means playing a little bit of hardball and telling him, look, man, like,
00:35:38
Speaker
You've got a chance to go to the World Cup. You've got a really nice contract offer on the table from us. We are motivated to sell you. We're not trying to get you to sign an extension so we can keep you forever. Like it's best for us if you move, but we need to make sure we're protecting our investment.
00:35:54
Speaker
And if you're bound determined to walk, that's fine. But we've got to figure out what we're going to do next. and And you're going to be hurting for playing time. And I don't know if that's really something you want going into the World Cup since you're kind of on the fringes of the team anyway.
00:36:08
Speaker
you know, that's, that's some leverage that they have. So I don't know if they would go that route. I don't know. You know, i really hope it doesn't get to that. I hope that cooler heads prevail and either Obed realizes that it's probably a little bit safer for me, for me to sign an extension or to, to see what the market for me is right now and and try to get a move so I can get some playing time, you know, um in the, you know, in the European season towards the end of the year. But,
00:36:34
Speaker
um it is It is a very... Go ahead. And yeah I think it's also important to point out that there are some benefits to Obed signing an extension. Absolutely. Like you said, the main one being there's much money in his pocket. yeah this is He's going to probably get a million guaranteed at least.
00:36:53
Speaker
for you know the next four years. That's real money. That's life-changing money. you know this is oh you know It's like 8X-ing his current salary. that's you know And that that protects him if, God forbid, he were to get an injury or whatever else. And I do think that there's...
00:37:12
Speaker
You know, Obed's a player who's been, you know, like I think he's he's looked at this like a family type situation for a long time. He came here when he was 13 years old.
00:37:22
Speaker
You know, he's he he knows these people very well. And I would hate for this to be a huge distraction for him as well, going into a very important year for him. Right. ah You know, he is this is a really important year for him. And I would not think, you know, I don't I don't think it would be good for him to have this sort of uncertainty hanging over him.
00:37:46
Speaker
And in that way, I mean, I really do hope he signs a contract to extension. I don't know exactly the status of that right now, but I think there are reasons to believe that it could still happen that go beyond just being Paul Yanish.
00:38:03
Speaker
I think a lot of people have sort of assumed that it makes the most sense for him to just run his contract out and go somewhere on a free. I, there's a reason you don't see that super often, especially among younger players.
00:38:17
Speaker
And You know, ah I'm not saying that won't happen, but I just don't think it's a foregone conclusion. Yeah. ah It's quite sorry to circle back to this, but according to what I found in the regs, the fever regs, he can sign a pre contract. But if he if he signs a pre contract, then the sounders would have to get some training compensation.
00:38:41
Speaker
oh So that's why it doesn't practically happen very often. um And again, I could be wrong in that reading of it, but that is that that's what it looks like to me. So, yeah, I mean, that's interesting. Yeah.
00:38:52
Speaker
I mean, they I would think that they would be do some. Minimal, relatively minimal compensation either way. Sure. Yeah. But i do think they're there. It requires more if if he signs a pre-contract. But like you said, it doesn't really matter anyway. If he doesn't get sold, he's he's gone. So.
00:39:10
Speaker
Right. um All right. So we got a bunch of questions about the roster, ah which I think we'll... handle most of these individually though uh boomstick 315 if a player is sold this offseason ending the sounders a big hall of gam who would you like to see them go after in another big time trade similar in scale to jesus the jesus ferrera uh i think that a lot of that depends on what happens with obed right if obed is sold or if obed says i'm not moving i'm not
00:39:46
Speaker
you know, taking a contract somewhere else and I'm not signing an extension.
Roster Moves and Player Acquisition Strategies
00:39:50
Speaker
i think it makes a lot of sense to go find his replacement. You know, I like Danny Lava a lot. I think he he should get a decent number of minutes next year.
00:39:59
Speaker
but I think you could improve on Daniel Levin that spot. And like, you can improve on Obed in that spot too, right? Like a lot of the benefits to playing Obed as many minutes as they did last year was they are trying to develop them to, to make a profit off of them. So, um, I think that they could upgrade there, maybe get, you know, somebody who's a little bit better of of a compliment, maybe like not quite as, uh, samey, samey with, with Christian skillset who offers a different dimension. Um,
00:40:27
Speaker
Center back is another spot. You know, I really like Yamar a lot, but I'd rather replace him too early than too late. ah Depending on what happens with Nuhu, maybe you could get, you know, a left back and try to go big there. So there there are options. um
00:40:46
Speaker
But those seems like the only ones, right? Like, I don't know. I wouldn't want them spending a lot. on I would think like if there's a. Yeah, if there's a left back out there who would maybe Jesus Ferreira equivalent, maybe a Kai Wagner. Yeah.
00:41:00
Speaker
Or... you know, that's probably the that's like shooting the moon kind of aspiration. ah Andrew Goodman is someone who is ah lower tier than that, but someone who I think would fit the Sounders system.
00:41:15
Speaker
Well, yeah, ah he plays for the Chicago chicago Fire. Like I would think, yeah, left back is probably a good position to to target. And if you're going shoot for it, you may as well go high. Yeah.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah. Agree. they could They could get a U22, too. I mean, they wouldn't need to get a a starter right now. They could they could do a reverse Rapids. and Yeah, go that route. This one's from Everett Sounder. Do you think Masabski will be on the team next season? And if not, is Osaze ready to fill his role?
