Avoiding the Drop

Yesterday news broke that the Columbus Crew, who were knocked out of the playoffs by Real Salt Lake, had began contract discussions with Guillermo Barros Schelotto. Or, rather, they’d submitted him an offer; while specific details are confidential, league sources told the “Columbus Dispatch” that the base offer was around $227,500. Now, for most MLS players, that’s a huge salary that could easily be ten times what they’re bringing home; for Schelotto, however, that’s a 65% reduction in his $650,000 base salary.

On it’s face, that decision is pretty shocking. Schelotto is the engine that makes the Crew tick; he was their leading scorer with 14 goals this season, scoring once every 112 minutes or so. Schelotto’s inexplicable omission in the first leg of the Crew’s playoff against Real Salt Lake saw them without a real scoring threat; on the return leg, when he was back in the lineup, he scored twice.

In fact, Schelotto was the most productive designated player in the 2009 MLS season. He had more goals (14), more combined goals and assists (17), and – probably the biggest factor for the Crew – was the cheapest on a per-goal basis* ($38,235). Add on top of that that he was already the cheapest designated player in terms of straight cash (at $650,000 per year, he’s a full $70,000 cheaper than DC United’s Luciano Emilio and about 12% of David Beckham’s salaray) and you have a player that most MLS franchises would absolutely kill for. Looking at his numbers for this season, the plain fact of the matter is that Schelotto was one of the top players in the league and, at the ripe old age of 36, he set the benchmark for production from a designated player.

The only problem? He’s about half as effective as he was last season.

Oh, sure, his actual goal tally doubled; he scored 7 in 2008. But on the same salary, Schelotto contributed a mind boggling 25 assists. That means he was either the scorer or (as was most often the case) the architect for 32 of the Crew’s goals in their championship winning season. It also changes his “cash per goal” number to $20,313. Put another way: you could buy one and a half Beckham goals (at $366,667 apiece) for the amount of money spent on 32 Schelotto goals.

So if you’re Columbus, you’re left with a decision: even though Schelotto represents tremendous value for your money at the designated player slot, does he still represent that value when compared with regular players?

Columbus is saying no, he isn’t; in reality, Schelotto still represented good money this season for them, but I have a feeling that they’re looking at his metrics over time and noticing a dip in his productivity. One team that may not do the same, however, is Chicago; with Cuauhtémoc Blanco returning to Mexico, the Fire all of a sudden have a free designated player slot; I would imagine that getting a Guillermo Barros Schelotto who’s motivated to show the Crew what they’re missing, at what could be a fraction of Blanco’s nearly $3 million price tag, would be a very tempting move for them.

*-Cash per goal was determined by dividing the player’s base salary (without bonuses) by the number of goals scored+number of assists made