2019 Scheduling News

Some of this broke a few days ago but the Rapids have been so busy making moves that I haven't had a chance to cover it.  Today's Rapids-centric news is a good time to go through it.

The Rapids will open the season at home on March 2nd against Portland it was announced today.  Kickoff will be at 4pm.  Hard to believe that's only 72 days away!  10 weeks from Saturday!

The Rapids also announced their preseason schedule today.  Cam opens January 21st (a month from tomorrow!) and after a couple of days of getting everybody worked up the team immediately heads to Florida for a week of training in Bradenton capped off with a scrimmage against new MLS team Cincinnati FC.  Then after a couple of days in Denver its out to Chula Vista, CA for 3 weeks of training including matches against the PDL Ventura County Fusion, University of San Diego, a morning scrimmage against the USL Las Vegas Nights followed by an evening game against them at their home field in Vegas (I assume the morning game will largely be reserves while the evening gated admission game will largely be starters), a game against the Galaxy at Dignity Health Sports Park (the new name of the Stub Hub Center) and then another scrimmage the next morning against LA (again, likely reserves that didn't play the night before).  Only the evening games against Vegas and LA are open to the public.  Then the Rapids return home a couple of days before the opener.

The one odd thing about this schedule is that the team only spends about 7 days in Denver during the preseason, the rest of the time they'll be at sea level in Florida and California.  Kind of a surprise given the first game is at home at mile high altitude.

Last week the league announced new scheduling for the season and playoffs.  The season starts March 2nd but finishes in early October, about 3 weeks earlier than recent seasons.  This allows the league to get the whole playoffs in between the October and November FIFA windows, with MLS Cup on November 10th.  The league also changed the playoff format, adding an additional 7th team per conference and switching to a straight singe game knockout bracket with the higher seed hosting.  So in the first round the conference champions get a bye and the 2nd seed hosts the 7th seed, 3rd hosts 6th, and 4th hosts 5th.  The key here is that the brackets won't be re-seeded after each round so the 7th seed gets the winner of the 3-6 game if they win, they don't switch to playing the 1 seed and so on.

Overall I find this a mostly positive change, though it feels too early to add a 7th team to the playoffs, I would have preferred they waited until the league got closer to 28 teams.  Also there's a pretty solidly confirmed rumor that starting in 2020 the season will start in February, the compressed schedule this year is due to CBA requirements for offseason length that prevented them from starting any earlier than the first weekend of March because of when the 2018 season ended.  With 2019 ending earlier they'll be able to move the start of 2020 earlier.  That's going to suck for us Rapids fans if we have to sit in the cold for a home game in February again.

One last piece of news today unrelated to scheduling.  The January National Team camp rosters were unveiled this morning and both Acosta and Rosenberry will be heading out to Chula Vista early to take part.  That's great for them and the Rapids.  I'm guessing Acosta will get playing time in the January friendlies, Rosenberry may or may not.

Barring any big news tomorrow this will be my last update before Christmas.  I hope all my readers (if there are any left after my hiatus) have a happy holidays!

Rapids Make Yet Another Move

I'm not used to a Rapids FO that's this active before Christmas (or even before the Desert Diamond Cup!).  Colorado made another move today, sending bags of MLS funny money to Philly for RB Keegan Rosenberry.  Officially we sent $150K in GAM and $50K in TAM this year and $100K in GAM next year.  There's another 100K in GAM that could go to Philly next year based on Rosenberry's performance.  Like I said, lots of funny money.

Keegan is 25 years old and played for Philly's youth team, but not long enough to be considered a homegrown player.  After going to Georgetown the Union selected him 3rd in the 2016 draft and immediately started every game his rookie year.  He was in and out of favor with coach Jim Curtin in 2017 but reclaimed his starting spot this year, starting all but 3 games.  He's also been on the edge of the National Team picture, getting one invite to the January camp already but not yet appearing for the team.  BTW, this year's January camp roster is revealed tomorrow and some are saying Rosenberry could be on it.