00:41:50
Speaker
I think this is a a good... i My gut says they trade Mussovsky. And this is the main reason why it's not because they don't like him.
00:42:03
Speaker
It's not because they don't necessarily think what he did this year is some crazy, unsustainable thing. I think it's simpler than that. And it's that. He's going to be in the final year of his contract.
00:42:16
Speaker
He surely wants an extension. And unless the Sounders are willing to give him a million plus, which I don't think the Sounders are, i think they're inclined to find him someplace who would give him that.
00:42:30
Speaker
And so I suspect he's going to be pushing for a trade. Because I'm sure he wants to sign a contract extension now. Like, why would you, if you're him, this is the time that you want to sign a new contract.
00:42:43
Speaker
You just are coming off your best year ever. This is probably your last chance to get paid. What timing get paid. That's, and that's honestly, that's the main reason is I think it's just, it makes too much sense for both the Sounders and Mussofsky to find another team.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, i I'm and yeah, I think Osase is the is the odds on favorite to be the film. yeah i'm I'm with you on all that. And I think that this is one of the things about the Mussovsky conversation that um people say, look, how are we going to replace those 18 goals? Do you think Osase can replace those 18 goals? I mean, I don't think that he has to. Right. I think hopefully Jordan Morris doesn't miss like two thirds of the season.
00:43:24
Speaker
Uh, and you know, you don't need somebody to score that many goals. Um, and you saw the option of going and getting you to 22. If, if, you know, you feel like you need some more at that spot.
00:43:36
Speaker
Uh, but I, I really like Osazi. I think he's got a ton of potential. I was, I was a big time Osazi skeptic and he completely, so was i and he completely turned me around. I mean, he, he looks, he looks like the real deal. And I think this team creates enough chances that, you know, um anybody that's out there that can get into decent positions has got a chance to score goals. So I'm, I'm excited to see what he can do with some more minutes.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, this one was from Bard. It says, uh, Craig Weibel said he was planning on making some moves. If we had, done badly in the k club world cup, which indicates that we had some room to wheel and deal given that though, that he was prepared to do that. If you had the ability to make any roster moves you wanted with and the sounders, but just Oprah MO, what moves would you make? Yeah. I think that this is slightly different than the boomstick question because you you have the ability to go outside of the league here.
00:44:34
Speaker
And I think that, um, this is where if you want to go get a striker, I think it makes sense to go get U22 striker somewhere outside the league, just because I think the prospects are just generally better.
00:44:47
Speaker
um I think if you, if you want to go get Yamar 2.0, um, um it's going to be easier to get that caliber of player from outside the league playing sort of a minimal transfer fee than it would be getting them from within the league.
00:45:02
Speaker
um So I think those kinds of moves, right, where there's a benefit to paying an actual cash transfer fee are the ones I'd be, I'd be looking at um if they were, you know, going to go do that somewhere.
00:45:17
Speaker
I would like to believe that's true. i I have a feeling
00:45:25
Speaker
there might not be as much money in the transfer kitty as there should be. i mean, the sounders got $8 million dollars or whatever from the club world cup. Best I can tell that is money. That is just kind of being jammed back into the organization in hard to track ways and not in transfer systems. So I don't, I don't know what the sound, I, I, I don't know what, what,
00:45:51
Speaker
Weibel had in mind, I suspect, you know, Yamar was probably his most tradable asset and yeah in a lot of ways or movable assets. So I think that was probably, you know, something like that. I'm sure knew who would have been very much on the block.
00:46:05
Speaker
You can kind of go down the list. ah you know, if the if the if the centers really thought that they didn't have a run in them, You know, there's, you know, a lot of players whose options were up this year, I think would have been players who they would have really tried to move. Yeah, that makes sense. yeah I don't know what they would have brought in, but yeah, maybe just a bunch of game and set on that. Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
Maybe. Thank you for listening to the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network, which now includes Nos Adietes, Loving Scorchers, and The Cooler Guild. Although this podcast is free, it's only made possible through our paid subscribers. Plans start as low as $30 a year and allow us to remain independent and mostly ad-free. subscribers get access to all our written and podcast content, including a full text RSS feed and a mostly ad free podcast feed that includes every show in one spot. If you really like what we're doing though, I'd encourage you to sign up at our higher tiers, which include all sorts of various perks. The most popular of those is our members only discord or the real Sounders sickos hang out. I know I've called this group, the smartest, funniest and best informed Sounders fans in the world, but it's more than the rough equivalent of a Sounders Mensa meeting. Discord is where we make things happen. Like, for real. You know the promotion the Sounders ran that offered fans the opportunity to trade in their messy jersey for a Paul Rothrock one? That originated in our community. You'll not only be the first to know about stuff, but you also have a semi-direct line to the movers and shakers at the Sounders organization. If you want to be one of the totally normal people who occupy the Sounder at Heart Discord, just become a supporter of Sounder at Heart. Anyway, thanks for listening, and go Durs.
00:47:43
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:48:45
Speaker
This one is from Kai Faye. What are the chances Jesus gets transferred? He seems like a candidate for a budget team like Colorado or RSL to offer a lower level DP contract.
00:48:57
Speaker
I mean, i don't... um I guess it's not out of the question. I hadn't really considered him as a player who is likely to get transferred. I suspect that his... his you know He renegotiated his contract to come down off of a DP to come here.
