All Quiet

I know with the season starting that its usually time to ramp up Rapids coverage.  So far this year though there's been nothing to talk about.  No rumors, no interesting trialists, nothing.

If and/or when there's news we'll talk about it but I'm not going to just churn out posts with no real news.

Update On Camp Trialists

Daniel Boniface came through with the info on the 4 trialists in camp.  I was wrong in my earlier post tonight, Epstein is not one of the Academy goalkeepers.  In short (see Boniface's article for the full details):

GK Cody Mizell (Charlotte, played with Atlanta and Tampa in NASL)
GK Connor Gavigan (Creighton, played in the Rapids Academy)
GK Kai Likewise (Rapids U-18 Academy team)
M Jun Marques Davidson (Charlotte, spent time in MLS with Vancouver)

The fact that we have 3 extra keepers in camp makes me wonder if there's a possible GK deal int he works for Berner or (more likely) MacMath.

Here's the updated roster:

Signed Players:
GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Bismark Adjei-Boateng - International
M Micheal Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International
F Alan Gordon

Unsigned Draftees:
D Liam Callahan
M Sam Hamilton
F Peguy Ngatcha
F Jaime Siaj

Unsigned Trialists/Academy Players:
GK Connor Gavigan
GK Kai Likewise
GK Cody Mizell
M Jun Marques Davidson

Conor Casey, Rapids Assistant Coach!

The Rapids made it official today, announcing Conor Casey as their new assistant coach.  Casey is, quite simply, the best striker to ever play for Colorado and hopefully some of that success will rub off on the team's attack next season.  He joins Mullan, Smith, and (obviously) Pablo as players from the MLS Cup winning team who have been hired as coaches by the Rapids.

In other news the Denver Post''s Daniel Boniface was out at camp today and reported everyone was present except Azira (with Uganda at the African Cup of Nations) and Adjei-Boateng (hasn't arrived yet).  He also said there were two trialists from the Charlotte Independence and two goalkeepers from the Academy training with the team.  I'm assuming one of the keepers was Andrew Epstein, currently a junior and starter for the national champion Stanford Cardinal.  He's expected to get a homegrown player offer from the Rapids after he graduates.  The other three are unknown but Boniface hopes to get names soon.

Rapids Sign Adjei-Boateng From Manchester City

The long rumored deal to bring Bismarck "Nana" Adjei-Boateng to Colorado is done.  Nana was signed using TAM which means he's making DP money and/or his transfer fee puts him in the DP range but his salary cap hit is bought down to standard max salary levels.  One report out of Norway has it as a 4 year deal with a team held 5th year option.

Adjei-Boateng came out of Ghana's Right to Dream Academy where he was signed to Man City's youth squad at 17.  When he turned 18 he was loaned to Norway's Stromgodset where he's played since 2012.  In that time he made 86 appearances, scoring 16 times and getting the assist on 6 other goals.  Primarily used as a central midfielder at 22 he's a great signing for the future.

That said, I don't see him as this year's replacement for Jermaine Jones like many other Rapids fans.  The Norwegian league is seen as a lower league than MLS and his goal and assist to game ratio is almost identical to Badji's in MLS.  While I'm really excited to see what kind of player he'll be in 2019 I'm not expecting huge numbers out of him this year.  We're gong to need to find an offensive spark for 2017 still.

Here's the updated roster:

Signed Players:
GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Bismark Adjei-Boateng - International
M Micheal Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International
F Alan Gordon

Unsigned Draftees:
D Liam Callahan
M Sam Hamilton
F Peguy Ngatcha
F Jaime Siaj

CONCACAF Champions League Changes

Today CONCACAF announced changes in the Champions League format starting with the 2017-18 cycle the Rapids have qualified for.  Instead of playing in a group stage this fall, MLS teams will move right to a 16-team knockout tournament held in Feb-May of 2018.  The 4 MLS qualifiers will be joined in the tournament by 4 Mexican teams, the Canadian champion, the 5 major Central American league champs (all but Belize and Nicaragua), the Caribbean Club Champion, and the winner of the fall 2017 CCL tournament.  That tournament will now be contested by the 2 best teams from Nicaragua, the champion of Belize, the 2nd and 3rd placed teams from the other 5 Central American countries, and 3 Caribbean teams.

