The first dominoes to fall in Orlando City’s off-season came down on Wednesday, with the club announcing it won’t pick up contract options on six players — defenders Kevin Alston, Luke Boden, Seb Hines and Tyler Turner; midfielder Pedro Ribeiro; and forward Júlio Baptista.
There are two points of emphasis from these roster moves. First, this is not the final list of people that won’t be returning next season — Expansion Draft, trades, transfers, etc. will have an impact. Second, as Orlando Sentinel reporter Alicia DelGallo noted, the club is still in negotiations with some of these players to bring them back on new contracts for 2017.