With a new year starting and training camp for the new season approaching, Steven Goff at the Washington Post took a look at what the D.C. United front-office is looking at, and what resources they have to work with. I thought it would be a good time to take a deeper dive into the numbers, and maybe the needs.

The key takeaway from Goff's piece is this -- he says:

"MLS’s veiled financial guidelines make it difficult to assess a club’s salary cap status, but it appears United has about $1.5 million of space for three players."

I think he's doing a back of the envelope/working backwards calculation. I think it's what he's done in the past, more explicitly -- and it makes a fair amount of sense. So, by looking at the wages of the guys DCU have released -- Arrieta, Coria, Farfan, Kitchen, Pontius and Johnson, they've cleared roughly $1.5 million in cap space.

That's an estimate of course, and it might be way off. The team might have been forced to use some regular allocation if they were over budget, meaning that space might not be there now. Also, I think it might be assuming too much. Can we add back in EJ's salary number, or was that already set aside in the second half last year for Alvaro Saborio? If so, how much is Sabo's new deal? That might have to be pulled out from the $1.5 million. Or not. With MLS, there's no real way for an outsider to know -- and the league wants to keep it that way.

Anyway, Goff is saying that this cap space is available to sign 3 guys. Where's he getting that number? After all, 6 guys have left. Well, if you look at the roster released today by MLS, DCU has 21 players. At least 4 of those guys are off-budget. Luke Mishu and Travis Worra were at the league's lowest minimum ($50k), while Collin Martin and Jalen Robinson are on Homegrown deals. So that would leave 17 players on the team's senior, budget, salary capped roster. This would leave 3 open slots on the 18-20 person budget roster.

I'm not convinced. I know things are different this year. Opare has a raise that puts him on the budget roster -- but I'm pretty sure that took effect late last season. Johnson might have already been removed from the roster, but there would still be 5 or 6 open slots. I think Goff is including Taylor Kemp, Conor Doyle and Miguel Aguilar on the budget roster, but I'm not sure they will be. All three made only $60k base salary (Doyle had another $1,250 signing bonus). That made them eligible to be off-budget -- though it's impossible to know which if any were. Per MLS rules, the team had to have at least 18 budget roster players. In 2015, 17 on budget players clearly played for United, and Johnson/Opare might have been the 18th. So, at least two of those other guys may have been off-budget, and perhaps all 3 were.

Where all this matters is that the team has a lot of cash left to spend. If Goff is right, or even in the ballpark, $1.5 million is the starting point. Even if the league's maximum salary goes up to $500k or a tick more, that's essentially league max available for the 3 spots that Goff says the team has. Then, there's allocation money. The team has until this summer to trade or spend the first $100k tranche of TAM, and they probably have another $100k in CCL allocation money.

Of course, as I wrote above, Goff may be wrong about the money, because they may have been over the cap last year, and used allocation to get down to the cap. His number also may be off if it includes Johnson's salary, because it might need to be adjusted for Sabo's new deal. On the other hand -- Bobby Boswell and Chris Rolfe signed new deals, and they may have agreed to pay cuts, so there may be offsets.

Whether Goff is overestimating or even underestimating how much cap space is available, there's a bunch of money there -- surely more than they can spend on 3 players. And, I haven't even mentioned the additional TAM that will be available to the team but which they don't have to spend by the end of summer. Given the team's history, that additional money is being tucked away for next year, or being set aside to trade away.

So where is that money going to go? They're looking to add 2 new starting Center mids -- one from Argentina and one from France. Good. We need them. Markus Halsti is of dubious effectiveness and Davy Arnaud is a big question mark for next year. They also need a real back-up for Bill Hamid, who is sure to need time off, with national team call-ups and nagging injuries. That would be the three slots that Goff is looking at. Two of those slots will hopefully go to these 2 CMs DC is coveting and one slot may go to Andrew Dykstra who wants a raise over his $60k minimum and that would place him on the budget roster.

If those 3 signings pan out as planned, the team will still have some cap space. Even if the 2 new midfield players are at or above league max, and Dykstra gets even a 50% raise (my guess is he signs for a bit less at about $80-85k), that should still leave over $400k and allocation money left to use.

So, it would be nice if they have open roster slots to use that money on. Of course, if Halsti and/or Arnaud doesn't return, that would open up one or 2 more slots, and add back in a decent amount of cap space, too, But, I think that there will still be an undetermined number of open slots. Right now, they're standing at between 14 and 17 filled budget slots, depending on where Kemp, Doyle and Aguilar stand. So, even if they add 2 new CMs and a senior goalie, that could leave up to 3 empty budget slots.

They do have other needs. Besides the two new CMs and a back-up goalie, they need depth at CB. With Korb hurt, they're not going to want Sean Franklin as an emergency CB. If Halsti stays on as a starting CM, he's not an option to provide depth at CB -- and, if he leaves because he's not getting a starting job, he won't be an option. So, that's one spot they should be looking to fill. It could be that they'll find someone in the draft, but they should be considering looking abroad.

There's also a need for more depth at forward and maybe on the wing. It would be a leap to think Martin's ready to play in MLS at any position. So right now, Doyle and Lamar Neagle are the only depth we have at either position. That's absurd. Even if they stay fairly healthy, players need time off, and Saborio will likely get some call-ups from Costa Rica. Perhaps, we'll get depth in the draft, but that will come at the expense of another position.

Also, depending on how the team sees Mishu and Robinson, they may need another fullback they can rely on. I doubt Chris Korb will be ready to go before late April or even May. In recent years, United has been satisfied going into the season having only 3 MLS-level fullbacks. But, unless they're ready to rely on Mishu and/or Robinson right now, they don't even have that much at the MLS level to start this season.

I should add that they might need depth at center mid. If Halsti leaves and Arnaud isn't healthy, even if they sign the 2 targets, that would leave Jared Jeffrey and maybe Martin as the only depth there.

Any of these needs might be filled by a first-round pick, but only one can be filled that way. It's unrealistic to expect the 33rd pick (2nd round) to yield someone ready even to provide depth at the MLS level. So, they should be looking to add other players -- either in the international market, or the MLS free agent market, or by trade (probably the most likely route for this front office).

In an earlier comment thread, I argued that the team should consider drafting Gen Adidas goalie Andrew Tarbell, if he's available. That would be a decent solution, as it might fill the need for a capable back-up for Hamid (and his eventual replacement) and he wouldn't take a budget roster slot, or cap space. That would make it even easier to fill the needs I see.

What's needed though is more ambition than we've heard about. The team desperately needs a new CM midfield pairing, with Kitchen gone and Arnaud's health being a big question mark. I am thrilled they are looking abroad to find 2 new experienced players. It will be a big adjustment, and a radical departure from the past, but it shows a lot more ambition than the team has had at least since the Boskovic/Salihi days...and maybe even longer. However, they can't stop there. The team has other holes to fill, cap space to do it, and, I believe, the roster slots to do it, too.