00:49:13
Speaker
I don't know that he is... And he came here for a reason, so I don't know that he's dying to do that again. He seems happy. he seems well-adjusted. I don't think the Sounders should feel... to me, Ferreira is a player that they can sort of build...
00:49:28
Speaker
build around like yeah he's 24 years old i believe he's got maybe 25 years old he's got a few you know really good he's just right now entering his prime i don't know why the sounders would be trying to move him unless they are getting blown away by offers so i i suspect he's he's here did you know that jesus was born on christmas eve I did not. That is extremely funny.
00:49:56
Speaker
um I wonder if that's why they you named him. i'm I'm guessing so, but it's very funny. I was just looking up his date to see he'll, he'll be 25 on December 24th. So no, I never clocked that. That's very funny.
00:50:08
Speaker
Very funny. ah Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, maybe somebody makes a Godfather offer, but I can't imagine a team like Colorado or RSL having the, I mean, yeah, the Sounders would have to get more than they gave up to get him. and they gave up quite a bit. So, you know, starting... And they gave up quite a bit. So I don't know that his value has gone up, really, since the Sounders got him. I think the Sounders are probably reasonably happy with what they got out of him.
00:50:35
Speaker
I just don't necessarily think that, you know, if the Sounders were the only team willing to pay whatever it was, $3 million, GAM, I don't know that there's another team out there willing to pay $4 million. Right. um But if there is...
00:50:47
Speaker
maybe Maybe there's a European team that wants them, but it seems unlikely. i I don't, yeah. I kind of feel like that ship sailed a little bit. no um you know We'll see. This is from Bill Jones, STRPT.
00:51:04
Speaker
ah Should we expect Areola to be fit and ready for the start of next season? We saw a fair amount of formation fluidity this season. If we were to line up against peak l LAFC next year with Paul Areola in the lineup, what would your 11 look like?
00:51:18
Speaker
I think we should expect him to be fit and ready, but I think that the level of contribution we should expect from him is not what he showed in his limited time last year. Right. Like, I think that that's an injury that sometimes guys come back from pretty quickly, but more typically it takes them some time to round back into form.
00:51:38
Speaker
Both times that Jordan did did his ACL, I think, are great examples where he was an effective player pretty quickly after the injury, but he did not look like himself for six to nine months, I think. So, ah yeah, I think that yeah I hope he can contribute next year. And and I think i I think there's a good chance that did he will.
00:51:59
Speaker
But I don't think we should expect him to look as good maybe as he did um before his injury last year. ah And let's say, you know, we're playing LAFC with with Paul Areola and he is 100 percent and he he does look as good as as he has looked.
00:52:15
Speaker
ah I'm probably still have him on the bench. I don't know. I mean, it's unless you're playing three center backs and then you would play him at left wing back. I think I would rather have, you know, peak Paul Areola than than Paul.
00:52:30
Speaker
Rothrock at left wing back, but I think in a two center back setup, I just don't, I don't know where you put them. I mean, everybody else is healthy.
00:52:41
Speaker
I think the other problem with Areola in this kind of best 11 this four best attacking players they have are Jordan and Ferreira, Rusnak, and De La Vega.
00:52:58
Speaker
And we never really got to solve this, but how do you get all four of them on the field with Areola? I don't, I don't know if that's feasible yeah because I don't think you're going to put De La Vega at right wing back.
00:53:17
Speaker
um Not after we've seen what he can do life i left mid. Yeah. Right. ah so like that's So I don't know that Areola, as the roster is currently constructed, is a best 11 player.
00:53:35
Speaker
But you know things could change. Yeah, certainly. ah Next one is from MauiFan. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Not to cut you off. No, I was just to say, I think the best 11 is still basically what they...
00:53:48
Speaker
honestly, it's probably pretty close to what they rolled out against Minnesota yeah in the last, or not the last two games, but you know, ah in the first, I think maybe the first game against Minnesota is I'm thinking.
00:54:00
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Pedro probably on the left and ah maybe a new left back, but otherwise, yeah. And and I don't, I don't think Paul Ariel is a left back. Yeah, Pedro yeah pro wasn't in the game. yeah I guess that's a good point. But I don't think Paul Ariel is left back in any real sense.
00:54:19
Speaker
No. ah This one's from MauiFan. going to paraphrase a little bit here. They're asking about the Sounders scouting department. Is it just Sean Henderson and Craig Weibel sitting around watching videos of players, or do they have a team that flies around the world?
00:54:33
Speaker
i assume they use a lot of data analysis, but would love and ah to know more about how it all works. Also, i miss Chris Henderson's Where's Waldo picks. So do I. Those were a lot of fun. Thanks so much. Hey, thank you, MauiFan.
00:54:47
Speaker
Well, I do know that Sean definitely leaves the country to do in-person scouting a fair amount. I believe Craig does as well. You know, they were, I know Sean was at the U20 World Cup, for instance.
00:55:02
Speaker
So they they are getting outside of the country and doing in person. They're not just doing video analysis. That said they do. Those are the two main talent scouts. As far as I know it, uh, they, you know, Henry Bronner is involved.