Essentially this changes the CCL into a small countries tournament and large countries tournament.  The results of each year's tournaments will be factored in to seeding for future years so countries can move up to the large tournament or down to the small one depending on results.  The benefit of this is to reduce schedule crowding for bigger teams who are playing games against minnows that they are (largely) winning easily.  It also allows those smaller clubs to play reasonable competition and not get blown out regularly.

As noted both in the CONCACAF and MLS releases, these changes do not effect which teams have qualified for the next cycle, despite the MLS teams not starting play until after the 2017 qualifiers would be decided.  Instead of playing a 3 team group stage this fall with two home and two road games between August and October the Rapids will play their first CCL game as a home-and-home knockout in February of 2018.  That will actually help our schedule congestion this fall and hopefully, with a good draw, we'll see a beatable team in preseason next year.

This leaves MLS in an odd place though as teams who qualify for the CCL won't start playing in it for over a year.  I expect we'll see an announcement before the season starts that there will be no teams that qualify for CCL in 2017.  Then the qualifiers will return in 2018.  That will mean that the teams that were already announced as having qualified will play in in 2018 and thee teams that qualify will play in 2019 and so on.  This allows MLS to "catch up" while not pulling a CCL spot from an already qualified team.

Unrelated, we got confirmation of Alan Gordon's signing today.

Alan Gordon Signs With Colorado

No official announcement from the team but an official announcement from Gordon himself through Instagram

...But With every ending is a new beginning. I'm excited and thankful for the opportunity the @coloradorapidshave given me and hope to contribute to the successes of both the team and organization. Much love, Gordo

So that's one more signing before camp opens tomorrow.  I expect/hope Gordon will have a super-sub role, coming inf or the last 10-20 minutes of matches where we need a goal and starting USOC and CCL matches.  He shouldn't be looked at as a starter for league matches at this point in his career.

Here's the roster as camp opens tomorrow:

Signed Players:
GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Micheal Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International
F Alan Gordon

Unsigned Draftees:
D Liam Callahan
M Sam Hamilton
F Peguy Ngatcha
F Jaime Siaj

Offseason Ends Not With A Bang But A Whimper

There were rumors going around a week ago that we could see up to 3 signings this week.  In the end we saw none.  As we saw yesterday the Koomson deal is at last in trouble if not dead.  Rumor has it that Adjel-Boateng is signed but they're waiting for his visa paperwork to be complete before they announce it.  There's been no update on Gordon since the initial report.

And that's it.  There has been literally no other rumors of signings this offseason.  Camp opens on Monday do the last business day of the offseason is complete and our total additions amount to 2 homgrown signings in Ford and Perez.  No slight intended on those guys but I'm not impressed.  We let 7 players go from last season and we're entering camp with 2 new homegrown signings, 4 draftees, and no other additions.

Sadly while I'm not impressed I'm also not surprised.  This is the MO for the Rapids in recent years.  They appear to do no work in the offseason (not that they aren't working, just that there are no public moves), camp opens, we sign players and get them into camp late, and then we hope they can figure out how to play together before the regular season starts.  On average over the last 6 seasons we start camp with less than 4 new non-draftees.  In 2012 we had none, in 2015 we had a high of seven.  Last year we had three (Azira, Pappa, and Pfeffer).

Last season we heard a lot about "having the team together to start camp" from Paul Bravo and in the past we heard talk about getting difference-makers in the offseason.  This offseason the Front Office has been very quiet and didn't set any unrealistic expectations or goals they didn't meet.  That said, we need players and we need them soon.  I think we need more than Adjel-Boateng and Gordon.

Adjel-Boateng looks like a good long-term project but expecting him to be the necessary difference maker this year is asking a lot.  He's had 16 goals in 85 appearances in Norway, which is a league I think most would agree is a bit below MLS at this point.  For comparison that's almost exactly the same ratio as Badji's in MLS (8 goals in 42 appearances).  Adjel-Boateng is two years younger so I think he can be better than Badji, but I don't expect a great improvement this season.  Gordon is a great supersub for 15 minutes at the end of games and his poacher's mentality will steal us points 2-3 times this season but he's not going to fix our fundamental scoring problem,

The Front Office needs to sign somebody that's going to add 10 goals this season, either by scoring themselves or setting up Gashi & Doyle to score more goals.  Without that we're looking at another year of grinding out 1-0 wins and I don't think our success from last season is sustainable.

