u/shmerham

I can’t get over the fact that the team that did this last year and the first part of this season:

• beat LAFC 5-2
• went toe-to-toe with Botafogo and held their own against Atletico and PSG in CWC
• Won Leagues Cup, including a 3-0 win against Miami
• Had its 2^(nd) best MLS season for scoring goals. 
• Managed to start the 2026 season 7-1-2
• Beat top-of-the-table Vancouver in their CCC matchup

Now the team looks completely outclassed in almost every matchup.

I think there's two phases of change here. From last year to this year, when the offense became much less potent and from the beginning of the season to now when the whole thing went to pieces.

Here's my theories on what changed between last year's offense and this year's:

1. Yeimar injury
   1. From a defensive standpoint, he's one of the best at stopping an attacking and regaining possession.
   2. Part of the theory on this one is that Ragen has had to carry more of the defensive burden, which limits his bandwidth to make line-breaking passes
   3. This combined with other CB injuries forced Alex Roldan out of his RB role, where he was often one of our most important players; better than KKR defensively and possibly our best player at providing service into the box
2. Key Players being one year older
   1. Cristian Roldan:  He’s still one of the team’s best players, but he hasn’t been as good as he was last year
   2. Albert Rusnak:  I know many will say he's never been good, but he was was reliably productive last year and this year that only happens sporadically
3. Losing Obed:  Statistically, Obed was a good but not great player, and Synder Brunnell shows signs of being as good, but I think there’s something that was lost that goes beyond any stats or ratings.  I think it was the a good strategy to split time between Snyder and a veteran (Dotson), but in hindsight I think it should have been obvious this was going to be a downgrade and that we’d need to scaffold this by getting stronger at other positions (which we did not).
4. PDLV: he was the team’s best shot creator last year and his pressing was very strong. 
5. Tactics:  I haven’t been able to see this, but I suspect that Schmetz tightened the reins after last season, which has improved the leaky defense but weakened the attack.
6. Attacking profiles - While neither Giorigi nor Ryan Kent were our best players, they gave a different look. The players we sub in now don't provide a significantly different look than Jesus and Paul.

These are my theories on what changed from the beginning of the season to now:

1. Luck – the team had a generally easy schedule and was lucky to win the first San Jose game.  They’ve been unlucky lately with so many injuries and getting the interim coach bump 3 times in a row
2. Cristian Roldan injury – despite him not being as good as last season, he’s still our most important player and the team is marching to different beats without him.
3. Lack of depth – I tend to doubt that we’d be saved by Giorgi Minoungu, Ryan Kent, RBW, and Danny Levya, but there’s no doubt those players could have helped.

 

In a game of fine margins, you can't have all these things go in the wrong direction without improving elsewhere.

Am I missing anything here? ...anything that I incorrectly identified as a difference?

Does anyone have a good source of salary data for non-Boeing engineers (preferably non- software) in the Seattle metro?

I’d like to see how their salaries have grown over the past ten years. I’ve been looking but haven’t found anything trustworthy yet. I found some data that suggests an average of 3% per year for Paccar and Microsoft, but I can’t tell if it’s trustworthy data.

In hindsight, it’s easy to say that Jordan’s contract extension was a big mistake, but it’s an awfully interesting sliding doors moment to consider.  What if Craig Waibel held firm on a max TAM contract extension with Jordan going into the 2023 season instead of the contract extension with the DP escalator for the last 3 years?  Jordan probably would have played out his contract in 2023 and entered free agency.  I think it’s fair to assume that he would have been similarly motivated and gotten his 14 goals in all comps, so the 2023 season wouldn't have looked much different. That performance would have made him a valuable free agent, but not a must-sign player. That leads to the following 3 possibilities: 

Door 1:  The Sounders re-sign him to a DP contract

Door 2:  The Sounders re-sign him to a max TAM contract

Door 3:  Jordan goes to another team

I could see all 3 things happening.

Door 1 seems like it would be no different than where we ended up, but there’s a big difference.  He would have become a DP one year earlier which would have prevented the Pedro signing.  Which itself is a huge sliding door moment given De La Vega’s injuries with us, but also that we probably don’t win the Leagues Cup without him.

Door 2 seems like a better outcome, but maybe we don’t get Jesus if we do this.  …or maybe Jesus comes in, but as a DP, in which case Ferreira’s polarizing performance would be even more polarizing.

Door 3: also seems like we would have dodged a bullet, but he scored 18 goals for us in 2024, which was critical given that Ruidiaz’s performance fell off a cliff. Jordan also helped slay the LAFC beast in the playoffs.  It’s easy to be disappointed with him, but 2024 may have been ugly without him.  We would have had an open DP spot, but what would Craig have been able to do with that?  Additionally, it’s hard to say how his absence would have changed the culture of the team. 

 

What do you think would have happened if the 5 year extension wasn’t signed going into the 2023 season?

According to a thread in r/soccer, UEFA and CONCACAF teams both are on 1.40 Points per Game after the last match on June 15th. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1u72x9k/all_6_fifa_confederations_have_now_played_in_the/#lightbox

Since CONCACAF = UEFA, I conclude that the Sounders winning CCL was as good as winning UEFA Champions League.

Full disclosure, UEFA is well ahead on Goal Differential, so perhaps it might be more accurate to say that the Sounders winning CCL was almost as good as winning UEFA Champions League.

A comment I often see is that the Sounders should buy down Jordan Morris's contract to free up a DP spot. This is not possible. There are other means of freeing up his spot, but they are all highly unlikely.

The same goes for Albert Rusnak. Things are more interesting with Pedro. This is something that can be done, but if the Sounders do it, it will probably be to open up a spot... for Jesus Ferreira next season.

Neither Jordan nor Albert can be bought down using TAM or GAM. The max budget charge for a TAM player is $1.8M. For GAM, the max charge that can be bought down is $1.6M. Jordan's annual budget charge is ~$2.3M. Albert's is even higher at ~$2.6M.

Technically, they could negotiate a contract extension at a max TAM salary, but I don't see that as realistic since the players would need to agree to a pay cut.

A contract buyout would also free up a spot. That's just not happening. If the Sounders didn't do it on Ruidiaz, there's no way they're doing it with Morris or Rusnak.

I'll discuss Pedro's situation in the comments.