Ryan Johnston

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TFC veteran Amado Guevara was passed over in the MLS expansion draft.

Conventional playground wisdom says that those picked last generally deserve the dubious honour. However, what does conventional wisdom say about not being picked at all?

Exactly that happened to Toronto FC when its eight unprotected players went unnoticed to the Philadelphia Union at the MLS expansion draft. The first-year Union franchise didn't want a single one of the TFC kids with two left feet.

I am being facetious, of course, because the theory springs a leak when you consider that the MLS Cup winning Real Salt Lake were another team overlooked by the fledgling Union club. As were Kansas City, FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo.

While the disinterest in Reds players is not due to a lack of talent, it might be due to an abundance of dubious contracts.

Left unprotected, Amado Guevara is an ideal player to temporarily cornerstone a first-year franchise with limited resources. Guevara is certainly an outsider in the young man's league, but the intensity of a Honduran World Cup qualifying run showed on the field at BMO this summer as Guevara was quite often one of the best players on the pitch. There will be no drop-off in the play of Guevara

But he makes in the neighbourhood of $300,000.

Pablo Vitti is another dynamic player that could benefit from a move out of the crowded midfield in Toronto. Vitti is a younger, poor man's Guevara that with a little MLS seasoning may develop into a 10 goal per season player.

But he makes in the neighbourhood of $280,000.

Carl Robinson, like Guevara, is easily a bedrock player in most MLS cities. Professionalism, soccer intelligence and league average skill would get Robinson the armband in Philadelphia.

But he makes in the neighbourhood of $315,000.

The three realistically deserve to be paid $200k, $100k and $200k, respectively. But Mo Johnston overpaid to lure the talent to a plastic field in Canada and subsequently hand-cuffed himself out of a $380k surplus.

Anyhow, the upside of the expansion draft snub is that two of Toronto's most valuable pieces -- the goalkeepers -- remain in town. In fact, of all the goalkeepers available for selection -- Pat Onstad, Kevin Hartman -- the Union selected Revolution walk-on Brad Knighton. The undrafted 'keeper played in six games for the Revs in '09, winning one, drawing three and posting a two-plus goals-against.

A peculiar move, but Johnston failed to hang on to all 10 of his expansion selections; so it might mean that Knighton serves as trade fodder in a move to get a true No. 1.