MLS teams won't have the option of adding a second Designated Player next year unless they trade for another team's slot.

The league's Board of Governors rejected a proposal to add a second DP slot per team next year, perhaps because only four teams used the mechanism in 2007, and also because too much of a thing that might turn out to be good is not good.

The DP report card: Juan Pablo Angel and Cuauhtemoc Blanco: A. Claudio Reyna: C-minus. David Beckham: I (Incomplete). Denilson: E (Expelled).

To the surprise of no one, Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson and Carlos Ruiz, who were scheduled to be classified as Designated Players next season because their salaries exceed the maximum salary ($350,000 in 2007), have been "grandfathered" for an additional year.

MLS has also approved raising the salary cap for the 18-man roster by $150,000, to approximately $2.25 million per season. (An increase of at least $50,000 per season is mandated by the Collective Bargaining Agreement.)

Considering the sales of expansion San Jose and Chicago went for a combined $50 million this year, bumping up the salary outlay by about $4.2 million is frugal yet reasonable. That figure represents an additional $150,000 per team for the existing 13 teams and the $2.25 million it will cost the league to stock San Jose.

Remember, MLS also earmarks money for allocations, and with an expansion team receiving three allocations off the bat, and five teams missing the playoffs, those allocations alone will cost the league $2 million, if the current value for a major allocation, $250,000, isn't changed.