Trades for Expansion Draft Protection in 2021

I wanted to look back at the trades for Protection two years ago, when Angel City and San Diego joined the league. Let’s start with Chicago’s deal with Angel City, which is the one that really stuck in my mind. They gave up Sarah Gordon, Julie Ertz, and International spots in ‘22 and ‘23. Ertz was obviously a star, but it was known at that point that she wouldn’t be playing in ‘22. It was basically for her rights, and hopefully to give Angel City an edge in bringing her back, which worked, although probably not in the way that anybody hoped. Gordon was in the 2021 NWSL Best XI, and an Iron Woman for Chicago. Clearly a top player, and I think that by herself, she’s better than any of the deals we saw this year. But even with that, Chicago added the two international spots and the rights to Ertz. Now who knows, maybe Gordon was pushing for the move. I don’t think so, she’s a Chicago native, but maybe. Regardless, it was a big haul for Angel City.

Chicago also made a deal with San Diego. They gave up Katie Johnson, Makenzy Doniak, and Kelsey Turnbow, for protection and some amount of allocation money (I couldn’t find anything that said how much). Turnbow was a 2nd round pick for Chicago, but had opted to return to college for one more year, so I would classify her as a prospect. Johnson played in 23 matches with 9 starts in 2021, while Doniak had 17 matches and 7 starts. I’d call both quality squad players. So no star players, but they got three players that they can feel good about, and I think that that volume makes the deal a win. They probably wouldn’t have been able to nab all three if they’d waited for the expansion draft.

Looking at other teams, Washington got protection from San Diego in exchange for Tegan McGrady, an international roster spot, and a 1st round pick (9th overall). McGrady had 13 matches and 8 starts in ‘21. So again, I’d say quality squad player, but the 1st round pick is a big sweetener. You’d expect a 9th overall pick to at least develop into a regular starter, so this matches pretty well with Chicago’s deal with San Diego. That was three squad players with the potential for more for Protection + Money. This is in essence, one squad player and one starter for Protection.

The next deal that I want to look at was a big one. San Diego traded $130,000 and full Protection for Kailen Sheridan. Sheridan had a big year in 2021, winning a gold medal with Canada and being named to the NWSL Best XI. She clearly was a star player, and one of the highest rated keepers in the league, so it makes sense to me that the price was so high. I would also expect every team to protect their starting goalie, so in order to land one, you will have to offer more than just Protection. She played in 16 games with 16 starts for Gotham in 2021.

Which takes us to our next deal: for Sheridan’s backup at Gotham, Didi Haracic. Angel City gave up $50,000 in allocation and Protection in the trade for Haracic. I think there are a number of factors in this deal. Haracic had played all of the Challenge Cup for Gotham, and had an extended stretch of starts when Sheridan was at the Olympics. She played in eight NWSL matches in 2021, far more than most backups. I feel like since Freya Coombe and her staff had come from Gotham, they knew Haracic well and were pushing for the move, especially after seeing Sheridan move to San Diego. It was imperative to sign a quality keeper and Haracic already had the trust of the coaching staff. From Gotham’s point of view, they had traded for Ashlyn Harris after losing Sheridan, but before losing Haracic. I would guess that they had wanted to keep Haracic, both to keep consistency in the team, and because they knew she could step into a starting role if required. Thus it took a real offer-too-good-to-refuse from Angel City land Haracic. Otherwise, I don’t know how to justify $130,000 for a Best XI Keeper and $50,000 for one with only eight matches that season. I think that this is an overpayment, but I can understand the reasons why.

There are several more, but I’m just going to focus on Angel City’s deals for the rest. I’ll look at the remaining deals, and then at who they were actually able to draft. First Angel City acquiring the rights to MA Vignola from Washington for $30,000 and protection for Washington’s US Allocated players, meaning players in USWNT pool. There’s a lot about this deal I don’t understand, but I didn’t want to leave it out. Primarily, I don’t know how Washington had Vignola’s rights. She didn’t register for the draft after college and was playing in Iceland. In the end, though, it’s basically protecting O’Hara, Sullivan, and Sonnett for a player who wasn’t in the NWSL, so it’s pretty hard to compare it to other deals.

Next was a blockbuster with Portland: Simone Charley and Tyler Lussi for $100,000 in allocation money, Full Protection, and the #13 pick (second round). Charley had finished the season tied for second on Portland with Christine Sinclair (5 goals), and in a season in which Portland won the Shield. Lussi on the other hand, had only 160 minutes spread out over 10 matches in 2021. Now, I was a huge fan of Lussi’s during her year at Angel City. I loved her physicality and her work rate. But I don’t understand this deal. That Portland team was so deep that I think they would have been a prime target in the expansion draft. Lussi would definitely not have been protected. And if they had protected Charley (which I’m not sure they would have, she was 14th in minutes), that probably would have left someone like Morgan Weaver unprotected. I think Angel City was paying for the players that they hoped Charley and Lussi would turn into, not the players they were in 2021.

Angel City also acquired Cari Roccaro from North Carolina for full Protection, no other strings or aspects to the deal. In ‘21, Roccaro played 23 matches, with only 10 starts, for 975 minutes, good for 11th on the team. Interestingly, San Diego also traded Protection for a North Caroline midfielder with only 10 starts: Angharad James. So that also gives us a sense of value. Part of this may, actually be North Carolina. They won back to back Championships in ‘18 and ‘19, so both expansion teams might have been looking for players who know what it takes to win it all.

And finally, Angel City got Brittany Wilson (later to become Isenhour) plus a 3rd round for partial protection and a 4th round pick from Orlando. As with the Vignola deal, I couldn’t find anything published on what partial protection meant, but this strikes me as a pretty reasonable deal.

Next, looking at the actual draft. Angel City drafted Dani Weatherholt, Claire Emslie, Jasmine Spencer, and Paige Nielsen. All of them have played significant minutes and I think that they have all proved to be, at a minimum, starting caliber players in the NWSL. Weatherholt had consistently played over 1,000 minutes, including 11 starts in ‘21. Emslie was a starter for Everton at the time, so there was some gamble about whether she would return to the NWSL, but she looked like a player that could compete for a starting spot. Spencer was coming off 18 matches with 9 starts for the Dash in ‘21, and obviously has a resume going back to the start of the NWSL. Nielsen was coming off 16 matches with 13 starts for the Spirit. My point here is that it doesn’t seem like a stretch to project any of these players into meaningful roles.

But the point of this while exercise was to try to compare the price of Protection between ‘22 and ‘24. And I realize that that’s harder to do than ever. As the dominoes fall, the value of Protection changes, thus the early deals seem more expensive. Still, in the ‘22 Expansion Draft we saw trades for two players in the NWSL Best XI: Gordon and Sheridan. We also see significant bonuses like 1st round draft picks included with squad players for protection. In ‘24, not only are we not seeing those bonuses, or deals for star players, but the scale has actually tipped. It now takes Protection plus a significant amount of Allocaion Money just to land a starting caliber player. There are rule changes that have some impact on this, but not enough, in my opinion to explain this. So is this just Bay and Utah overpaying to get the individuals they want for that coveted “First player in the history of the club” title? Does the fact that there are so many big name free agents make other trades harder or easier? I think that there are too many unknowns, but I’m going to definitely say that just two years ago, expansion teams could reap a lot more by offering Protection. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the larger economic context of the rest of the offseason.