00:55:19
Speaker
Corey Sinzer is involved. Uh, I believe they might have a couple other people on staff. They, I know they have some video people on staff. So there's a,
00:55:32
Speaker
um I'm blanking on the data analyst guy's name right now, but they have, you know, they have a robust team, but they do not. They, there was a time when they had sort of like a worldwide network of scouts that they were tapping into.
00:55:47
Speaker
i don't think that's really the case anymore. It's more in-house. ah But yeah, it's a lot of data analysis. It's a lot of video analysis. And then they supplement it all by going to see these players in person. Yeah. And I think that that's the way it's really kind of become Tyler Cox. tyler cox Tyler Cox is the name of the data analyst that just came to be. I think that's pretty typical, right? I think a lot, especially at the MLS level, a lot of teams used to kind of outsource their scouting. And that made sense at the time because teams had fewer resources. And there are also just better scouting tools now than there used to be. Like the systems that they have access to are extremely robust and,
00:56:27
Speaker
um And that just didn't exist, you know, 10, 15 years ago the way it does now. So um yeah, I think it's ah it might sound like that's a downgrade, but I think that that's actually pretty typical and to be expected in a positive thing overall.
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. right. This is from MCB. Aaron has mentioned a desire for more, a more physical six. How do you see that improving the team? For example, I like that the centers center mids don't get a lot of tactical yellows.
00:56:59
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of it for me is having a different dimension to add to the game. i think that one of the things that um
00:57:10
Speaker
I, the sounder struggled with at times this year is that, they didn't have a lot of ways to change things up in the center of the, of the park. Like Danny Leyva might come in for Obed. Um, and they're different players, but they, they kind of,
00:57:28
Speaker
they look at it like they, they play in similar ways, right? They have different skillsets, different pluses, different minuses, but um at the end of the day, like they're not really tactically changing things that much when you swap out one for the other.
00:57:42
Speaker
um And so I think that having like a little bit more of a harder edge um to, to win more physical battles, if, if that needs to happen, like there were definitely times where we would see Obed just consistently get muscled off the ball.
00:57:56
Speaker
And so having somebody to bring in in a situation like that would be helpful. Having somebody with some size would be nice, right? Like set pieces were a little bit of a struggle. So having another tall dude to throw in there might not be the worst thing in the world. um And, and frankly, I think sometimes the sounders need a guy who's a little bit of a dick to go out there and be a dick. Like,
00:58:17
Speaker
that was one of the things that I think about prime JP that was underrated was he wasn't a dirty player by any means, but he did not take shit and Christian doesn't either, but he could use some backup from time to time, I think. So, um, yeah, just, you know, having somebody who's, who's not afraid to mix it up could be helpful.
00:58:35
Speaker
Um, and, and having somebody that can, you know, win physical battles, I think would have come in handy at times this year.
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know that I have a... It was kind of addressed to you specifically, but guess my only concern about this sort of generic desire to have more Aussie-like six to me, there's an implication that that player is limited passer, a more limited... Aussie a really good...
00:59:11
Speaker
aussie was a really good at connecting passes, but he wasn't breaking a lot of lines. He wasn't necessarily a creative attack, ah attacking player. you know, he scored his fair share of goals, but he also, you know, I feel like he was as much known for sending shots into orbit as he was, know, banging in goals. So i think to me, it's inherently a more limited player that you're talking about, but they are more physical.
00:59:41
Speaker
And I do wonder in a system like the Sounders, from just from a practical perspective, it's nice to have that option, I suppose, in your toolbox. Like to say, we need just need to bring in a guy in late in the game to help us see out a game.
00:59:57
Speaker
But is he is he really relieving you when you need to rotate your center mids? Like, are you going to bring in a totally different profile player? Yeah, that's fair. I think there's a reason this.
01:00:08
Speaker
You know, I think there's a reason the Sounders haven't really had a full blown six since Aussie, like even Svensson was a more like nuanced player. Yeah. I mean, and and to be clear, when, when I envision the guy that fills that role, it's a more of a Svensson type than an Aussie type, right? Like it's, it's, it's.
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. it would be nice to go get another sense. Yeah. I mean, and I know obviously you can't do that with the budget they have for a backup midfielder, yeah, like it's almost less about being a tenacious, physical, like hard tackler guy who's not afraid of contact as it is just having a physical space, like a little bit more of a physical specimen in that space. Right.
01:00:53
Speaker
um But I mean, that's fair criticism like of of the idea. I do think that that to say we want to be able to play our game no matter who, we have to slot into the lineup as you know, as ah is a fair point.
01:01:07
Speaker
But I still think it would be nice to to have somebody who's, you know, going to be able to mix it up a little bit more effectively sometimes.
01:01:17
Speaker
ah Next one is from John G. And I'm going to paraphrase this one as well. um But it's really about the calendar changes um and how that might affect contracts, DP strategy, right?
01:01:34
Speaker
Because currently Albert's contract is up after 2026. Does that also include the mini season in 2027. ah On the other side of that, are Jordan and Pedro's contracts up after the mini season in 2027? do they end in the winter? Because I would assume now most contracts run through the end of the calendar year, right?
01:01:54
Speaker
Do they... now get extended into the you know the 2027 2028 year um and then if jesus has dp escalators in his current deal does that with those if he hits those do those take effect for the the sprint season do those take effect for ah all questions that i think are probably unknowable at this time but i'd be curious to hear your thoughts on what that looks like Well, i think those are the main elements that are currently being negotiated with the players union is what happens to contracts that are set to expire essentially at the end of the sprint season.
