Sporting KC releases MLS expansion draft protected list

Sporting Kansas City released their 11 players who they chose to protect from being selected in tomorrow’s MLS Expansion Draft.

Teams in MLS choose 11 of their players to protect from being taken by new expansion teams Atlanta United FC and Minnesota United FC. In addition, homegrown players are automatically protected from being taken.

Here’s the list of who Sporting KC protected and left open

Protected

• Saad Abdul-Salaam
• Matt Besler
• Dom Dwyer
• Roger Espinoza
• Benny Feilhaber
• Jimmy Medranda
• Tim Melia
• Soni Mustivar
• Ike Opara
• Diego Rubio
• Graham Zusi

Automatically protected

• Jon Kempin
• Kevin Ellis
• Erik Palmer-Brown
• Daniel Salloi

Left Open

• Nuno Coelho
• Brad Davis (retiring)
• Connor Hallisey
• Justin Mapp
• Chance Myers
• Paulo Nagamura (retiring)
• Lawrence Olum*
• Jacob Peterson
• Cameron Porter*
• Seth Sinovic*
• Ever Alvarado
• Emmanuel Appiah
• Benji Joya*
• Alec Kann

*under contract for 2017

The expansion draft will take place tomorrow at 1 p.m. central.