Things are happening in Whitecaps land. Tom Bogert has reported that the Whitecaps have firm offers for at least 7 players on their roster. So, I want to take a look at some players who could plausibly have interest and try to determine if it’s a better idea to cash in on them or to hold on to them. I will give each player a rating out of 10 based on the following criteria:

$$$: This category is essentially how much money I reckon the Whitecaps could get for the player. Factors that effect this could include age, nationality, role, and general cachet. 10 is the most valuable, 1 is the least.

Replacement Difficulty: This category is based on how hard it would be to replace the player either by promoting from within or by wading into the transfer market. 1 is easiest to replace, 10 is the hardest.

Growth Potential: This category asks the question; “Is this player’s value likely to grow if he remains on the squad next season?” There are two considerations in this category. Firstly, is the playing going to get a lot of minutes in a role that will set them up to succeed? Secondly, how old is the player? Typically, players peak from 23-27 and gradually decline thereafter. That doesn’t mean that a player older than 27 instantly becomes useless, but you do have to prepare for him to start fading away. 10 is the most potential for growth, 1 is the least.

Now, here are the players in reverse order of their transfermarkt value:

J.C Ngando:

$$$: 5/10

Ngando has a few things going for his value. Firstly, his salary is very low. Secondly, his ball progression numbers are incredible. But there are also some things working against him. He takes up an international spot, he’s 26 so there isn’t much potential for growth, and he was very much a depth player on a stacked Whitecaps team last year.

Replacement Difficulty: 1/10

Once the Whitecaps were healthy and actually using all of their available roster slots, they often weren’t even dressing Ngando. His best role, an attacking #8, also doesn’t really exist in the Whitecaps’ current system.

Growth Potential: 3/10

Ngando’s lack of playing time down the stretch has a lot more to do with the strength of the Whitecaps than it does with Ngando’s ability. If he were to be a regular starter, i’m sure his value would go up. But with Muller, Gauld, and now Kenji Cabrera ahead of him I don’t see that happening in Vancouver. At 26, it might be best for everyone to get some money of, either of the hard or allocation variety, for him.

Tate Johnson:

$$$: 7/10

Johnson is a sleeper pick to get sold this winter. In a world of massive data platforms and multi-club ownership, a U-20 fullback who got on the field a lot and did a lot of good stuff is definitely tripping some alarms in Europe. Johnson is under contract for another two years, plus two option years, so the Whitecaps aren’t under any pressure to sell and could extract a relatively high fee for him.

Replacement Difficulty: 7/10

Johnson’s departure would raise some conundrums. Is Sam Adekugbe ever going to have a healthy season again? Can Joedrick Pupe play as a true left-back? Is Mihail Gherasimencov ready for a step up? The answers to these questions aren’t that consequential if you have the reliable Johnson around. But they jump to the forefront if he departs.

Growth Potential: 9/10

Johnson is only 20 and is a great fit for the Whitecaps’ style. So he should be in line to play a lot and continue to get better if he stays.

Emmanuel Sabbi:

$$$: 7/10

I didn’t initially have Sabbi on the list but the more I thought about it the more he made sense as a player potentially generating interest. He’s a productive domestic player, in his prime, who has some USMNT pedigree. This is the sort of player that MLS clubs are willing to pay through the nose for. Paul Arriola, a somewhat comparable player, fetched 2 million in GAM plus add ons when he was the age Sabbi is now (The Whitecaps reportedly spent 1 million of actual money to acquire Sabbi). That amount would certainly get me thinking if I were the Whitecaps.

Replacement Difficulty: 4/10

The Whitecaps have a glut of forward players so Sabbi would be replaceable within. That said, I don’t think they have anyone who plays the wide forward role quite as well as he does. Jesper Sørenson clearly likes having someone who plays as a sort of flexi winger/striker on the right. I don’t think Jayden Nelson or Kenji Cabrera slots into that role particularly naturally.