01:02:34
Speaker
And I suppose maybe that's what the answer is, is that if you're, you know, it maybe it's that simple, I suppose. Like that is in some ways a convenient place for the contracts to end because it it does lead into.
01:02:50
Speaker
Wait, is that right? No, that's not when the season would end. The season would end in the middle of the middle of the season. Right. It would end up the winter break. The middle of the season. Yeah, you're right. So that's actually a really inconvenient place for the seat for the context. and so So I would, yeah, I would think they would have to probably come up with some sort of like almost global,
01:03:08
Speaker
answer to that. Like I can't imagine they want all these places. You know, there's, I'm sure a lot of players whose contracts potentially expire in the middle of the 20, 27, 27, 28 season.
01:03:20
Speaker
And i would imagine they're going to have to come up with some sort of fix for that. I know they're also debating how to manage time off because what really this calendar is doing is it's shifting the complete off season,
01:03:35
Speaker
from you know where we have a full off season from you know call it November through February or through January. And then they're sort of spreading it out.
01:03:49
Speaker
theyre That's really what's happening is they're spreading out the off season between the winter break and the office and the traditional off season. And so they're kind of managing how to mess with, you know, how what what that means for vacation and things like that. So there's a lot of things that I don't think we know the answers to most of this stuff.
01:04:07
Speaker
But I do think that that's the key elements that one of the key elements of the MLSPA is currently negotiating with. Yeah, it it feels like what it would take to get it done would be, OK, everybody gets a whatever six month raise or a six month extension unilaterally. And everybody gets a for that last six months and X percent pay bump. And then everybody also gets a bonus of some kind. I would think you'd have to give the players an opt. Like the you can either take that offer or you can opt out and say, no, I want my contract to end. Yeah.
01:04:45
Speaker
And and I'll take my chances. Right. Which really, if a lot of players take that option, man, that really puts some teams in trouble over the winter break, because like if half your team says, well, I mean, I guess nobody's going to have half their team's contracts expiring. But like if you're three most. I mean, presumably they'll have this figured out. Sure. then but But it would be a bummer to have like your three most important players have their contracts expire and be like, well, good luck. But, you know.
01:05:12
Speaker
Yeah. How she goes. Right.
01:05:18
Speaker
right. So this is from Professor Insufferable74. Moving forward, should Jordan Morris continue to be the focal point of the offense, or is it wiser for the club to use him as a second striker where his passing and vision can be more maximized? I think Jordan is a pretty good passer, and he does have good vision, but I think that his primary benefit and skill set is the stuff that makes him... I i mean, I...
01:05:45
Speaker
i don't I think I understand what you mean by focal point of the offense, but I think Albert Rosnack is the foal focal point of the offense. um and but But I think I get what you mean, right? like He's the central to primary scoring threat. And I think the things that make him effective there are his best skills, right? um Especially because I think yeah a lot of the stuff he does off the ball, the pressing, um the stretching runs, stuff like that is stuff that's going to, you know, and just not he's not going to be as effective as as a second forward.
01:06:14
Speaker
um I, and by second forward, I'm going to be, i just want to say that I, I'm going to be, going to assume he means that could be like a wide player. Cause or like a, I don't, i think you're going to struggle to find a lot of second forward kind of right formations. it it It actually is becoming a little more common again, but, um, it hasn't gotten to MLS yet.
01:06:41
Speaker
And, uh, as far as I know, I don't, I don't know if there are a lot of four, four, two teams. right now in MLS and the Sounders don't have the other guy to make that work. Right. And that's the kind of the important thing. um I remember there was a time earlier in Jordan's career where I thought, you know, playing like a four four.
01:06:59
Speaker
one, one with him in the hole would be his best position, but he's developed so much since then. Right. um Yeah. But if, if you are talking wing, I mean, look, man, ah we just had this conversation last year and I haven't seen anything that's going to change my mind on it. He looked pretty good on the right against Minnesota, but,
01:07:19
Speaker
That was a very special circumstance. um Danny Masovsky is most likely not going to be back next year. And if he is like, are you going to bench Pedro? Are you going to bench Jesus to get him on the field? and um So I think that Sounders are probably going to have one striker. They're probably going to have two wingers um and they're going to have Albert Rosnack and that's going to be your front four.
01:07:43
Speaker
And i think that Jordan, Pedro and Jesus are the the best of those three. And I think Jordan is the most effective centrally of those three. So um I think if you were building the team from scratch, maybe you can make a case where Jordan is not the lone forward and you can, you know, put other players around him. But with with the roster they have, I don't think it makes a lot of sense.
01:08:08
Speaker
I would agree with that. All right. A few miscellaneous potpourri type questions to close us out. First one's from Twemberly23. With the Sounders now out of the playoffs, will you be tuning out for the rest or will you still be watching the games? If still watching any team you particularly like or want to root for? um I'll probably still watch. if i'm more I don't think I'm going to plan my weekends around MLS, but if I'm home, I will absolutely put the games on. And as far as who I'm rooting for...
01:08:38
Speaker
You know, i kind of, I think I kind of want the white caps right now. Like I like, I think they're doing it right. I i enjoy watching them play. They have likable players.
