ZYanksRule
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His new teammate Jakob Glesnes made $1.3 million last year. FC Cincinnati's two starting CBs each made around $1.5 million.
I don't think it's crazy to think Haak wanted at least $1 million. I just wonder how far apart we were.
2026 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
- Thread starter LionNYC
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His new teammate Jakob Glesnes made $1.3 million last year. FC Cincinnati's two starting CBs each made around $1.5 million.
I don't think it's crazy to think Haak wanted at least $1 million. I just wonder how far apart we were.
ZYanksRule
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Why? Why is it his fault the team undervalued him, and apparently did so for years?
Just betting odds seeing our players that leave and how fast they get voted off lol
This is the story.
dark knight
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Truly infuriating - dude is a New Yorker. Hopefully it’s something like he wanted to move to LA and not our incompetence.
ZYanksRule
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The team was reportedly lowballing him. He wanted to return, but last year David Lee didn't think he was a 34-game starter and undervalued him. Then this year they didn't start negotiating until Lee left, but they still undervalued him so he decided to go elsewhere.
Haak has lived in NYC his entire life and never really had the chance to go away for college, so it’s possible he simply wanted to experience living somewhere else.
You also have to consider roster construction and ambition. Why stick around waiting to see if CFG decides to pursue elite MLS status again once the stadium opens, when you can join a club that’s already there? These guys are ultra-competitive. It doesn’t always work out, but LA Galaxy always go for it. And on top of that, he gets the opportunity to play alongside players like Reus and Puig.
You also have to consider roster construction and ambition. Why stick around waiting to see if CFG decides to pursue elite MLS status again once the stadium opens, when you can join a club that’s already there? These guys are ultra-competitive. It doesn’t always work out, but LA Galaxy always go for it. And on top of that, he gets the opportunity to play alongside players like Reus and Puig.
You're right. Not even the Ramones are immune to the lure of Cali.
Really, the one sided assignment of responsibility is ridiculous. Haak has preferences and desires we have no knowledge of.
We don't know what the team offered. or what he demanded.
We underpaid and undervalued him for the last few years. No we did not. We paid him fully in line with MLS standards and the CBA.
If we paid him more 2-3 years ago he would have stayed. Almost certainly not. Professional athletes have close to zero loyalty just because you paid them well in the past. If they can get more now or fulfill other goals by changing laundry, they will go do it 98+% of the time.
We should have extended him before 2025. For the right price yes. Maybe we tried? He's allowed to say no, or to make unreasonable demands. We don't know what the ask or offer was. Taking a side when we lack all these details is irrational.
I dont think you need to sift through the tea leaves for this one. David Lee told him he was not a starting calibur player so yes we can say the club did not value him properly.
I think it's ok to assume that Lee lowballed him last offseason after he won the starting spot in the 2024 playoff run. IIRC, he also had previously taken all mention of NYCFC off his IG profile. So instead of Justin being on a new reasonable extension, Lee was wrong in his talent evaluation, Justin breaks out in 2025, and now is upset and has options.
Perhaps with making the move for Raul, there was budgetary factors as well, but if Lee had properly assessed a talent that NYCFC has been developing since the academy this doesn't happen.
I think it's ok to assume that Lee lowballed him last offseason after he won the starting spot in the 2024 playoff run. IIRC, he also had previously taken all mention of NYCFC off his IG profile. So instead of Justin being on a new reasonable extension, Lee was wrong in his talent evaluation, Justin breaks out in 2025, and now is upset and has options.
Perhaps with making the move for Raul, there was budgetary factors as well, but if Lee had properly assessed a talent that NYCFC has been developing since the academy this doesn't happen.
That would be a stupid and impolitic thing for Lee to say. David Lee is neither stupid nor impolitic, so I don't believe he said it. I also don't think Haak is lying.
More likely Haak asked for a big raise and Lee said that Haak needs to prove he's a quality 34 game starting player first and then he'll get paid. That's very much not the same thing, but it's understandable a player would hear them as the same, especially when he's not getting what he thinks he deserves. An SD has to be able to say things like that or you can't negotiate.
- Why won't you meet my demands?
- I can't say because you might get insulted.
It's NYCFC's bad luck that Haak more than tripled his minutes played and doubled his per minute goal+ contributions in a walk year.
Haak's per 96 Raw ASA G+ went from 0.10 to 0.20.
At the end of the day as an SD you're right or wrong and this is fair. Lee bet that either Haak would not improve so much or Haak would accept the challenge as a positive instead of as a slight and re-sign for a nice raise at the end of the year or that Lee/NYCFC could get someone more reliable at the right price. Maybe the replacement is already done in Raul. Or maybe Lee's decision/error is now Dunivant's problem to fix. That's TBD. You also can't hand out big extensions and raises to every young player who in fact, had not yet shown themselves to be 3000+ minute high impact players.
There's also a universe in which Haak gets a raise and extension before 2025 and doesn't perform as well as he did in our reality because players use perceived slights as motivation all the time and if he's not carrying a shoulder chip he only gets a little better than he was before.
Lee and Haak staked out positions. Haak rose to the occasion and walked. It's his right and no way to stop him short of overpaying him in advance. Not every player goes ham in their walk year, and too many players regress after doing so and signing big contracts. I'd like to have Haak moving forward, but IMO in the universe of NYCFC sporting FO fails this is a blip not a boulder.
I've been saying all along, we have no idea what he was offered last year and if it was reasonable. He just scratched the XI very late into the 2024 season, and coming into this year it was far from certain that he would have been anywhere near as solid as he turned out to be. It's understandable that there would be a gap between what he perceived his value to be, and what the club was willing to offer while still having him under contract for a year.
He had to prove it this season, and he sure as hell did.
He had to prove it this season, and he sure as hell did.
After the 2022 season, NYC let a key player walk in free agency when the Club wasn’t willing to pay what the player could get on the market. The Pigeons then went out and got a better replacement. It happens. Let’s see what business we do over the next 8 weeks.
It took me a while to figure this out. You mean Sean Johnson? He's the only one I can see who left that offseason and could be argued was replaced by better. Though there was no certain evidence that was an upgrade at the time. Freese was buried in Philly, had to prove himself here and thankfully did so. It certainly wasn't a case of losing a valued player and buying a sure thing. Freese fits the CFG model of scouting, buying something undervalued in the market and hoping it will develop.