Growth Potential: 6/10

Sabbi is about to turn 28 so he is at that point where age based decline starts to set in. That said, he missed a decent amount of time at the start of the season with injury. A full preseason with year of familiarity under his belt could lead to higher goal totals next season. The idea of him getting back into the U.S national team was also gently floated on a few broadcasts. I don’t know how likely that is but if he did manage to get to the World Cup that would also raise his value.

Mathias Laborda:

$$$: 6/10

Laborda’s set piece threat, positional flexibility, and defensive strength all drive up his value. At 26, he’s in his prime years. However, he is only under contract until the end of the 2026 season so there is some pressure to sell which would weaken the Whitecaps’ negotiating position. You could of course re-sign him but he already makes over 1 million so from a salary cap perspective it might be time to cash in.

Replacement Difficulty: 3/10

Laborda put up 0.19 xG/90 playing a mixture of fullback and centre-back. That type of offensive output is hard to replace with a defender. The Whitecaps also don’t currently have a right-footed fullback who is as strong defensively as Laborda. In theory, Pupe could do something similar on the left but we haven’t seen much of him in MLS at this stage.

Growth Potential: 3/10

As good as Laborda has been, it’s hard to see him getting more valuable, even if you do sign him to a new contract, because he is going to get older and scoring as many goals as he did is going to be hard to repeat. This is probably going to be the high-point of his value.

Edier Ocampo:

$$$: 8/10

Young and good is a formula that tends to lead to high transfer fees. Fullbacks don’t tend to fetch super high fees, which stops Ocampo from getting a 9 or 10, but I am sure the Whitecaps could get a solid profit on the 1.6 million they paid for him if they were to sell. He is also under contract through 2027 with a further option year so the club would be in a strong negotiating position.

Replacement Difficulty: 4/10

The Whitecaps do have two other young attacking fullbacks in the pipeline already with Giuseppe Bovalina and Nikola Djordjevic. Of course, those guys are a lot less proven than Ocampo so you would probably need to bring in a more experienced attacking fullback as well. But there are internal options available to at least partially replace Ocampo.

Growth Potential: 9/10

Ocampo is 22 and should continue to be a regular starter if he stays. One thing that stands out to me about Ocampo is that he hasn’t quite figured out how to play the final killer pass with consistency. If he can improve there he could become, genuinely, the best attacking fullback in the league (even with those struggles he was already in the 87th percentile for xG+xA/90 amongst fullbacks). Sørenson and the gang had a ton of success in 2025 with helping players improve their end product. If they can level up Ocampo in that regard you could be talking about doubling or tripling that initial investment.

Jayden Nelson:

$$$: 7/10

Jayden Nelson took a big step forward in terms of offensive production last season. But, with the Whitecaps being incredibly stacked at the wing positions, he didn’t play very much down the stretch. Bogert reports that he is interested in going somewhere he will be guaranteed minutes ahead of the World Cup.

Replacement Difficulty: 5/10

This depends on what happens with Ali Ahmed but Nelson isn’t the first choice left winger at this stage. If Ahmed stays then, with Ryan Gauld healthy again and Kenji Cabrera entering the picture, minutes might be hard to come by. If Ahmed and Nelson both go then you might need to dip into the transfer market, as none of the other options provide the same level of pace and ball carrying.

Growth Potential: 9/10

Looking at Nelson’s numbers, it feels kind of insane to be moving on from this player when he’s just turned 23. If Ali Ahmed is sold and Nelson steps up to replace him, I think there’s a good chance his value goes up significantly.

Sebastian Berhalter:

$$$: 7.5/10

This would be pushing a 10/10 if he wasn’t on the last year of his contract. But alas…

Replacement Difficulty: 10/10

Sebastian Berhalter is in the 80th percentile or higher in xG+xA, progressive passes, and defensive actions. Replacing such a player in one fell swoop simply isn’t possible. The most important thing to replace, in my view, would be the progressive passing. Andres Cubas and Jeevan Badwal don’t have any history of playing progressive passes at anywhere near the volume of Berhalter. Ralph Priso performs pretty well in that particular statistic but doesn’t have the same range of passing as Berhalter. So you would really need to be looking to the transfer market to get someone who can play in the double-pivot and reliably move the ball forward. You probably need to be looking for that even if Berhalter stays because there isn’t really someone at the club other than Berhalter that fits that description at the moment.

