To protect or not protect? That is the expansion draft question.

MLS has two new teams entering the league next season and those teams need players. To get some players to those teams the league is holding an expansion draft which means each team must decide who to protect and who to leave at risk for drafting.

Since we here at SB Nation love to mock things we are holding a mock expansion draft. Each blog is coming up with a list of protected players and the sites covering NYCFC and Orlando City will be picking from the players left unprotected. Which meant getting down to the nitty gritty of the Houston Dynamo roster. We already know the players who didn't have their options picked up and that Tony Casico is headed back to Colorado, but who would the Dynamo place a protected label on?

For the most part the list was easy to put together-Giles Barnes, Tyler Deric, and Brad Davis. Jason Johnson and AJ Cochran are Generation Adidas players and are automatically protected. The last couple of slots were a bit harder to fill out. My biggest challenge came over Corey Ashe and Mark Sherrod. Initially, I wanted to give Sherrod the protected label and leave Ashe unprotected. However, after consulting with some of the other staffers they changed my mind. While Corey Ashe appears to have been replaced by DaMarcus Beasley in the starting line up he is still a very valuable player. The team would be better off to hold on to him and then trade him at a later date if they don't want to keep him on the roster. Better to get something for him then let him go for free. This meant I had to leave Sherrod unprotected. He is a young player who is recovering from an ACL tear which drops his value considerably. While Dynamo fans have high hopes for him in the future it doesn't mean that he will be a big target in the draft.

The full list of Dynamo Theory's protected players:

Corey Ashe

Giles Barnes

DaMarcus Beasley

Boniek Garcia

Will Bruin

Ricardo Clark

Brad Davis

Tyler Deric

Luis Garrido

Alex Lopez

Kofi Sarkodie

So what do you think? Would you protect different players? Would you add David Horst or Jermaine Taylor?