Doyle: Hernandez injury influenced list of protected players
By Jeff Carlisle · November 25, 2009
On a day that saw Philadelphia Union claim up-and-coming midfielder Shea Salinas in the 2009 expansion draft, San Jose general manager John Doyle expressed disappointment at losing the franchise’s first ever draft choice, while at the same time sticking by his reasons for leaving him unprotected.
“[Salinas] has been a good person in the community and a good player for us,” said Doyle. “With expansion - and next year we’re probably going to lose two players - you end up losing players you don’t want to lose. It’s hard.”
In Salinas, the Quakes have now lost a player who has a fair amount of upside, and it would appear that the decision to protect defender Bobby Burling is what led the midfielder to be exposed in the first place.
But after enduring a season in which the Quakes’ defense suffered through injury and poor form, Doyle still feels he made the right decision. Defender Jason Hernandez is recovering from surgery to repair torn ligaments and a fracture in his left ankle, and Doyle indicated that there is concern Hernandez may not heal up completely until after the start of the season.
“Hernandez’s injury isn’t progressing as fast as we’d hoped,” said Doyle. “It’s taking more time for the bone in his ankle to heal, so we looked at the team in terms of who we would put out there if we had to play a game tomorrow. We look at the pairing of Bobby Burling and Brandon McDonald and think they are two good center backs, and if Hernandez doesn’t come back as quick as we’d like, we want Burling available to start the season.”
The track record of Doyle and head coach Frank Yallop in personnel matters has been about 50/50 during their tenure. For every Ramon Sanchez or Cornell Glen there have been disappointments like Cam Weaver and Bobby Convey. Time will tell if the decision to keep Burling over Salinas was the right one.
Horrible decision.
The better question might be “protecting Corrales instead of Salinas” Not Bobby Burling. I can’t imagine the odds going into the draft had Corrales getting picked over Salinas.
I am rethinking my decision to renew my season tickets… Bobby Burling, please, what a joke…
Robert has is right. There was no need to protect Corrales. We could have exposed Joe Cannon to. (Though I would not have guess that before the draft.) We could have exposed Burling also. Even if we did lose him, we are deeper at central defender with McD, Pitchkolan, and Jason (if he heals). Also, we need an organizing defender on the backline. Burling isn’t that guy, Pitch might be. Still, we need to sign an organizer for the backline and that bolsters the center d spot even more.
Shea was our starting right mid at the end of the season. I still Arturo as more of a forward than a winger. Shea has a better cross than Arturo, and more speed. This was a poor decision and many of us have been arguing that we needed to protect Shea for months.
Maybe if Hernandez is in such bad shape HE should have been left unprotected… I love Jason, but he’s not valuable to the team if he’s on the bench injured and that seems to be the MO so far in his MLS career.
This is the lamest excuse ever! You can only lose one player and if both Burling and Pitchkolan were exposed and we lost one, we would still have a back up for Jason. assuming that Arturo is our Right mid, who is our back up for Arturo now? Sometimes I think, no, check that, i Always think John Doyle is stupid.
Our front office……Yikes.
i call Bullsh!t. burling is a guy we can pickup anywhere,sound familiar? now salinas we drafted and was developing w/ a big upside, that at any moment will flourish, yet burling we could most likeley draft and be the same player.how can they be so ….and these guys are running our team?!.cagamos!
there was little chance of Philly taking cannon or corrales, though their reduced salaries make them more attractive than previous. Salinas however with the way he ended his season, low salary and quick pace was an obvious first choice considering the history between Nowak and Convey. Big miscalculation.
I’m gonna put my money where my mouth is and renew my tickets; what are you going to do, Earthquakes?
wow just lost my entire comment b/c wrong security word entered… centerline plz fix ur security system
You guys need to man up and get over your emotions. Teams do this all the time in sports, sacrifice a strength to address a weakness. I.E. the Giants and A’s often trade better pitchers for worse hitters because they have strong pitching and weak hitting. It’s all about team balance. Here, we were thin at defense and deep in the midfield. Ergo, protecting Burling makes more sense.
