This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Major League Soccer's list of Designated Players was updated Monday. No other club, however, had as drastic of changes to its list as Real Salt Lake. Off is RSL's first-ever DP, Costa Rican striker Alvaro Saborio, as well as longtime attacking midfielder Javier Morales.

On the list officially now are captain Kyle Beckerman and Ecuadorian forward Joao Plata, who join last year's mid-season acquisition, Argentinean forward Sebastian Jaime as RSL's three DPs. Both Beckerman (three years) and Plata (five years) signed new contracts with the club this offseason, and apparently under the guidelines of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, meet the criteria of having the DP tag.

The Designated Player Rule allows MLS clubs to acquire up to three players whose salaries exceed the budget charges of each respective franchise. The club has the financial responsibility for the amount of compensation above each player's budget charge. Before the new CBA was agreed upon three days before the start of the 2015 season, the now-expired CBA explained that a DP over the age of 23 carries a budget charge of $387,500, unless the player joins the club midseason — like Jaime did last August from Chile — in which case the budget charge is $193,750.

Clubs also have the option of buying down the charge of each DP on the books with allocation money acquired through various deals with other clubs, but the reduced charge may not be less than $150,000.

According to a league source with knowledge of the outline of the new CBA, the new base DP number that hits against each team's salary cap went up. The source said the new CBA deal is yet to be ratified, but expects it to be done possibly within the next two weeks.

"Basically all that happened is that the salary cap went up kind of comically," the league source told the Tribune Thursday morning.

According to the list of salaries released by the MLS Players Union last September, Saborio was the highest-paid player on RSL, making $453,333 in guaranteed compensation. Morales made $300,000 in guaranteed compensation.

RSL's new DP, Beckerman who is in his 15th year in MLS and ninth with RSL, made $378,750 in 2014, but the numbers on his new three-year contract signed in the offseason remain unclear. The 32-year-old holding midfielder starred with the U.S. men's national team and started all three group stage matches at last summer's FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Plata's new five-year deal qualified him as a Young Designated Player under the old CBA guidelines, but the 23-year-old's breakout 2014 season, in which he had 13 goals and six assists, was the precursor to being purchased outright by RSL in the offseason.

Saborio became RSL's first-ever Designated Player in Dec. 2010, and since the 33-year-old Costa Rican has become the club's all-time leading scorer with 76 goals across all competitions. Morales, who came to RSL in 2007, has scored 45 goals and notched 77 assists across all competitions in his nine seasons in Utah.

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani