What we know (and don’t know) as MLS reveals more details on Union players’ contracts

Major League Soccer has a well-earned reputation for not being as transparent as a lot of people would like — not just among fans, but scouts, agents, and even teams themselves.

On Thursday, the league office took a welcome step toward doing something about that. For the first time in memory, a list was published with the contract statuses of every player across the league’s 29 teams.

You might think that’s a small thing. It certainly is for the other major American sports leagues. But in MLS, it had long been the case that tracking players’ contract statuses required digging down rabbit holes.

Now, finally, we have all that information in one place. Players’ salaries aren’t included (they come from the MLS Players Association twice a year), but other things worth knowing are.

The most important stuff is when each player’s contract expires, and when his team-held options are for. A whopping 18 of the 33 players signed with the Union right now (including those out on loan) are in their last guaranteed years, with 13 having club-held options.

» READ MORE: MLS says it has global ambition, but too often acts like it doesn’t. That needs to change.

Goalkeeper Andre Blake is one of them: This season is his last guaranteed one, with a team option for 2025. That might get fans’ attention. The most important player in Union history has been notably introspective on Instagram lately, including a cryptic post on his Instagram story late Tuesday night that set off alarm bells: “When you are no longer happy it’s time…”

Is he unhappy about all the injuries he’s had to deal with this year, including recent knee swelling that kept him out of Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Seattle? Is he still frustrated with the Union’s front office for not buying title-winning stars, as he spoke about before the season started? Or is the uncertainty about his own future on his mind?

We’ll see if Blake says anything more this week, before Saturday’s game at D.C. United (7:30 p.m., Apple TV; all games leaguewide are free this weekend). The Union hope he’ll play in it, but it’s far from certain.

Who else is out of contract this year? It’s well-known that longtime captain Alejandro Bedoya is on a one-year deal, and star striker Julián Carranza is in the last year of his deal. Veteran centerback Damion Lowe and hardworking (though injury-bitten) midfielder Leon Flach also are fully out of contract after this season.

Eight players have contract options just for next year, including veteran centerback Jack Elliott and right back Olivier Mbaizo, star striker Mikael Uhre, and loaned-away young centerback Brandan Craig.

» READ MORE: Union goalkeeper Andre Blake’s plan to ‘push through’ in his continued return to full form

MLS rosters start with 30 slots: 20 for the “senior roster” and 10 for the “supplemental roster,” where players make less money. Teams don’t have to fill out their senior squads.

The Union’s senior roster is full — more than full, in fact. There are 22 senior players listed, because two are out on loan: forward Joaquín Torres and young midfielder Richard Odada.

The supplemental roster has 10 names, though that section is not full. Craig, forward Nelson Pierre, and left back Matt Real are loaned out elsewhere.

There’s also an extra supplemental slot earned for having multiple homegrown players on the squad, which must be given to a player who’s loaned for the year to a club’s reserve team. Pierre was in the slot last year, and midfielder Nick Pariano is this year.

As useful as all this information is, it’s also a reminder of something else people find annoying about MLS: its Byzantine rule book. There are 10 ways to be classified on a team roster. Some are easy to understand, like Designated Player. Some are convoluted, like the league’s Under-22 rule that lets teams sign certain young players for a fixed cap charge no matter their salary and transfer fee.

There’s even a status called “Off-Roster” that applies to newly signed academy product David Vazquez. It limits how much he can play for the first team for now, even though he has a first-team contract. (That said, expect those limits to go away by the end of the year.)

Here’s a chart detailing each Union player’s contract and roster status.

» READ MORE: Why Andre Blake is the most important player in Union history