While $300-$400K in funny money is a high price to pay getting a 25-year old borderline National Team player at a position of need is probably worth it.  Nobody settled in and claimed that spot last season and I fully expect Rosenberry to own the spot going forward.  The only down side is that this is Rosenberry's last year of his contract so if for some reason he doesn't want to re-sign he could walk away to another league at the end of 2019 and we'd end put paying Philly in 2020 for a player we no longer have.  I have my doubts that would happen, but it would be great to get him signed to a new deal.

Going into the offseason I said we needed to add 3 clear MLS starter level players, at least 2 in attack, if we were going to be serious about turning this mess around.

• Kamara - Clear starter, attacker
• Rosenberry - Clear starter
• Rubio - Almost a clear starter, attacker
• Mezquida - Not quite a clear starter but serious potential, attacker

I think combining Rubio and Mezquida counts as one, so I have to say the FO came though, and before Christmas!

Guess I'll need to renew my season tickets after the holidays...

Catching Up On Rapids Moves

Ok, lots of moves to catch up on.  I was waiting to post about the goalkeeper moves on Friday for an official announcement about a contract deal but I think it may have gotten buried by today's news so I'll catch up now.  We sent a 2nd round pick in next month;s draft to Toronto for Clint Irwin.  On the surface swapping $175K MacMath for Irwin with a $220K option in his last contract year doesn't look great.  There are heavy rumors though that Clint is signing a new deal with the Rapids that will bring him in under MacMath's number for at least two seasons.  That makes this move a no-brainer.  Arguably Irwin is a better keeper than, certainly he's as good as, MacMath and he's familiar with the club.  He gives us a quality backup for Howard this year and will compete for the starting job in 2020.

We then used the 2nd pick in the Re-Entry Draft to select Andre Rawls from NYCFC.  I don't know a ton about Rawls but he's 26, was drafted by NYCFC in 2015 and spent that first year in the USL while being their back up the last 3 seasons, but never played a league game.  I'm sure he'll spend 2019 in Colorado Springs unless we need him on the bench as a backup of Howard or Irwin are unavailable.

That sets our keeper roster for 2019 at Howard, Irwin, and Rawls, which is a solid 1-2-3.

Today we made a big move, sending Edgar Castillo to New England for Rowe and then sending Rowe, $200K of GAM, and $100K of TAM to KC for Diego Rubio.  The $100K TAM matches what we got in the MacMath trade so you can kind of look at this like MacMath+Castillo+$200K of GAM = Mezquida+Rubio which is a nice piece of work.  Rubio is a 25 year old striker from Chile that has played in Chile, Portugal, and Spain before signing with KC in 2016.  He's been a spot starter/sub for KC, scoring 8 goals in 9 starts/20 appearances last year (averaged 39 minutes an appearance).  He also got his green card in KC so he does not count as an international.

I can see Rubio being a starter in 2019 or competing with another signing to start along-side Kamara.  Either way he's better than anything we had starting up top last year and paired with Kei we could see a combined 20 goals from them, which is better than anything we've had since C+C Goal Factory.

The Rapids still need to shore up the defense, I expect at least one outside back signing, and a couple more solid signings in attack would be helpful, but this is more moves before Christmas than we've ever seen from this organization so these are positive signs.  The question is, can Hudson make it all work on the field?

Rapids Add Kamara In Trade

As expected Colorado didn't lose anyone in today's expansion draft.  Not as expected, they ended up gaining a player.  With their second pick Cincinnati selected Kei Kamara from Vancouver and immediately traded him to the Rapids for an international spot in 2019.

Kamara is a 34 year old striker who is originally from Sierra Leone but came to the U.S. as a kid as a refugee and eventually became a citizen.  He has had a well-traveled career starting in 2006 with Columbus and eventually playing for 5 other MLS teams, a return to Columbus and time in Norwich City and Middlesbrough in-between.  That's 10 teams in 13 seasons.  In the last 3 seasons he's had 38 goals in 89 appearances over 3 teams (Columbus, New England, and Vancouver).  At that rate he's averaging 15-16 goals over the course of a season, a significant upgrade from anyone we've had since C=C Goal Factory in 2010 (and actually those numbers would be slightly better than either of them).