01:08:50
Speaker
I've always had a soft spot for for them. I realize that's, you know, cutting against the rivalry thing, but I think we've talked about this a lot. yeah It doesn't feel like that kind of rivalry, but maybe if they win, it will. it will Maybe. Maybe it will. maybe Yeah, I'm with you. I'm on on both counts. I will not be prioritizing the games.
01:09:09
Speaker
If the Whitecaps make the MLS Cup final, I will probably prioritize watching that. Otherwise, I'm not going to, you know, maybe if it's a compelling game, I'll tune in. But yeah, it's not a priority for me. um We watch a lot. We've watched a lot of Sounders games this year. It's a lot of time to dedicate to watching MLS. And without the emotional investment in it, it's just I got this. is hit the I got a garage to clean up. You know, I got i got to stuff to take the storage unit. I got.
01:09:38
Speaker
got bamboo to cut back. I got all sorts of shit I can be doing, but definitely big time on the white cap strain. I think their, their fans deserve it. Um, it is there some success and, and I would love to see them knock off LAFC especially. All right. This is from Veritatum seven.
01:09:58
Speaker
Uh, Now that news is out about having five divisions, which teams do you think will realistically be in our division? Who would you like that to be? And do you have a name for this division?
01:10:10
Speaker
Well, so my preference, I think, would be ah Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal. I think that that would be... You need one more.
01:10:22
Speaker
Right. Who was the other one that I had in the division? Minnesota? Yeah, yeah. I think that the downside is you still have, you know, time zone crossover, still have a decent amount of travel.
01:10:35
Speaker
But. um You know, it's not really that much more travel than going south, I suppose, and ultimately it's not that like it's. one extra game a year and you have to play everybody anyway. So um really it's barely any more travel um no matter which division you're in. So ah I like the idea of that one. um it'll And I like it less specifically because of the sounders and more because it makes the rest of the divisions make a lot more sense.
01:11:05
Speaker
um And then obviously I would call that the Northern Division or something, you know, boring like that. But it sounds like... to me that they're potentially not necessarily going with like geographical or purely geographical divisions or like they're trying to keep rivalries together and that's priority one. And then whatever else they have to do to make the rest of it work um is, is what they'll do. In which case maybe they can do the old school, like yeah and NHL divisions and they can have like the,
01:11:33
Speaker
I don't know, like the Garber division and the hunt division. Yeah, there you go. That, that kind of, I love that. I actually do kind of like that idea. I think that would be fun. Cause I don't think the divisions are going to last that long. Right. I think eventually they're going to go back to conferences. So, um, have so have some fun with it, you know?
01:11:52
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, yeah. The last thing I heard is that the, the centers might get paired up with the three Texas teams. That would be so annoying. That would be that'd be pretty bad. ah They would have to come up with a good name to make that happen. The Civil War Division. Right. Yeah. that would yeah that I don't love that. that's probably Of all the the possibilities I've heard, that was the one that bugged me the most. but um yeah I would like it there to be a West Coast Division. Let us have seven teams. Yeah.
01:12:28
Speaker
I agree. Why don't you care? Like it doesn't really, I, I guess it would mess up the play in every other team. It would mess it up, but whatever. Whatever. It's fine. We can play two more games or whatever. It would, it would be fine.
01:12:42
Speaker
Oh, this one's from the Joshua who decides what kits are being worn. There are a few times this year where colors normally worn looked like the opposite team was wearing each other's kits. Uh, there's another question about the playoffs, but, uh,
01:12:55
Speaker
I, as far as I know, the league picks the kits. I I'm pretty sure the league just picks the kits and that's why sometimes it seems a little nonsensical, but I think that there used to be a time when i think the home kit manager chose them and then they, I think they got, they did away with that.
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah. It's my understanding. Yeah. That's, that's interesting then. Cause like, uh, you would, you would expect that to they would, it just seems like the timing of them picking the kits. I mean, I'm sure the sounders could be like, Hey, it would make sense for us to wear this kit tonight or whatever it is Right.
01:13:31
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, but that was my, that was my, or yeah, I don't know. I should have done some more research on this. I wonder for the red card wedding was the, them saying, all right, we're just going to pick this. I mean, I know that was open cup, but.
01:13:49
Speaker
when the Sounders had to come out in the second half. yeah I don't remember how I don't actually remember how that went down. um All right, this is from Andrew. It says it's 2033, so a year after the Sounders lease expires at Lumen. What's most likely?
01:14:04
Speaker
Lumen and Hanauer is still the, I assume, meaning ah the, oh yeah, they say, he might still be in the team, but ah he's no longer the primary owner. So the choices are Lumen and Hanauer, Lumen and no Hanauer, not Lumen and Hanauer, or not Lumen and not Hanauer.
01:14:25
Speaker
Oh, man. I've been thinking about those for a couple days, actually, and I still haven't made up my mind, but I'm going to go with my gut and just say Lumen and not Hanauer. um It seems increasingly clear that the level of capital you have to have to be a majority owner in MLS is getting uncomfortable.
01:14:50
Speaker
um And the league has grown. i mean... When Adrian, when the Sounders came in in 2009, Adrian was still not super wealthy by the, um you know, by the standards of unless known as now he's gotten significantly more wealthy in that time and in large part thanks to the Sounders. But at a certain point, like when a lot of your your net worth is your equity in the team.
