Is Atlanta United getting their money’s worth from their Designated Players?

Atlanta United fans were probably hoping the team would be a bit better than four points from dead last before the FIFA World Cup break, but alas, that’s where we’re at, folks.

It’s times like these where we often find ourselves playing the blame game to single out a cause for the poor results. Naturally, the Designated Players are the first ones we point a finger at because they are typically the highest-paid players and are supposed to be the faces of the team. If the players in this premium roster category aren’t helping their team win games, then it’s probably a sign the money on them isn’t being spent very well.

As you may be aware, MLSPA has released its spring 2026 salary guide, which details how much each player in the league is earning. To no surprise, Atlanta United’s DPs are among the highest-paid players in the league, which is what makes their underperformance over the past two seasons very alarming.

Miguel Almirón: $7,871,000 (5th highest in MLS)

Alexey Miranchuk: $5,085,441 (13th highest in MLS)

Emmanuel Latte Lath: $3,736,000 (23rd highest in MLS)

This made me curious as to how much the Five Stripes are getting from their star players compared to some of the other teams around the league, who may be investing more or less. That’s what I’ll be exploring in this article with a series of data visualizations.

Before we get into the graphs, I want to point out that this is not a full analysis of Atlanta United player salaries. If that interests you, go check out the article Sydney wrote earlier this week.

Without further ado, let’s jump into the data.

Method 1: Raw DP production (goals + assists)

The first method I tried to visualize this was to compare the most direct and tangible proof of DP effectiveness in Major League Soccer: goals and assists. After all, those are the things that win games, right?

So I created a graph that showed the total that each club was spending annually on its DPs and the total goal contributions they received from them as of May 12, 2026.

Author’s note: All of the graphs in this article are interactive, so you can hover/click on each data point to see more information.

To nobody’s surprise, Atlanta United, the club currently in 28th place in the Supporters’ Shield Standings despite boasting the 2nd-highest DP salary spend ($16,692,441) behind Inter Miami ($41,845,853), is not getting as much from its stars as other teams. In fact, 11 teams in MLS are spending less on their DPs than the Five Stripes, yet they are receiving equal or greater production from them. That’s just over a third of the league that is getting more bang for its buck in the attack from its franchise players.

Notably, rival Nashville SC has found tremendous success with its DP trio of Sam Surridge (9 goals), Cristian Espinoza (3g/5a) and Hany Mukhtar (3g/5a) while spending less than $14 million on their combined salaries. Even more shocking is how much teams like the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas are getting despite being in the bottom seven in DP salary spend in MLS. With DP duo Rafael Navarro (7g/4a) and Paxten Aaronson (3g/2a) coming in at a combined $3,677,663, the Rapids have managed a greater end product than the Five Stripes while spending less than what Atlanta is on its lowest-paid DP (Latte Lath is sitting at $3,736,000).

The individual player data really illustrate how little Atlanta is getting from its DPs compared to other teams.

Of course, Miguel Almirón sticks out like a sore thumb for being the fifth-highest paid player in MLS, yet only producing three assists in 2026. Only 12 of the league’s 72 DPs have fewer goal contributions than the Paraguayan international. Although technically on the right side of the trend line, Latte Lath’s 2g/2a pales when compared to other center forwards at a similar or lower salary, such as Chicago Fire’s Hugo Cuypers (11g/1a for $3,528,044) or FC Dallas’ Petar Musa (10g/2a for $2,880,000).

There is some good news, however, and it comes from Alexey Miranchuk. Although his salary is one of the highest in the league, his production of 5g/2a is comparable to that of proven MLS attacking midfielders such as FC Cincinnati’s Evander (6g/1a), Orlando City’s Martín Ojeda (7g) and New England Revolution’s Carles Gil (4g/4a). It looks even better when you consider that the Russian international has played fewer minutes this season than either of those three.

While this method yielded some good comparisons, I quickly realized it had its flaws. For starters, it doesn’t take into consideration minutes played, another important variable that determines production. It’s much more impressive when you see that Sam Surridge has nine goals in 440 minutes than for LAFC’s Denis Bouanga to have nine goal contributions in almost twice the minutes.

The other problem is that teams don’t exclusively use their DP slots on attacking players. Some, like New York City FC and FC Cincinnati, have DP defenders, while teams like New England and St. Louis CITY SC have one of their premium roster slots occupied by a goalkeeper. Obviously, evaluating the return on investment for defenders and goalkeepers based on goals and assists makes no sense because their main job is to prevent opposing goals. That’s why these graphs don’t account for those players and only compare midfielders and forwards.

Fortunately, there is a method that solves both problems.

Method 2: Raw G+ normalized by 96 minutes

The amazing folks over at American Soccer Analysis created the goals added metric a while back, and so far, I’ve found it to be one of the best statistics for holistically comparing player quality. Nothing beats the eye test from my point of view, but G+ gets pretty darn close.

If you’re not familiar with G+, I recommend you check out ASA’s explainer article. In a few words, G+ measures how much each player’s touches affect their team’s chances of scoring or conceding. ASA’s G+ database also allows you to normalize the data by 96 minutes, so that’s exactly what I did to construct these graphs.

Already, it’s quite a different picture from the graph showing goal contributions: LA Galaxy jumped dramatically, Austin FC nosedived and Atlanta United somehow actually finds itself barely above the trend line.

What does this mean from an Atlanta United perspective? Well, let’s take a look at where the individual players stand first.

At first glance, it surprised me to see all three of Atlanta United’s DPs above the line of best fit, which suggests that they are performing to the level that would be expected of them based on their salaries. However, don’t get hung up on the trend line for the simple fact that Lionel Messi is and always will be the outlier that significantly distorts the average. That’s why I created another version without Messi, where you can clearly see the line shifts and all three of Atlanta’s DPs now fall below the line.

I was very surprised to see Miguel Almirón with such a high G+ rating, considering he has significantly fewer goal contributions than players like Nicolás Fernández Mercau (0.32 G+), Carles Gil (0.3 G+), and even Sam Surridge (0.25 G+).

Upon closer inspection, it seems Almirón is doing what he’s supposed to (kinda). His dribbling G+ of 0.12 is the fifth highest in the league, and his passing G+ of 0.05 is in the top 20. These are the categories that matter most at his position, and he’s excelling in them.

The problem is that he’s the fifth-highest-paid player in the league. If you’re spending almost $8 million on a premium attacker, you probably want them performing a level above their counterparts who are making half as much. The same can be said of Miranchuk and Latte Lath, and that’s without diving into their transfer fees.

Now, does Arthur Blank care if he’s paying a DP $2 million or $20 million? Probably not, as long as that player is noticeably raising the level of the team as DPs should. None of Atlanta’s DPs are currently doing that, suggesting that what they are generating isn’t worth the investment being poured into them.

Other teams across the league have demonstrated that you don’t need to break the bank to find stellar talent. Sometimes, you don’t even need that talent to be in the form of DPs. If Atlanta is going to go and pay a player tens of millions of dollars, they need to make sure that they know what they’re paying for, especially if these players are going to be locked down with lengthy contracts.

So my answer to the question posed in the title of this article is no. I do not believe Atlanta United is getting its money’s worth from its DPs. When you pay a premium, you expect premium production. That simply isn’t happening. While there are glaring holes in other parts of the roster, these three form one of the most expensive attacks in the league and have scored the third-fewest goals in MLS this season.

I guess money can’t solve all your problems, huh?