Player Contracts and Rumors

Player news is starting to pick up a little bit for Sporting KC. The team today made two announcements on player news, and a new rumor has cropped up on another player.

First, after the announcement yesterday of the trade for Michael Thomas' rights, the team today announced that they had signed the Olathe native to a contract. Probably the least surprising of the news that came out today. With the trade yesterday for his rights you knew an announcement on his signing was going to come in the next few days. As mentioned previously, Thomas was drafted by San Jose in 2010 but instead went to Sweden, playing with Halmstads and Ljungskile.

Last night I questioned why KC had to give up a draft spot for Thomas based on MLS' rules that players are only on the "college protected list" for two years. So that should have expired on December 31st, 2011. But apparently San Jose offered Thomas a contract, thereby retaining his MLS rights permanently. Thus requiring the trade.

In other player news today, Seth Sinovic was signed to a new contract. An absolutely deserved upgrade for Sporting's starting left back. One would assume that new contract is going to come with a decent bump in salary as well since Sinovic was only making $32,604 last year. A good move by Peter Vermes and KC to lock up a key part of their defense.

Finally a new rumor from Tod Palmer with the KC Star. Apparently KC is also about to announce the signing of 6 year MLS veteran, Jacob Peterson. Peterson, has appeared in 130 or so matches in his 6 year MLS career. The majority of those from 2006 through 2009 when he was with Colorado, where he appeared 92 times. After that he spent the 2010 and part of last season with Toronto before moving on to San Jose later that year. Peterson made one appearance for the Earthquakes and at the end of the season was made available in the re-entry draft, but was not selected. In his 6 years, Peterson has scored 9 goals in MLS play.

Put me in the category of not really liking this move. I've seen plenty of Peterson over the past few years playing in this league and I'm really not impressed. Now one would assume that should Peterson actually be signed he'll take a pay cut. It should probably be pretty hefty though, as Peterson earned $142,000 last year. For this to be a move that is worth it for me, Peterson needs to have close to $100,000 cut off of that salary before I even consider this move decent. He's not proven anything to me over the last few years that he's worth anywhere near that much.