01:15:17
Speaker
It's kind of understandable to be like, well, i don't want to, you know, blow ah blow all of this on on the team so right i get it like i mean i don't get it i will never understand having that kind of money but uh i i think i understand the the impulse so i i think the odds of him being the majority owner for another 10 years are low i think the odds of him still being and extremely involved in the team are very high um because when he was the minority owner It felt like he was still sort of the... I mean, he was the GM. Right, he was. And it just felt like he yeah was calling a lot of the shots um where the club was concerned, like culturally and and all that kind of stuff. So I think he's he's going to be involved with the club in a big way for a very long time. But I think that the odds of him being the majority shareholder past 20, 20, 20, 32 are low.
01:16:10
Speaker
twenty twenty twenty thirty two or or low But I just, I feel, I think Lumen makes too much sense um
01:16:21
Speaker
to completely give up on. And I, you know, I hope they're able to figure something out there.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, i I don't want to discount the possibility that a new owner will come in and become smitten with the idea of building their own stadium out at Long Acres. But my gut tells me that Lumen remains a very high likelihood because there's just a lot of, there's a lot of unchanged, like frankly unchanged, like the, you know, they say location, location, location is, you know, the biggest part of real estate and Lumen has that in, in spades. yeah And I, I, I tend to think that if some new person comes in, they're going to look at the situation and say, we got to figure this out. Right.
01:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah. and And I also think that the possibility of this the Seahawks are going to be sold before then, almost certainly. And i don't think it's at all out of the question that they're going to say we're moving to Kent because people will come to our games no matter what.
01:17:31
Speaker
We can be wherever we want to. um So I don't think that's that crazy possibility either. ah This one's from Fraggle. Why have we not declared seven sixteen to be roll down day? Feels like a long missed opportunity.
01:17:44
Speaker
I agree. i you know, unfortunately that's going to be probably, well, that could end up being right around the beginning of the season in a future era.
01:17:54
Speaker
But yeah, I think that I I'm, I'm going to run that up the flagpole. I like that idea. 716 rolled on day. Oh, it's especially if it's national corn of a Saturday this year. Is it? Let's see. Oh, well it's national corn fritters day.
01:18:12
Speaker
Oh, well, it's already a declared holiday. It's so it's artificial intelligence of corn appreciation day. I don't know about that.
01:18:23
Speaker
National
Mailbag and Comfort Food Discussion
01:18:24
Speaker
Cherry Day. All right, that's all the interesting ones.
01:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. All right. We're going to close out with Chris. So by the time the mailbag episode is recorded, we should know the players of the team options are picked up and who is declined. So I want to ask about Kent and Fry instead.
01:18:45
Speaker
So I won't ask about Kent and Fry instead. What's your go to comfort food meal beverage in the winter months? This is an old school question. We used to get stuff like this all the time. This used to be like the question we ended with every week with some variety of this. I know.
01:19:02
Speaker
So thank you, Chris. so I but don't know if you did that on purpose. That was great. I'll say that... um so i'll i will i'll say that Uh, I love like very simple stews and stuff like that this time of year. Like it's like tonight I made a huge ass pot of chickpeas with, uh, with chicken sausage and chard.
01:19:25
Speaker
And I'm going to be eating that for all week and feeling great every, every night that I do it. Uh, and, ah man, I've been drinking a lot of Guinness lately. That's a hell of a beer.
01:19:38
Speaker
It's a hell of a beer. We went, we were out on a Friday night and i was like, man, i I really want to get us right now on draft. I know we have the cans at home, but I want, I want one on draft. And so we walked all the way up and down six Avenue, like trying to find a place to have. And we finally did. And it was worth it. It was, was there not, I guess it used to be Guinness. who was like everywhere. felt like, yeah, it's, it's weirdly kind of hard to find it. It feels like, um, ah like a lot of the bars on sixth Ave are,
01:20:04
Speaker
either like craft beer bars or cocktail bars or, um, just kind of like divey in a way that wouldn't necessarily support Guinness, but, uh, yeah. And it was great. it was, it was so worth it. It's, it's a great beer. Uh, it, it doesn't have a lot of calories in it,
01:20:22
Speaker
perfect this time of year. I believe technically a light beer. is It is. Yeah. it's like 110 calories. It's crazy. um My other one of my other favorite beers, 4% AB Miller Lite. It's only like 10 more calories in a Miller Lite, which feels crazy when you're when you're drinking it because it feels like so substantial. But yeah, that's a great one. Yeah.
01:20:41
Speaker
Oof. and um I used to be a big time Guinness guy. Yeah. I burned myself out on it when I was younger, you know, and have have come back to it in a big way. Oh, that's, that's great. Yeah.
01:20:54
Speaker
That's, that's, you know, ah I am going to share a little anecdote from today because I thought this was really, I've made a couple, you know, i made ah a pot roast the other day. That was, that's a great one. that's it Yeah. Yeah. Pot roast underrated classic.
01:21:11
Speaker
I, I would highly recommend doing a pot roast at some point to anyone who's listening to this. Who's maybe like, Oh, that's a boring suggestion. Yes, but it works. It's so good. but i So I'm sure you've seen this trend, if you're on social media, of the lasagna soup.
01:21:28
Speaker
And it looks so good. Yeah. And I've been wanting to make it for a long time. So I made it today. And it started off, it was great.
