Christmas News Recap

Sorry for the silence over the last two weeks, I was visiting my father-in-law in Florida for the holidays.  A recap of what happened in Rapids-land while I was gone, roughly in chronological order.

* Rapids pick Mike Grella in Re-Entry Draft, immediately trade him to Columbus for a 2019 2nd round draft pick

• As the Rapids Media Director later confirmed on Twitter this was a quick way to get a free draft pick.  The Rapids had no intention of taking anyone but the Crew approached them about making this move  (they couldn't trade the pick due to the blackout period pre-draft) so Colorado got a draft pick for nothing.  Why not?

* Steve Cooke takes over the USL's Oklahoma City Energy

• Not a real surprise except maybe the timing.  Cooke has put in his time and showed a bit of what he could do as the head coach when taking over Pablo's spot this past season.  The Rapids made keeping him a condition of any new coaching hire so I thought he'd be around at least until the midseason coaching moves in the lower leagues happened but either way he was going to get a chance sooner or later.  Good luck to him!  I don't think this is a huge loss for Colorado.  While I'm sure Hudson would have been happy to work with Cooke giving him more freedom to set up his own staff is probably a good thing.

* Rapids will open with the Fire at home on March 3rd at 7pm then head to New England for their home opener on March 10th at 11:30am (MT).

• Good to open at home though a night game in early March might be chilly.  And we always seem to get a road game in New England early in the season.

* Colorado draws Toronto in the CONCACAF Champions League.  Home game Feb. 20th at 8pm, road leg Feb. 27th at 6pm (MT).  Season ticket holders will get a ticket to the home match as part of their ticket package.

• All good news except that date/kickoff time.  Can you say brrr?  Its likely going to be quite cold by the final whistle at 10pm.  I'm much happier drawing a equally-in-preseason Toronto than a in-midseasonn-form Mexican side in the first round.  Our odds are better against TFC, even if they are the GOAT MLS team.  I mean, they hosted us last season when we were awful and they couldn't beat us.

* Colorado trades $100K of TAM to Vancouver for New Zealand outside back Deklan Wynne.

• No surprise that Hudson is grabbing up his former New Zealand players that are in MLS.  Much like McBean, Wynne has spent most his career on Vancouver's USL side, and I would expect that he continues to see time in Charlotte.  $100K in TAM sounds like a lot but with the amount of TAM more than doubling this season that's only worth about half as much as it used to be.

That's it for the news over the last couple of weeks.  To do a quick review of our offseason so far we've acquired one likely starter (Blomberg) and 3 young players unlikely to contribute in a meaningful way to a successful 2018 season (Colvey, McBean, Wynne).  There's nothing bad about any of those moves they're just fairly meaningless, outside of Blomberg.  We have a little over 3 weeks before camp opens, I expect the Rapids to be very busy stocking up the actual first team roster in that time if we hope to be successful in the CCL and league this season.

Rapids Trade For McBean

Today the Rapids traded their 4th round pick in the 2019 draft to LA for forward  Jack McBean.  He was originally signed by LA in 2011 as a homegrown player at age 16.  He's averaged 5 appearances a season for the Galaxy during his career there and the last 4 years made himself a regular starter and scorer for LA Galaxy II in the USL.

Much like Colvey yesterday McBean is brought in for depth and the possibility that he'll improve into a regular MLS-caliber player.  I expect to see him in USOC play and a possible inclusion in the gameday 18 due to injury.  I'd be surprised if he got any league starts this season, at least not before we clinch or are eliminated from the playoffs.

Drafts: Zero Lost, One Added

As expected no Rapids were selected in the LAFC expansion draft yesterday.  In today's waiver draft only two selections were made, one by the Rapids with the #3 pick.  Kip Colvey was claimed from San Jose.  This is not a surprise as Colvey is a New Zealand international who most recently played in both legs of the World Cup playoff against Peru.  He obviously knows Hudson and his system.  Colvey is a wingback who can play on either side.  He was drafted by SJ in the 2016 draft and spent most of the last two years on loan to SJ's USL affiliates.  Despite playing for New Zealand Colvey was born in Hawai'i so he doesn't take up an international slot.