All sounds good, right?  Well, there are some downsides.  First, as mentioned, he's 34 years old.  So this is not a long-term foundation move.  Second, he's developed a rep for being a problem in the locker room.  The fact that he's changed teams so often has certainly played into it, and things ended poorly in Columbus.  The third is that he's not cheap.  Reportedly he signed a 2-year deal with TAM at $750K, with incentives that could drive that to a million (he was making a million in Vancouver last year).

The money can be dealt with, especially with a team that seems more interested in stop gaps until Howard and Gashi get off the roster next season.  If the locker room issues are accurate then this is a place where I expect Tim Howard to earn his money.  He's team captain and has a well-earned rep for not taking any crap, he'll need to keep Kamara in line and focused if necessary.

Overall I think this is a decent move for the team right now.  My biggest concern is that once again its not a long-term signing.  Since then end of 2016 you could argue the only successful long-term free agent signing we've made has been Jack Price.  I know the team is focused on 2020 and while I don't fully agree with it I can give them a chance, but I don't see how a move like this fits in.  This does meet my requirement of signing MLS-ready players, just not quite how I envisioned it.  Overll though a team as bad as the Rapids doesn't have many options, beggars can't be choosers, so overall its probably a good move.

One other wrinkle, the traded international slot means the team now has 7 slots for 2019 and 7 international players.   We should probably hope that Ena Patel and her team is working on some green cards this offseason if we want to get any more international help.

Expansion Protected List Released Today

The protected list for tomorrow's expansion draft for FC Cincinnati has been released, the Rapids protected:

• Kellyn Acosta
• Nana Boateng
• Marlon Hairston
• Tim Howard
• Niki Jackson
• Nicolas Mezquida/Zac MacMath (both were protected but its unclear which one was protected by the Rapids and who was protected by the Whitecaps)
• Sam Nicholson
• Jack Price
• Dillon Serna*
• Tommy Smith
• Deklan Wynne

and then automatically protected by their Homegrown Status are:

• Cole Bassett
• Kortne Ford
• Sam Vines

*Dillon Serna is a senior roster player now, so despite being a homegrown he's no longer automatically protected in an expansion draft and we must use a spot to protect him.

This leaves the following unprotected: Barnes, Blomberg, Boli, Calvert, Castillo, Colvey, Da Fonte, Dykstra, Gashi, Hamilton, Martinez, Sjoberg, Wilson.

I can't say there are any surprises here.  A bit of an eyebrow raise as Gashi being unprotected but that's probably a (safe) bet that Cincinnati won't want to take his DP contract on.  The only real question is protecting Boateng or Wynne over Sjoberg.

I expect Cinci is taking a long look at Sjoberg tonight but in the end will probably pass on all the available Rapids players.  I can't see them being interested in anyone other than Sjoberg from our unprotected list.  There are likely 5 better players for them elsewhere.

Our First Move Of The Offseason

There was a half-day trade window in advance of this week's expansion draft today (forget explaining why, its MLS) and the Rapids made a move.  They, surprisingly, sent Zac MacMath to Vancouver for attacking midfielder Nicolas Mezquida and $100K in TAM.

This is a surprise because by all accounts MacMath was the heir apparent to Tim Howard.  I even heard a rumor late in the season that they were talking about a platoon system in goal next year where Howard would play home games and MacMath would play road games.  Its odd and makes me question prior decision making (largely under Hinchey/Bravo/Pablo) that we would hold on to MacMath when he was hot after his half season as a starter in 2016 only to trade him when his value might be the lowest here in 2018.

As for the trade itself its largely meh, with a catch.  Two bad teams traded backup players.  Mezquida is a 26 year old Uruguayan #10 who has started occasionally in his time in Vancouver.  He's also able to play the wing or as a #9.   He's essentially going to take Enzo Martinez' role.  The catch is that he's an international and I don't love using up an international spot on a backup midfielder.  The $100K of TAM could be used to get us another international spot but I think the trade would have been better, even a notable positive, if instead of getting the TAM we had gotten back the international slot we traded to Vancouver through 2031 (not a typo) for Sanna Nyassi.