01:21:40
Speaker
And then I realized that the pasta was soaking up a lot yeah of the... the a lot Like, right. I, I, I use actually less pasta than the recipe called for. And I used more liquid and it's still, it sucked it all up. It was just a mushy mess.
01:21:59
Speaker
And I got to tell you, i don't, I might do it again, but if I were going to do a lasagna soup again, what I would do is I would toast all, i would toast the the pasta yeah or fry the pasta So that it has a little bit more resiliency to yeah the soaking.
01:22:18
Speaker
But also you almost immediately have to, you have to serve it as soon as it reaches like al dente. Otherwise it's, it's just going to turn into. yeah It doesn't seem like when you could batch really for sure.
01:22:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I mean, that's, yeah that was ah that's a big part of the appeal of making it a big, big ass pot of soup or chili or stew or whatever is I can eat this for having weeks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
01:22:44
Speaker
I did make a pot of chili a while back that was ah as good as any chili ever. Like I think it was a Kenji. Yeah. Did you do, did you do the, uh, the Marmite?
01:22:56
Speaker
in there i did not use the bar mate no but i know that's one of his that's one of his uh it's savory suggestions it's pretty goaded doing the marmite in there i mean it's it's i've done it in the chili and it's great but it's it's more um i didn't have any or i want in the fish sauce fish sauce is good to i mean it's it's that concentrated umami right they're serving the same purpose but yeah yeah yeah yeah um but yeah i recommend the marmite it's it's good it's not and I don't like the stuff like I'll never put it on toast and eat that. But as a just a umami bomb and in the background of a stock or something like that, it's great. Yeah.
01:23:31
Speaker
this is This is my favorite time of year for cooking and stuff like I i love grilling and I and I. Oh, i know. I love food in the summer, too. I mean, I love food all year round, but this is the time where i ah get really excited about cooking, you know, every night.
01:23:44
Speaker
Yeah. Now that you're mentioning it, I guess my, I recently I've been cooking a lot more lately yeah and I suspect it's because the weather has changed and it's more just so much more fun to cook when the weather's like this. yeah I'm really excited. I'm going to be doing a brisket for Thanksgiving this year.
01:24:00
Speaker
so I've been trying different like yeah techniques and stuff and I'm excited to see how that comes out. So I've still never done a brisket. I gotta, I gotta give that a try sometime. i'm You've never done. No, it's, it's such a commitment.
01:24:13
Speaker
It's like a pork it is a pork shoulder. You can be reasonably sure you get up early enough. You get it on there early enough. It's going to be done at a reasonable hour. A brisket, you know, you've got to go overnight sometimes or you've got to hold it overnight. Maybe if you do it, it's just it's a lot. Yeah, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to. Yeah, I'm going to cook it mostly the day before and then I'll finish it. the I'll finish i'll like ah finish it. Yeah, the day i think that's that's the move. Yeah, yeah.
Reflection and Audience Appreciation
01:24:42
Speaker
Anyway, well, Aaron, it's been it's been a blast. It has, yeah. I'm sure we'll be back recording again, and not too far, but I don't know when. This is the last scheduled show we have yeah for a while.
01:24:55
Speaker
We'll, of course, be back if there's any big news. And this was a lot of fun. I know we kind of did ah a farewell thing last time, so I won't overdo it, but.
01:25:07
Speaker
This was, I think we recorded the most episodes we've ever recorded in a single year. I think that's probably true. Yeah. We, we, we made a commitment, I think this year before, before the year started to get a show out every week and,
01:25:20
Speaker
Yeah. With the two of us or, you know, we we had some ah wonderful guest hosts as well. Some films. I we didn't miss ah we missed a couple weeks, but there there weren't many. So if maybe a couple at most. Yeah.
01:25:35
Speaker
And there's always stuff on the feed, too. Right. So it's not it's not just it's not just the show. right Exactly. But yeah, we we did a good job, but it was fun. You know, as always, it was fun. I think this year was the first time I i really started to appreciate how how much more of a reach this show has than any given article I write. Yeah. Like obviously the, the article, like the articles that we have that sort of explode have a higher reach than, you know, episodes that we do here. But,
01:26:07
Speaker
you know, or we've had some episodes that have done pretty big numbers and the average episode just is listened to by so many more people than the average article at this point. yeah And it's sort of like a, I think I've this year grown grown to appreciate how much more intimate it is for people to spend this much time with us Yeah. It's probably not a good thing to think too much about, but, uh,
01:26:30
Speaker
No, but so thank you to everyone who keeps listening to us. And I hope, and I don't take it for granted that people are welcoming us into their, ah headphones or whatever. And,
01:26:41
Speaker
you know I've really enjoyed this this year. So yeah anyway, i wanted to say thank you to everyone. and And hopefully people that are listening to this want to come hang out with us in the Discord and and support what we're doing. And ah you know we'll have ah have... I'm sure we we will be we willll be around. Don't worry. yeah All right.
Closing Remarks and Sign-off
01:27:03
Speaker
Well, I think with that, I want to say thank you to our sponsors, Full Pool Wines and Hacks and Ferments. I also want say again, thank you to our listeners for doing this, for making this work.
01:27:13
Speaker
Thank you, Aaron Lickett. I'm Jeremiah Shan signing off for No Sadie at This, which is part of the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. remember, you'll never get alone.
01:27:52
Speaker
Let's go and Sounders.