Salinas only started half the games this season anyways and didn’t even score a goal.
I just can’t understand why the had to put somebody who had potential. Put up the guys who are more unlikely to be picked, Convey, Corrales or Cannon as others have said.
Moneyball at its worst. Salinas was a project that was on the upside. Now, the Quakes lose him and get nothing back.
I am so pissed !!! I just lost faith in Doyle. What an idiotic decision !!! So, so, so disappointed in the Quakes upper management. Sure we can now ‘defend’ our net but no one to actually score goals. Stupid !!! I am so glad that my season tickets are now down to just $12 per match because I am not expecting much from Doyle’s decisions for next season.
garbage
Doyle is the worst GM in the history of MLS. It’s not about Burling vs Salinas because there was absolutely no reason to protect Corrales.
Hello knuckleheads, you have a few months before the next game it is not tomorrow. So why make decisions as if you had to field a team tomorrow. Are you really so incompetent that you cannot find a decent defender to replace Bobby Burling in three months if the need arose.
Could have protected Salinas, lost Burling, then traded Salinas for a better defender than Burling in a month or two if needed. These guys are cluelesss.
Hmm 16 people still give a sh*t about this train wreck? Quakes news is like reading the onion.com. Are they for real?
It’s way past time to demand change in the front office. Doyle is not qualified and Yallop ran scared all year last year with his shuffling players around to cover up his inability to create a comprehensive attack.
Losing Shea Salinas just confirms what we’re beginning to realize. The Quakes are a losing organization. Unfortunately, Lew Wolf doesn’t see it that way. Yet.
What terrible timing with the new stadium in limbo. Give up the one guy that can bring fans to their feet. Stupid.
Soo, this does make sense, I mean, Salinas could play defense on the right side and recover and attack, hell, he is also very young, so let us expose him and know he is going to get released. I will miss Shea, quality player, but this whole thing with Corrales and having no experience at the assistant manager spot has it looking that Yallop is trying to look to much to the past at all costs. Ramioro looked bad when he came back to play for the US national team at the HDC and he has not been able to impress at anytime. Again, ZAHER IS QUALITY! Young, fast, crossing ability, and. CHEAP! It is true that Dom was the brains behing 2001 and 2003, no doubt now . hey I have an idea, lets sign Lagos, Brose, Aloisi, Graziani , and Agogo, they might be good options per the reasoning that dumb doyle and foulup(yallop) have!
Another bonehead move by our misguided management. The Quakes are the Warriors of the MLS.
Sure, Salinas was promising. Is that what our organization needs starting in the midfield? A project? We finished last. Arturo is a proven goal scorer. Shea is not. We can’t win games, how are we going to develop young guys?
But most of all, this expansion draft shit is whack. Wouldn’t be a big deal if there was one every few years, but every year? whack
yo bewmf., nobody is saying salinas was going to start. he’s a lot closer to starting than finishing his career(corrales) that’s for sure. plus you want players pushing each other in every position, now that’s something that we won’t have on the right wing and most important is we had a little bit of DEPTH, not anymore. it’s just common sense.
Sure Alvarez can score, if he can move to the LEFT. Let’s face it, Arturo has one move and all of the MLS teams have figured it out. Protecting Corrales over Salinas was a bad move no matter how rosey your glasses are.
“Hernandez’s injury isn’t progressing as fast as we’d hoped,” said Doyle. “It’s taking more time for the bone in his ankle to heal, so we looked at the team in terms of who we would put out there if we had to play a game tomorrow.”
Why would you look at the team in terms of who we would put out there tomorrow when the schedule shows that we don’t have a real game for 5 months? That just seems like stupid thinking.
yo frank, here’s what markmcf said: Shea was our starting right mid at the end of the season. I still Arturo as more of a forward than a winger. Shea has a better cross than Arturo, and more speed. Pretty sure thats an argument for salinas to start.
