Do not trade Carlos Ruiz for Landon Donovan

By: Robert | June 22nd, 2007

Allow me to vent for a moment before I get into today’s (tonight’s) post. I put out roughly 3500 – 4000 words a week, spread out over 5-7 columns (you can do the math.) Any writer will tell you that’s a very solid output, in fact most of the big name columnists out there don’t put out close to that much. I’m getting interviews, doing player/game/business analysis’, adding a bit of irreverent humor (I know yesterday’s “visa” joke was bad but still…) all to create a full FC Dallas experience and yet if you go to Laurie’s LA Galaxy page she’s doing the same thing with 4-5 times the amount of material. How is this possible?!? Where does she find the time to write so much. I know she’s putting up shorter posts, but still; I’ve always lived by the words “its okay for someone to be better, it happens; but you don’t get outworked” and I cannot nor will I try to compete with that amount of production, I just don’t understand it.

The other thing that’s got me frustrated is that when I started this blog I had plenty of ideas for things I wanted to do and I’ve been able to get a couple of them off the ground (search for a celebrity fan, Hoops hotties, insulting haiku’s just to name a few) and I’ve still got other ideas that I haven’t been able to get around to because I want to focus on other things first. Unfortunately though, I’m starting to see ideas that I had get picked up and posted by others. I’m not insinuating they’re stealing from me because that’s not happening at all, just me not having enough time to post everything I want to before someone else gets the same (or a similar) idea. A couple of examples, after the Kyle Beckerman haikus my next idea and the next logical step in my book was to do insulting limericks. There more words and syllables to use which means more fun, but I decided to hold off until a Colorado game because I wanted to do more pro-Hoops stuff and not be perceived as just anti-Sideshow Bob. Well in that time period Laurie over at the LA Galaxy page has taken to writing limericks, leaving me without a great Kyle Booger-man (a slight stretch) idea during the Colorado week. Now if you’re a loyal reader you’ll know I fill these pages everyday, because I have a lot to talk about but I wanted to do limericks, but I also want to feel original. Also, I wanted to do a “Where are they now” running piece about that first Dallas Burn squad. But Clint over at the Colorado page just started doing a similar running piece this week. All I can do is just shake my head and try figure out what to do next and hope I can get it out fast enough. Oh and just in case you think those are the only two examples, there are about three others that I was too slow on, I just don’t want to go into them all lest I get more frustrated at missed opportunities.

Thank you for letting me vent, now that I got that out of my system let’s discuss the rumored Carlos Ruiz for Landon Donovan trade that for some reason refuses to die and why FC Dallas should not make that deal. On a purely talent level, while I’ve said Carlos Ruiz is MLS’ most influential player, Landon Donovan is the best. He’s the only player who can and has single-handedly won an MLS title. By swapping Ruiz for Donovan the ceiling for FC Dallas is raised considerably but the road is no longer as certain – Landon’s penchant for disappearing at key times is well documented. But these decisions cannot be made in a soccer-only vacuum; the MLS salary cap means you have to have a business mind to go along with a soccer sense in order to be successful and while one could argue the on-field product would improve with the proposed trade, the bottom line would be ruined.

To understand what I’m about to discuss (wow a second chance to use those business classes in like a week or so) you’re going to need to look at the so-called “Beckham rule.” Basically it states that a team can have one player designated to make more than the salary cap will allow. It’s a rule designed to further competition and strengthen the league. Every team is allowed one, but can trade for a second; by signing David Beckham the LA Galaxy have put themselves in a position to either have to make a major trade to acquire a second designated player slot to keep Landon Donovan or risk losing him next season. And if you look at their roster you’ll realize they don’t have the parts to make a major trade, which is why they’re selling off young talent to try to win this season (Klein for Findley and Sturgis.)

How does FC Dallas fit into all of this? Follow the money. Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson, Freddy Adu and Carlos Ruiz all make more than the $400,000 designated player threshold. Meaning that before next season starts some contract renegotiations will need to take place. Because Carlos Ruiz makes “only” $435,000 per year its feasible to foresee a renegotiated contract instead of a designated player tag attached to him – pay him less per year but stretch it out over more years, maybe throw in some attainable performance incentives or a player option year. Even Freddy Adu’s statistically unwarranted $550,000 salary seems like it could be re-worked. That is if he doesn’t run to Europe and become surprised by the lack of top-flight options. Eddie Johnson, however, makes $875,000, more than twice the $400,000 limit thus he’ll be labeled a designated player. Landon Donovan makes even more at $900,000 and there is no way to re-negotiate that contact (even if he wanted to no union in the world would let him) and since they don’t have any viable options to pull off a trade for a second exception they need to get rid of Donovan and get something in return or risk losing him for nothing. And the only player with “equivalent” talent and economic numbers is Carlos Ruiz. I know somebody out there is yelling something like “What about (insert name here?)” No team is going to trade a soon to be designated player for someone making under that amount because: A) the team receiving the more expensive player still has to deal with the problem of trying to get together a long-term deal plus B) since that’s not an easy scenario your hand is essentially forced into making him your designated player and in a salary cap structure you don’t want to be forced into anything; you need flexibility. Therefore you will see no Landon Donovan for Dewayne DeRosario-type trades (side note: as much as I dislike the Dreamsicles in Houston, DeRosario’s contract number of $324,999.96 is brilliant and I’ll discuss why whenever I can figure out how to incorporate the Hoops.)

Salary numbers dictate the only plausible LA trade is Donovan for Ruiz. Although they would still have to workout a contract with Ruiz, it’s a difficult situation but not an impossible one.

If Dallas made that trade we’d almost certainly be forced into making Donovan our designated player while helping create an offensive juggernaut (by MLS standards) in LA. That makes no sense especially since after this year Landon could essentially be out-of-contract (I’m still looking into exactly what happens, union folks are so hard to deal with) and anyone could have a shot at him, provided they have $400,000 of available salary cap space (that’s how much the first designated player counts against the cap) plus a designated player slot available. He’s not going to take what would amount to a 33 cents on a dollar paycut to go anywhere.

Trades are made 9 times out of 10 to benefit both teams and while a Ruiz-Donovan trade would greatly help LA, it would leave the Hoops in roughly the same position. We don’t make moves like that, because this is Dallas, where the FC stands for “financial considerations.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

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