Koomson Deal Apparently Off

Hat-tip to Burgundy Wave for this bit of news.  Norwegian TV is reporting that Gilbert Koomson failed his medical check with the Rapids and the deal is off.

That's disappointing and more than a bit concerning.  We've only hear 3 names this offseason linked with the Rapids, Adjel-Boateng, Koomson, and Gordon.  With camp opening Monday Koomson seemed to be the most likely of the three to have an immediate impact this season.  With things falling apart now we have to really hope the Rapids have another surprise in their back pocket.  Last preseason nobody heard a word about Gashi until the deal was done, we need another one of those type of deals ASAP.

Rapids Select Two Forwards In This Afternoon's Part 2 Superdraft

Rounds 3 and 4 of the Superdraft were held by teleconference this afternoon.  The Rapids made two picks, both forwards:

With the first pick of the day by anyone the Rapids took Jaime Siaj out of Pfeffer University.  He is believed to be the first player drafted by MLS out of that school.  He also apparently spent time in the Real Madrid Academy before college.

With their 4th round pick (2nd to last of the draft) Colorado took Peguy Ngatcha out of Wright State University.

Both of these players have a big hill to climb to make the team.  After the first couple of rounds of the draft the track record is not great historically.  The good news is that as forwards they're both competing at a position of need for the team.

Here's the newest update of the roster including our draftees:

Signed Players:
GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Micheal Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International

Unsigned Draftees:
D Liam Callahan
M Sam Hamilton

F Peguy Ngatcha
F Jaime Siaj

Rapids Draft Two, Possibly Add A Free Agent?

Today was one of the more uneventful drafts in recent MLS history.  There were two big moves early with NYCFC and Portland moving up to 3 and 4 respectfully but after that the action settled down and for the most part teams stayed put in the draft or made minor moves.  The Rapids stuck with their two picks and #15 and #24, picking up DU midfielder Sam Hamilton and Syracuse left back Liam Callahan.  Both picks were seen as somewhat of a stretch as neither were high on most draft boards.

In Hamilton's case the general feeling is that he's a good long-term prospect but not somebody who's expected to contribute right away.  I expect that he'll spend a good chunk of 2017 in Charlotte.  He will probably team up well with recent homegrown signing Kortne Ford as they were teammates at DU and apparently best friends.  The ope is that with Hamilton having been in the Rapids backyard his whole life (he's from Evergreen and played for Colorado Rush before college) that they've seen something the rest of the league hasn't and we got a diamond in the rough.  I'm pretty confident that if he hasn't signed a contract already pre-draft he'll make the team at least for a season or two.

For Callahan finding somebody at the tricky left back position is always a positive.  Its generally the toughest position to fill for MLS teams so anyone who's comfortable there is worth taking a look at.  There are concerns about his ability to keep up physically in MLS with some questioning if he has the speed to play on the wing at this level.  He was a bit of a surprise pick I think so there's not much int he way of evaluation on him out there.  He'll be one to watch in preseason to see if he can make the team.

The big league news of the day is a change in the policy of announcing trade details.  Up until this point when General Allocation Money (GAM) or Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) was traded the amount was always kept secret.  Starting today (with NYCFC's trade to move up to #3 in the draft) the amount of GAM/TAM involved in the trade will be announced.  This will be great for us backseat GM's to evaluate trades going forward.

Late tonight an interesting news item broke.  Multiple sources including the Denver Post are reporting that the Rapids expect to sign forward Alan Gordon to (likely) a one year deal.  Gordon is 35 years old and for the last few years has been a super sub off the bench for LA and San Jose.  In the last 3 seasons he has 80 appearances, 13 goals, and 2 assists but only 25 starts.  He's been in the league since 2004 and with the exception of 8 games with Toronto in 2011 has spent the whole time bouncing between the 3 California teams.