Colvey is essentially Dennis Castillo without the need for an international spot.  Good chance he gets some time in Charlotte this season while being available for USOC games and emergency backup for the first team.  At 23 years old he doesn't have much time left to improve into a MLS player but its not unheard of.  Its a solid move for depth with little down side or cost.

TAM, Affiliation, and Expansion Draft

There's been a few stories of note since Friday, so we'll go through them all in one post.

First, the league announced $1.2 million in Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) each of the next two years.  They also announced that each team could self-fund an additional $2.8 million in TAM each of the next two years.  Essentially they said that teams could spend up to $4 million on TAM players each of the next two years, and the league will cover the first $1.2 million of it.  To remind everyone, TAM is used to sign players that would normally be Designated Players but the TAM brings their salary below the salary max for a standard player.  Players signed with TAM have to have a total cost (salary+transfer fee) of $1.5 million or less and you can convert a DP to a TAM player but you must sign a new DP player to replace him.

This is not great news for traditionally low-spending/small-market teams, like the Rapids.  This will quickly split teams into haves and have nots as those owners who are comfortable spending will spend all $4 million and those who aren't will just spend the league covered $1.2 million.  That $2.8 million difference could have a huge effect on rosters.  I guess now we'll know how interested KSE is in being competitive versus just existing.

The silver lining though is that now that we know the number we might start to see some movement in player signings.  A number of Front Offices have complained to reporters that the question about how much TAM would be available was causing them to delay signings.  Maybe we'll get a signing (or 2?) before Christmas?

Secondly the Rapids announced that the affiliation with the USL Charlotte Independence will be extended though the 2018 season.  The fact that this is just a one year deal leads me to believe that the Front Office has bigger long-term plans than affiliating with Charlotte but they have enough to deal with this offseason with all the new leadership so its easier to just extend it for another year and deal with the long-term plans next offseason.  The relationship with Charlotte came out of the time that Hinchey spent there working with the Bobcats along-side some of the Independence owners so I'm not surprised that with his departure that relationship may be reexamined.

Lastly the available players for Tuesday's expansion draft have been announced.  We can then extrapolate who's on the Rapids protection list, and there's really no surprises.  When I made my forecast a little over a month ago I picked 10 names and left the last spot open to be based on the best info the coaches had.  That was before we knew Saeid asked for his release, but the other 9 names on my list were protected, along with Miller and Watts.  (and of course, our four homegrown players were automatically protected).  In fact, the only exposed players the Rapids have under contract next season are Mike da Fonte (no way he gets chosen, and no loss if he does) and Sam Hamilton (he won't get chosen with the other options out there).  So the Rapids should come through this unscathed and with no surprises.

Also, shout-out to Rapids legend and all around fan favorite Drew Moor for picking up his second ring last night!  He's 2-1 now in MLS Cups, all played in Toronto.  Clint Irwin gets his first ring as well.

Give Junior Agogo Some Love

This is copied from Centennial 38's page but I'm helping organize this effort (I actually wrote this for them).  Show Junior some love this holiday season.

Any long-time fans might remember striker Junior Agogo, who played for the Rapids in 2000 and the first half of 2001 before being traded to San Jose. Junior was a fan favorite while here and after leaving MLS he spent a lot of time in England before finishing his career in Egypt, Cyprus, and Scotland. In January of 2015 Junior had a stroke. Recently he was interviewed as part of the BBC4 documentary ‘Speechless’ where he discussed the aphasia he’s dealt with since the stroke and how the difficulty in communicating has made him anxious and less outgoing. If you remember watching him play, being outgoing was never a difficulty for him. During the interview he mentioned that he doesn’t hear from any of his former teammates, specifically from his other Ghanaian national team teammates.

Some clips from the documentary can be found in the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJd-SCGz7cM

Upon hearing this news, Centennial 38 reached out and made contact with Junior to extend our well-wishes. We are also working with the Rapids to put together a care package to send to him in London that will let him know that his fans in Colorado are thinking about him as he copes with his circumstances. We’d like to give fans a chance to send him messages of support. Please leave your message to him here and we’ll print them out and include them with the care package.