MLS free agents Sounders could target in offseason

Earlier this week, the MLSPA released the list of players who are set to become (or potentially become, as the case may be for players with options for 2025) Free Agents heading into next season. With a winter window that is almost certainly going to involve a fair amount of change to the Seattle Sounders roster, there will definitely be some interest in the list from the club’s front office.

While we’re all hoping – and to a certain extent expecting – to see the club make some serious investment in bringing in impact players, there are some options that could help the club going forward and would make a good fit who will be hitting free agency. With that in mind, it seems worth running through some of the players who will definitely be free agents (i.e., not pending an option) that could make sense in Rave Green.

Jackson Yueill: João Paulo has been a key figure in the Sounders midfield pretty much since the day he arrived in 2020, but injury and age have undeniably slowed him down and made him less consistently available. His contract runs out this year, and if Seattle decide it’s time to move on from the Brazilian, Jackson Yueill could make a pretty good replacement. He’s obviously not a direct like-for-like, but there’s enough of an overlap in what the two offer it’s not difficult to envision Yueill in a midfield pair with the likes of Cristian Roldan or Josh Atencio. Especially if Seattle move back to having a 6 who primarily sits in front of the backline or between the centerbacks to help with distribution when the team is in possession.

Yueill is obviously a lower usage player than JP, but he simply doesn’t miss passes and is actually a slightly higher producer of expected goal contributions, despite rating so much lower in terms of shot-creating actions. With potential midfield partners who are so capable of covering ground and moving the ball forward, and a No. 10 in Pedro de la Vega who definitely wants to be on the ball more than any of Seattle’s other wingers, he could be a really useful addition to the lineup. If Seattle want to try to possess the ball, replacing João Paulo with Jackson Yueill – who turns 28 in March and made about $500k less in 2024 – would make a lot of sense.

Ryan Raposo: Players making $150k who can provide a genuine threat from wide positions on either side of the field don’t come around all that often. In the 25-year-old Raposo you also get 114 MLS appearances and over 140 professional appearances, all with the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Raposo has primarily played as the widest player on either side of the field, serving as more of an attacking wingback for the Whitecaps. The Sounders do not play in Vancouver’s 3-5-2, but I think Raposo could serve as a decent backup at either wing position or as the attack-focused fullback on Seattle’s backline as currently set up. He wouldn’t raise the ceiling, but he’s a hard-to-beat mix of experience, attacking production, age and price that goes a long way in making sure your floor is still high.

Aaron Long: Maybe you remember that the Sounders were reportedly one of the teams pursuing Long when he was a FA ahead of the 2023 season. He wound up choosing LAFC rather than returning to Seattle – Long somewhat famously joined the Sounders in 2014 after being released by the Portland Timbers and spent 2015 with Sounders 2 before eventually moving to New York Red Bulls II and starting his upward trajectory. Now there’s a chance for him to right that wrong, as he’s heading into his second dance in free agency.

Long is going to be 32 before this season is over, and he currently makes a TON ($1.3 million guaranteed in 2024), so the circumstances would have to be just right for this to make much sense. I’m not sure that he could reasonably be expected to be a game-in, game-out starter at this point, but he’s been pretty reliably available for LAFC during his time there. Still, it would probably take at least one of Seattle’s starting CBs leaving one way or another, and maybe even two of Seattle’s top-four CBs leaving, along with a pretty substantial pay cut for the move to make actual sense from a Seattle perspective.

Jonathan Lewis: I want to start by saying I don’t really believe in this pick, but in the interest of positional variety it feels like I should throw in an attacker of some sort. There just aren’t a ton of actually out-of-contract wingers or strikers that you’d actually want to add to your team at this point. Add to that the fact that Lewis plays left wing, the attacking position where the Sounders arguably have the most options (any of PdlV, Paul Rothrock, Georgi Minoungou, Braudilio Rodrigues, Léo Chú and Jordan Morris can play there) and I don’t know that Lewis is really an upgrade over any of them.

If the offseason does result in a LOT of turnover and the Sounders need a solid contributor off the bench, Lewis could make a surprising amount of sense. With the Colorado Rapids this season, he’s got 2 goals and 3 assists in 423 MLS minutes, and all of those goal contributions came in his last five appearances. That’s really good, but is tempered by the fact that following a 3-2 win over RSL on July 20 in which he had a goal and assist, he played 424 minutes across seven appearances in Leagues Cup and only had 1 goal. Lewis has struggled to be a regular contributor for one reason or another throughout his time in MLS, but for the right price he could potentially be an interesting super-sub option.

Dru Yearwood: Yearwood is a really interesting player. RBNY brought him in from Brentford as a Young DP back in 2020, and he’s gone on to make over 100 MLS appearances with RBNY and Nashville SC, and in total has 198 professional appearances for just over 12,000 minutes at the age of 24. Yearwood is a very active midfielder who, wherever he’s deployed, is best utilized as a destroyer on both sides of the ball. His passing isn’t great, but he does a really good job of getting in the way of what the other team wants to do via making tackles and blocking passes and shots. When he does get on the ball he’s not afraid to take players on and succeeds at a good clip (his 71.4% success rate puts him in the 95th percentile among midfielders), then either switches the field or he can make a simple pass to someone more capable of picking out a final ball once he’s unsettled the opposing team with his dribble.

Yearwood plays pretty differently to any of Seattle’s current crop of midfielders, and could be a useful addition. He no longer carries a DP tag of any sort, and in 2024 he had a guaranteed salary of just under $600k. He’s not a perfect player, but he would bring a flavor the Sounders haven’t really had in a long time.

There are some other interesting players who could be free agents if their current teams don’t exercise their options. Chief among them are Nkosi Tafari from FC Dallas and Jack Elliott from Philadelphia Union. Both players are CBs who are well established at their current clubs and could slot into a starting XI for Seattle if they could be brought in. It seems highly likely at this point that both clubs will exercise their options, but circumstances could change in the final months of the season, and they could be acquired via trade if the Sounders found themselves in need of a CB for one reason or another.

Of the two, Tafari is the more interesting option. He’s on just under $350k this season compared to a little shy of $900k guaranteed for Elliott, and he has existing Seattle connections. The New York native spent most of his college career at UConn, but played his senior season in 2019 at Seattle University under the guidance of coach Pete Fewing.

This offseason should obviously include more than free agent acquisitions, but a good window involves leveraging all pathways and options available. Are there any MLS free agents you’d want to see Seattle bring in?