Personally I'm not a big fan of Alan Gordon but I think that's more because he's got some sort of 'luck of the Irish' going where I've seen him somehow be in the right place at the right time to salvage late points for San Jose and LA in games they had no business getting points out of.  While I don't think at his age (and mileage) we should be looking at Gordon to start any significant game this season he would be a better option off the bench than Badji.  He would also fit the same style of play as the Rapids would use with Doyle in the game, which would make for an easy sub for him.  I really doubt his ability to be effective over 90 minutes though so I don't think he's a solution to deal with any absence from Doyle.  He could start USOC and CCL games against lower league competition.

Here's the newest update of the roster including our draftees:

Signed Players:
GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Micheal Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International

Unsigned Draftees:
D Liam Callahan
M Sam Hamilton

2017 Superdraft - Live Coverage

This post will be updated as much as I can with any Rapids news and picks as the draft goes along this afternoon.

With pick #15 the Rapids take midfielder Sam Hamilton out of the University of Denver.  A local kid out of Evergreen he was an all-Summit League first-teamer the last two years.

With the 24th pick (2nd pick in the 2nd round) the Rapids pick left back Liam Callahan out of Suracuse.  Left back is a hard spot to fill so its always good to have options there.  There are some questions about his toughness and ability to stand up to a MLS season.

That's the last scheduled pick for the Rapids today.  If Colorado moves back into the 2nd round I'll update this post.  Otherwise I'll have a little more detail about these two picks tonight.

Schedule Today, Superdraft Tomorrow

Gentlemen and ladies, start your engines.  We have the 2017 schedule.  Rather than copy it all here when you can read it in dozens (hundreds?) of other places on the web I'll just link to it and we'll get to the analysis.

We start off, as already announced, at home against the Revs on March 4th.  After a trip to NY we come home to get our first look at the expansion Minnesota United on March 18th (a game I'll sadly miss).  A week off for World Cup qualifying then brings our old friends Oscar Pareja and Dallas to town before we head over to KC the following week.  We finish our early season by hosting FSL in the first Rocky Mountain Cup match of the season on tax day.

The good news is that we don't play through any World Cup Qualifying breaks.  The bad news is that because of that and our CCL play our late season is going to be very busy.  August in particular could be ugly with 4 out of 5 league games on the road, including 3 games in a week between the 19th and the 26th (the last of them being our RMC match in Sandy), and probably a home and away CCL match.  7 games in a month, 5 of which will be on the road.

We finish with another 3 games in a week at the end of September when we go to Vancouver, Dallas, and then host Montreal in a week.  After the international break we end the home season with our second home RMC match and then head to Seattle for the final game of the regular season.

Other notes about the schedule:

• FSL, Dallas, and Vancouver are the teams we get 3 times this season.  Dallas once at home, Vancouver and FSL twice.
• We go to expansion team Atlanta United on June 24th and expansion Minnesota on April 23rd.
• This year's 4th of July opponent is the Seattle Sounders
• We play 3 games in a row at home once (June 3rd, 18th, and 21st) and 3 on the road once (Aug 23rd, 26th, and Sept 9th).  The rest of the season is no more than 2 in a row at home or on the road.
• One Wednesday, one Friday, and two Sunday home matches.  The rest are on Saturdays.
• A number of 3 game weeks this year (before you even get to adding in CCL games):
• May 13-20 (SJ, @Chi, @Philly)
• May 27-June 3 (KC, @LA, Columbus)
• June 18-24 (Portland, LA, @Atlanta)
• Aug 19-26 (DC, @Portland, @FSL)
• Sept 23-30 (Vancouver, @Dallas, Montreal)
• Add in the Saturday-Tuesday game on July 1st and 4th and 17 of our 34 games are being played going into or coming off short rest.
• All in all we need to rack up points early int he season and often because the second half of the season is going to be a marathon.
• 5 games on national TV, 2 on FS1, 3 on UniMas
• Bye weeks March 25th, June 10th, July 8th & 15th, Oct 8th.  All of those byes are during World Cup Qualifiers or the Gold Cup.