I’m all for depth, as that is common sense as you say, but we’re losing depth in this draft no matter what - that’s the point of the draft. I know the argument is corrales is shit and no one would’ve taken him, but he provides depth and experience at a number of positions - isn’t that what you want?
Corrales was a very effective player for the Quakes last season, whether at left back or in the midfield. He was by no means as bad as some seem to be suggesting. The argument to leave him unprotected versus Salinas is based on the desirability of either for Philly in the draft. It was unlikely they would have rated him very high on the available players list, and perhaps they would have left the Quakes untouched.
Was there another name on the unprotected list the Quakes wanted to keep even more than Salinas? Was Shea put out there to be chosen ahead of another available player? Just a thought, though I can’t reasonably decide if that was the case. That *might* explain some of the rational for having Salinas instead of Corrales on the unprotected list.
foresight sure seems to be lacking with this braintrust of ours……it’s almost as if running this organization is some sort of hobby for these guys….i sent doyle an e-mail asking if the protected list they put together was really the best we as an organization could do, really??? needless to say he didn’t respond, merely wishing me a happy thanksgiving and thanking me for my support…….this is a disturbing blend of ignorance and arrogance……..are we going to get caught by surprise again as the new CBA is unveiled? i sure as hell hope not….know what the salary cap i going to be, know how many DP slots there will be (even if just for the sake of trading ours) and have some moves ready to go, instead of just throwing whatever half-assed squad we’ve put together out there for the 1st half of the season again and then try to fix everything with another flurry desperate mid-season moves…..again
Here we go again. another pitiful, lame stupid response by J.D. Hummm is this guy trying to kill what ever resemblance of a team we had? Stupid beyond belief. J.D needs to be removed, fired. Unfortunately, I think the powers that be think J.D. is doing a good job. I do not think they would ever admit they made a HUGE mistake hiring this guy. He wasn’t even a good soccer player! I wish they would get back to what is important and what the history of the Earthquakes represent. The sad thing is the Earthquakes could have been Seattle. We could have filled the stadium. There is great love in this valley for the Earthquakes and this organization is so narrow in their vision that they do not see what is happening before their very eyes. Earthquake fans are loyal but we are tired of investing in a team that does not invest in its players. I have already purchased my tickets for next season and I am totally having buyers remorse. But this will be the last season I buy seasons tickets unless J.D. is removed. Anyone think Johnny Moore would be an awesome GM? I do. Maybe we need to send a blast email to these incompetents and demand their heads! Or at least their attention. So good luck To Shea and I am so sorry that this organization didn’t value you enough to protect you. That decision was just wrong! You and Ronnie Obrien need to get together and toss back a few. I know the Earthquake fans are!
i’m still depressed about losing shea. Screw season tix
there goes our season
The only way this makes half a lick of sense is if they have an incredible right winger (aka designated player) on the hook. I think the probability of that is less than 1%, but who knows.
I recall some of the later season games Shea was the guy getting back and making the clutch defensive plays - more so than our defense. He could have had a raft of goals and assists if the team had any coordination in the final 3rd. Class of the team - and improving as a professional payer so fast.
He should do great in Philly.
The expansion draft is sheer madness, but leaving Shea exposed was madder still. Sigh
Shoot! Ive been mad at the FO since they drove ROB away!!!
I’ve been saying for a while now, Doyle and Yallop have to go.
Thanks L. Wolf for lowering ticket prices, but your coach and team manager are ruining it.
To Doyle: Explanation NOT good enough.
it could’ve been worse. if we exposed Ramiro, we would have lost Quincy
Hey Jeff, any word on trading to get Shea back?
“it could’ve been worse. if we exposed Ramiro, we would have lost Quincy”
Really? Losing Quincy would have been worse than losing Shea? Maybe if Quincy could stay on his feet more that would be true…