Growth Potential: 7/10

If you sign Berhalter to a new contract, he continues to be excellent, and he has a good World Cup with the U.S then you could probably command a bigger transfer fee than you would be able to today.

Tristan Blackmon:

$$$: 9/10

Tristan Blackmon is the reigning MLS defender of the year and has recently broken into the U.S national team. You could get a truly insane amount of assets for him if you traded him within MLS

Replacement Difficulty: 2/10

The Whitecaps were obviously a better team with Blackmon on the field but he was unavailable for long periods down the stretch and it was very much not the end of the world. With Sebastian Schonlau and Joedrick Pupe being bigger factors next year (one would hope) loosing Blackmon wouldn’t necessarily hurt that badly.

Growth Potential: 3/10

Blackmon will turn 30 next year so it’s all downhill from here in terms of his value. Of course, he’s still likely to be a very useful MLS player for several more years but if you were looking at things purely from an “allocation money go up” perspective, this would be the time to sell.

Ali Ahmed:

$$$: 7/10

Ali Ahmed is very good, which is obviously good for sale value (keep reading for more insights like this). But at 25 he doesn’t have the prospect premium that a slightly younger player would have. This is also the last year of his contract so, unless the Whitecaps are able to extend him, they aren’t in a strong position to negotiate a super high fee.

Replacement Difficulty: 3/10

As I alluded to above, Jayden Nelson seems like a natural internal replacement should Ahmed move on. Nelson is not as effective of a two way play but he is also 2 years younger and could improve on that front.

Growth Potential: 6/10

Ahmed is squarely in his prime so a massive increase in output isn’t that likely. However, a good World Cup and a second season in a row of good end product would probably increase his cachet on the international market (assuming you can sign him to a new deal).

Andres Cubas:

$$$: 8/10

Cubas, despite an unfortunate moment in the final, is widely recognized as one of the best ball-winning midfielders playing in MLS, if not the entire Americas. He was also a key part of Paraguay getting to the World Cup. Cubas reportedly does have interest and the Whitecaps are apparently asking for a 4 million for him, a small profit on the 3 million they initially paid.

Replacement Difficulty: 3/10

Getting a midfielder who is as good as Cubas at what he does will not be easy. But, I hope this won’t be blasphemous to say, he’s not the most natural fit for the possession heavy Sørenson system. Someone who is a little worse at the defensive side of things but a little better with the ball might be a better fit even if they are a ‘worse’ player overall.

Growth Potential: 3/10

Cubas turns 30 in May so he’s a depreciating asset.

Brian White:

$$$: 8/10

Brian White is domestic and, frankly, there are a lot of very expensive strikers in MLS who are not as good as him. On top of that, he is increasingly part of the American national team. He would have a lot of trade value. However, the fact that he missed so much time due to injury this season probably cuts down on his value a bit.

Replacement Difficulty: 6/10

A lot of MLS teams have spent millions of dollars on strikers only for them to be quite a bit worse than Brian White. This suggests he is quite difficult to replace. Of course, the Whitecaps have proven themselves pretty adept at finding talent over the past couple of years so maybe they can avoid whatever their version of Emmanuel Late Lath is.

Growth Potential: 5/10

White is at the stage where we would expect decline to start to set in. But better luck with injuries (maybe a foolish hope for a player about to be 30) could still see him with more value at the end of next season.

Some concluding thoughts:

I have mostly shied away from saying who I think should be sold in this article. That’s because a lot of that will depend what happens with other players. I think the club should be looking to strike a balance between continuity and cashing in. Continuity because you want the team to remain competitive and cashing in because you want to keep the competitiveness rolling in future generations by profiting and re-investing. Consider, for example, White, Blackmon and Cubas. All are about to be 30 but are amongst the best at their position in MLS. It would probably be smart to cash in on one, maybe two, of them this offseason. But loosing all three at once would probably be too much disruption to what is, after all, a very good team.

(Image: Mark Zhuang)