The schedule news comes a day before the Superdraft.  The first two rounds will be tomorrow starting at 1pm.  The 3rd and 4th round will be Tuesday via conference call .  Currently the Rapids hold the 15th pick in the first round and the 2nd pick in the second round (24th overall pick).  There are rumors that the Rapids are looking to make a big move up the board to pick up UCLA forward Abu Danladi.  He's considered the ost ready and best striker option in the draft...when healthy and focused.  He's spent almost as much time injured as playing at UCLA though.  Forward Jeremy Ebobisse out of Duke is the more sure bet but isn't seen to have as high a ceiling as Danladi.

I'll update the blog tomorrow with Rapids picks and/or trades as they happen and then do a recap tomorrow night.

Front Office Changes

A couple of leadership rumors out of Commerce City today:

First, confirmation of how the Rapids are filling the void left by Bravo's departure:

With Paul Bravo out, Padraig Smith is now running point for Rapids' tech staff ahead of draft, Mastroeni and club spokesman confirm.

This is not a surprise, I think most people figured this was the case.  Now is this a permanent change or do the Rapids still plan to fill the Technical Director position from outside the organization?

The second rumor is a little more surprising:

Hearing that John Spencer has left #Rapids96. Heard further rumblings that he might be San Jose bound.

 To provide more context, Spencer assisted Kinnear when the 2 were in Houston. If he joins #Quakes74, I suspect it will b in similar capacity

As reported by @JeffreyCarlisle, John Spencer has left Rapids. Conor Casey is here with the club, looks like he'll fill assistant vacancy.

That's the 3rd assistant coach in 3 seasons under Pablo to leave their coaching post.  John Metgod left midway through the 2014 season, Claudio Lopez went back into the Front Office after the 2015 season, and now John Spencer has apparently left after the 2016 season to join San Jose.  There are reasonable explanations for all of these (Metgod didn't fit, Lopez never wanted to be a coach, and Spencer is rejoining his mentor) but its a bit distressing to see that much turnover in a spot that was (at least for the last two) brought in specifically to fix the attacking issues the team has.  Consistency would probably help with that process.  The possibility that there's something we don't  know that links these moves together (people can't work with Pablo, FO doesn't pay enough, etc.) is even more concerning, though also less likely.

The Conor Casey part of the news is an interesting surprise.  When he left the Rapids after the 2012 season it was a well-known rumor that he was unhappy with team leadership.  He also infamously stormed off the training pitch after getting into a verbal altercation with Gary Smith right after the 2011 season ended.  I'm glad to see that whatever issues that there may have been between him and the leadership have been solved.  Given what has been rumored I think his issues were more with the coaching staff (Smith and Pareja) than the front office leadership.  I didn't know he was interested in coaching but seeing what he brings to the team will be something to watch for.

Superdraft on Friday not Wednesday

The last couple of times I've mentioned the Superdraft I've said its on Wednesday, the 11th.  That's because when you type "MLS Superdraft date" into Google you get:

2017 MLS SuperDraft will start on

Wednesday, January 11

and will end on

Sunday, January 15

In reality the first two rounds are on Friday the 13th, not Wednesday the 11th.  My apologies for the bad info (bit its really Google's fault).

Koomson to Colorado?

For the last couple of days the Rapids have been linked to Ghanaian winger Gilbert Koomson and tonight there are reports that the deal is done.  He is another Ghanaian currently  playing in Norway where he led the league in assists last season.  The rumored transfer fee is $600K.  Depending on how the deal is structured that might require us to use GAM or make him a DP.

Koomson is 22 years old and generally plays right win, but can play on the left.  He's had one cap with the Ghana National team and he was on the bench in October when they played Azira's Uganda team in a World Cup Qualifier.

Homegrowns In, Bravo Out

Interesting times in Commerce City yesterday as the Rapids add two homegrown players but lose a Technical Director.  We'll do this in chronological order. ;)

Yesterday morning there was a press event at the Dick to announce the signings of the 4th and 5th homegrown players in team history, Ricardo Perez and Kortne Ford.  They join Davy Armstrong (now with the Switchbacks), Shane O'Neill (NAC Breda), and Dillon Serna as products of the Rapids youth academy that have made it to the first team.  For the last few years they've both been playing in college.  Perez just finished his senior season at Creighton and Ford had one more year of eligibility at Denver U.

