SB Nation Mock Expansion Draft: Philadelphia Union Protect Zac MacMath, Amobi Okugo, Nine Others

The actual MLS expansion draft is occurring on December 10, 2014, but all drafts must be mocked ahead of time, and this one is no different. A few days ago I was asked by SB Nation Soccer editor and blog manager Jeremiah Oshan to protect 11 players that Hudson River Blue (NYCFC blog) and The Mane Land (Orlando City FC blog) will not be able to select. The rest of the team minus the Union's exempt players* will be available for selection with the Union only receiving allocation money in return for any lost players.

*Andre Blake, Jimmy McLaughlin Cristhian Hernandez, and Zach Pfeffer. Credit TBG contributor Andrew Stoltzfus for confirming this list for me.

The list of players I have decided to protect for the Philadelphia Union are as follows.

Zac MacMath
Sheanon Williams
Ray Gaddis
Maurice Edu
Carlos Valdes
Ethan White
Amobi Okugo
Vincent Nogueira
Cristian Maidana
Andrew Wenger
Sebastien Le Toux

Notable available players include Rais M'Bolhi and Pedro Ribeiro. I decided to only protect one goalkeeper and though M'Bolhi may have more value in the open market, MacMath is five years younger, and it feels unlikely either New York City FC or Orlando City would select M'Bolhi.* Ribeiro was just an unfortunate victim of the numbers. If there were a 12th player I'd protect it would be the 2014 1st round SuperDraft pick, however someone had to be left off the list and his 2014 struggles forced my hand.

*Which will now happen because I live to be trolled on the internet.

The results of the expansion draft will be released on Monday, December 1.