Greenspan In Denver and I Was Wrong

First the news of the day.  Joseph Greenspan is officially stationed in Denver for the season and will be training with the team.  For him to be officially added to the roster though either somebody will need to be cut or, more likely, one of the four players (Alvarez, Berner, Calvert, Newnam) will have to be loaned there as a full-season loan with no ability to recall.  Currently they all have recall options which means they all count against the 28-man Rapids roster.  I would expect one of those four other than Berner will be loaned through the end of the season (not Berner because of Irwin or MacMath were to get hurt the Rapids would want to bring Berner back as the backup to the healthy one).

Secondly its time for me to admit I was wrong.  Back in January when we traded Klute to Columbus I said:

This is a lousy trade.  I know Axel Sjoberg (who I'm going to start calling Axel Foley I think) was well regarded but there's only two ways this trade makes any sense.  He's going to have to become a starter by midseason or we're going to find out Klute had a huge escalation clause in his contract (similar to Omar Cummings between 2011 and 2012).  Otherwise this is a bad trade no matter how you look at it.  Yes, a chunk (or all) of that allocation money probably went to LA in the deal that got us Sarvas that still doesn't make it a good move.  I find it hard to believe Klute wasn't worth more than a Superdraft pick and allocation money.  This is a guy who a year ago was on the firnges of the National team.  I think we're going to regret this move.

So far this season Klute has started 4 of Columbus' 13 games and appeared in 3 more for 425 minutes of action.  Sjoberg has 8 starts in 13 games for 720 minutes.  Sarvas had 5 starts and 6 appearances for 462 minutes and an assist before his injury.  Klute can't get off the bench for the second worst defense in MLS while Sjoberg has been a key component for the second best defense in the league.  On top of that Sarvas was a strong midfielder before the injury and is expected to bolster the team when he returns.

Clearly the Rapids have done well with this trade and I was way off-base with my evaluation.  I got that one badly wrong.