Bunbury Traded to New England

In a move that was a little surprising, but not shocking based on his position, Sporting KC traded forward Teal Bunbury to the New England Revolution today for the Revs 2015 first round draft pick and allocation money.

In the end the move makes sense for all parties involved. Sporting KC remains stacked at center forward, and Bunbury was likely behind Claudio Bieler and Dom Dwyer for playing time with KC. He'd struggled to regain some form after his return from his ACL tear in the 2012 season. For New England they add a young forward to help them try to replace Juan Agudelo. And for Bunbury he gets the chance to hopefully get more playing time. If he can regain his form from pre-surgery he'll be a solid contributor for the Revs.

The big loss for KC in my opinion is that they lose their "over the top" threat in Bunbury. Of KC's center forward options (Bieler, Dwyer and even CJ Sapong and Soony Saad) Bunbury was really the only one that had break away pace that could race behind a defense. KC might get that back some in Adnan Gabeljic, but he seems to be settling into a wing position for Sporting.

Another good thing for KC though is that they'll be getting at least a portion of Bunbury's salary off their books. He made $110,000 last year per the players union, but if this Tweet is to be believed, was due for a big raise, which makes getting him off the books seem a lot more straight forward, especially if he wasn't going to be one of the top two forwards.

He departs KC as one of the team's top scorers in both league play and all competitions, scoring 19 league goals (the most among active players before his trade) and a total of 24 in all competitions. Both put him in 10th place all time for Kansas City goalscorers.

Honestly while Bunbury sometimes frustrated, I can't help but wish the guy luck simply because how he carried himself as a professional.