Perez is a 21 year old midfielder who played the third-most games  in Creighton history.  He was named Big East Midfielder of the year in 2016 and to the 2015 Big East All-Tournament team.  He prefers to play centrally but is willing to play anywhere the coaches put him.

Ford is a 20 year old defender who led the DU backline to their first ever College Cup appearance and a final 4 in 2016 (beating my Washington Huskies on the way).  He has twice been named to the All-Summit League first team.  Like Perez he prefers to play centrally but is willing to go wherever the coaches put him.

One thing about the announcement that people noticed but thought nothing of is that Pablo Mastroeni and Brian Crookham were present, but Paul Bravo was not.  Later in the day we found out why as the Rapids announced that Bravo is leaving his position as Technical Director.  No reason was given as to why and no future plans for Bravo were announced.

This seems like odd timing to make a leadership switch, coming off our most successful regular season and 5 days before the Superdraft.  However, as Jonathan Boraz pointed out to me last night, Bravo was promoted to VP before the 2014 season and got a 3-year contract extension.  That would put him out of contract after the 2016 season (probably technically on 12/31/2016).  The timing is still a bit odd as you would expect his departure to be announced shortly after the season, not just as preseason was about to start, but maybe they had been negotiating a new contract and over the holidays they realized they weren't going to  be able to make a deal.

Regardless, this leaves a bit of a gap in the Rapids structure going into the critical player management time.  We've had no free agent signings yet and we've got the draft coming up next week.  I assume that in the short-term Padraig Smith will be taking over the roster construction duties (something he's already heavily involved in) with the help of Pablo and Tim Hinchey.  It will be interesting to see if this changes the type of players we sign.  Already Daniel Boniface is reporting the Rapids are not looking to fill their open DP slot in this window.

Next up, the Superdraft on Wednesday.  Here's the first look at my preseason roster tracker with 22 of 28 slots filled (including on-loan Ramirez):

GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Micheal Azira - International
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International

Rapids "Lose" A Draft Pick Today

Last month a number of rapids fans (including me) thought the Rapids would have two first round picks in next week's Superdraft.  After trading our pick to New England last offseason for Jermaine Jones we got LA's first round pick when we sent JJ to them.  We also had a first-round pick from Toronto in the Clint Irwin trade.  Well, we had a conditional pick and today we found out the conditions weren't met.

It turns out that there were two conditions to get the pick.  The first was that Toronto had to make at least the conference semis in the playoffs (final 8).  Since they made it to MLS Cup that was achieved.  The second was that Irwin play in 75% (26 games) of regular season games.  He played in 19 due to the quadriceps injury that kept him sidelines for almost 3 months.  Because fo that TFC gets to keep their draft pick.

So as of right now going into Wednesday's draft we hold the following picks:

#15 (Round 1) - Acquired from LA for Jermaine Jones
#24 (Round 2) - Acquired from Atlanta for an international spot through 2018
#45 (Round 3) - Acquired from Minnesota for Joseph Greenspan
#86 (Round 4) - Natural pick

Welcome To The New Year

Sorry for going quiet for two weeks.  First Christmas travel then a bug going around laid me out for a couple of days and then it got my wife.  Things are back to normal now though (or as normal as life ever gets).

Of course, its not like anything happened from the Rapids perspective over the last two weeks.  There's really only been one piece of news and one strong rumor.  The news is that we, not surprisingly, passed on everyone in Round 2 of the Re-Entry Draft back on Dec. 22nd.  The strong rumor is that the Rapids will be acquiring Ghanaian midfielder Bismark Adjei-Boateng from Manchester City.

Adjei-Boateng is 22 years old and has been with Man City since 2011 and he's been on loan to Norwegian side Stromsgodset since he signed.   He plays in the attacking midfielder role and the initial read on him is a possible Jones replacement.  His acquisition would likely require a transfer fee.

I like the idea of this move in the long-term.  A 22 year old player with multiple years of first-team experience is a good find.  That said, I'm not convinced that he can replace JJ right now.  In my opinion MLS is a better league than Norway so I'm not expecting a 22 year old making a move to a new league to take over from a guy who (when he played) was playing at a possible league-MVP level.  I think he can be a key component long term but for 2017 we'll need to find an additional player in the role.