For the last ten years, maybe more, I’ve been doing an offseason roster-building exercise where I break down each part of the roster. I discuss the money spent on the group, raise some questions or concerns, and then wrap up where I think they’re heading into the new year.

Unlike previous years, I’m going to combine some areas to go from four posts into two. Honestly, it’s a lot easier to write it this way, and I’m not sure why it has taken me this long to get to this point.

Background information

For starters, I like to point out that the salary cap, for the 2023 season was at $5.2 million and will be moving up to $5.7 million in 2024.

As most of you know, MLS teams can buy down a player's salary with allocation, either of the general or targeted variety. Those ‘Garber Bucks’, as some like to call it, help bring a player's salary cap hit down. FC Dallas had a small stockpile of allocation following some international transfers for guys like Ricardo Pepi, Tanner Tessmann and Brian Reynolds, though they’ve likely spent most of that in the last two years.

Typically, returning players see an increase in their salary each year unless it has been agreed with the club that they make less, as in the club and player worked out a deal.