Time's Up

On January 4th I posted about how we had 9 open roster spots.  On February 9th it was 7 open roster spots.  On February 23rd it was 6 spots.  On March 1st (Tuesday) it was 6.  Today its still 6.

In 2 months the end result is that we filled 3 open roster spots.  Time's up as the team left for San Jose and the opening game today.  While its possible that somebody like Keel or Castillo traveled with the team and will sign before Sunday there's no significant signing coming this week that will be available for Opening Day.

How does that fit with the stated goals for this offseason.  Going back to the Goal.com interview on draft day:

According to Bravo, the Rapids still plan to use the top allocation spot to sign someone this winter, though he would not say who the Rapids are targeting.

While technically winter continues for another 2.5 weeks I think its safe to say that by "winter" Bravo meant "preseason".  We have not yet used that allocation spot and all signs point to using it on a player that won't arrive until July.  I would call that a failed goal.

"Our goal is to have our team together for the start of training camp, to have all the pieces together for Pablo to start the season," Bravo told Goal USA.

We're missing over 21% of our roster not at the start of training camp but at the start of the season.  We're also missing possibly our biggest signing (whomever we use that allocation spot on).  I would call this goal completely failed.

Maybe we're not being fair, let's look at what other teams are at:

Chicago: 23 players listed on roster
5 teams: 26 players
9 teams: 27 players
4 teams: 28 players (full roster)

So with the exception of Chicago, the rest of the league is a signing or two away from having full rosters if they aren't already full.  Its not uncommon for a team to leave an open roster spot to have some flexibility but needless to say having six empty spots is ridiculous.

While we made significant improvements in some of our starting XI the lack of depth at this point is ridiculous.  With no strong rumors outside of Howard right now (and we're already good on GK depth) this apparently won't be solved by Sunday.  What happens if Sjoberg pulls up lame in pre-game warm-ups?  With St. Ledger injured our CB backup is who, Watts?  Who will play d-mid in that scenario with Cronin suspended, Powers?  So then with Pappa injured Gashi becomes the center-mid and Solignac or Badji starts?  You can see how quickly our lack of depth cascades throughout the team.

We're starting the season with a weakened team for no good reason other than not getting the job done.  For such a crucial offseason, that's a massive failure.