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The MLS Haz New Rulz. Discovery claims on Americans?

A couple of MLS moves have turned up on social media today and they point up an important change in the MLS roster rules that were released last Friday -- and it's worth a special post to discuss the implications.

First, the moves themselves: Apparently, the L.A. Galaxy have been in talks for months to get Sebastian Lletget from West Ham -- but, today, they had to send the N.E. Revolution a fistful of allocation dollars ($50,000) because the Revs had a priority discovery claim on him. Because Lletget is under contract, the Galaxy faced a deadline next week to get him in the MLS' international transfer window. Meanwhile, the Revs will bring in Will Packwood, who is at least being looked at with an eye towards signing him. Presumably, the Revs already have a discovery claim on him. Otherwise, they'll just pay that $50,000 allocation forward to whatever club does. Packwood has asked for an early release from his deal so that he can join a team here on a free transfer before his deal would have expired at the end of June.

These developments today point up a change in the new MLS rules. There's now a very limited set of US players abroad who will come into the league via allocation and there is no longer a weighted lottery. There are only five US youth players on the allocation list (and Julian Green is one). That creates an incentive and places a premium on scouting these guys and establishing some sort of dialogue to assess interest. If a team thinks a guy might want to return here and play in MLS, they should put him on the team's discovery list.

In the past, a player like Lee Nguyen or Romain Gall would come into the league via weighted lottery if they were deemed exempt from the allocation process. There was no reason to put in discovery claims on US internationals, because they would either be offered up via allocation, or weighted lottery, unless a team was allowed to sign them directly as a premium DP like Clint Dempsey or Jermaine Jones. Discovery claims were basically something that teams used to keep dibs on foreign, international players.

The number of discovery claims for each team has been increased from 6 to 7, but that hardly covers the new circumstances. There are a lot of Americans who go abroad these days as teenagers, in search of better training, greater glory and greater riches. Unfortunately, most of them become disappointed in their progress and they return home in a few years. While the list includes more than a few players whose injuries forced them to return -- including Marcus Tracy, Charles Renken, Cody Arnoux, and Chris Agorsor, there are real talents like Nguyen and Gall, and more marginal but useful players like current D.C. United players Jared Jeffrey and Conor Doyle, who joined the team through the waiver draft and the weighted lottery.

I've loved to complain in the past about the front office's decision to sit out almost all of the weighted lotteries, because they've missed out on talented prospects like David Bingham, as well as the aforementioned Nguyen and Gall. In the future, this process will actually be a bit more opaque in one way because we have no idea which players are on a team's discovery list. Still, if a player like Packwood comes back to MLS -- and Jonathan Spector is also reportedly considering a return here -- and they sign with another team, we can probably infer that United did not put in a discovery claim. At best, their claim would have come later in time.

From this point forward, the discovery list can no longer just be a fantasy wish list. Teams will have to give serious consideration to who is and who is not on the list. Using a claim on some international who once dropped a hint about coming to MLS will now carry a cost. It might mean missing out on a returning US player, or it might force a team to fork over the $50k in allocation that the Galaxy is paying to the Revs to acquire Lletget. The front office will have to do a lot more legwork to identify foreign players they have a realistic shot of signing and to keep tabs on US players who might want to return.

One player who probably should be on D.C. United's list now -- and every year until and unless he starts playing in the top flight -- is Joe Gyau. I'm guessing he'd be a tad more likely to entertain an offer from DCU than another MLS team, so he's a decent possibility...unless he's told the team otherwise. The important thing is to find a way to have these conversations with players or their agents. Obviously, a team can't tamper with another team's players, but there are ways to explore the possibilities without running afoul of those rules. United has pretty limited front office resources, but this is something the team is going to have to do from now on, like setting up a residential academy or a USL team. It's now a part of the cost of remaining competitive in MLS.

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