Expansion Draft Protected Lists Released

Today the league announced the protected and unprotected lists for Tuesday's expansion draft.  If you remember back in September when the rules were announced I made my predictions.  I got 10 of the 12 right, though with a caveat.  First though, to the list.

Protected automatically as a homegrown player 25 years old or younger:
Kellyn Acosta*, Sebastian Anderson, Cole Bassett, Kortne Ford, Matt Hundley, Sam Raben, Dillon Serna, Sam Vines

* - I predicted we'd protect Acosta because I forgot he was an homegrown player with Dallas and would automatically be protected

Protected by the team:
Clint Irwin, Kei Kamara, Jonathan Lewis, Nicolas Mezquida, Sam Nicholson, Jack Price, Andre Rawls, Keegan Rosenberry, Diego Rubio, Andre Shinyashiki, Tommy Smith, Deklan Wynne

Unprotected and could be selected in the draft:
Johan Blomberg, Tim Howard, Niki Jackson, Kofi Opare, Abdul Rwatubyaye, Axel Sjoberg, Danny Wilson

The two misses I had were protecting Rawls and Wynne, I thought Jackson and Rwatubyaye would be protected in their place.  I kind of understand Rawls, he's cheap and he saves you from having to find a replacement for a position you're satisfied with.  I'm really surprised at Wynne being protected though.  He doesn't seem to be in our plans going forward and while outside back is a hard position to fill he only cost us $100K in TAM to acquire two years ago, I can't imagine his value has changed significantly in that time, likely its gone down.  Its possible that Fraser sees something he can work with in Wynne though.

Otherwise all the other selections are pretty much self-explanatory.  The Rapids can lose at most 1 player from that group of  7, I predict they'll lose none.  If you're wondering why Blomberg and Howard show up on our unprotected list despite being out of contract and clearly done with MLS its because we keep their rights if we offer Blomberg a contract extension (we won't) or if Howard un-retires in a year (he won't) so in theory Miami or Nashivlle could select one of those two players and get their rights from us.  Neither team will do that though, but the possibility has to be accounted for.

Looking at the rest of the league's lists a number of former Rapids were left exposed, including Drew Moor in Toronto who is out of contract.  I'd be very tempted to try to sign him as a veteran leader for the defense if he's not selected by Gary Smith for Nashville in the draft.  Two other names of note are exposed, Edgar Castillo and Kelyn Rowe.  If you remember the Rapids traded Castillo for Rowe and then immediately traded Rose and $300k of funny money for Rubio.  Rowe was traded to FSL mid-season.  The Rapids made a steal in that deal, something they should get credit for.