RIP Scott Vermillion

Sad news out of Kansas City today.  Former Rapids defender Scott Vermillion passed away on Christmas Day.  Vermillion made 37 appearances for the Rapids in 2000 and the early part of 2001 before being traded to DC United.  My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

More Extended Contracts

Last week the  Rapids announced contract extensions for Auston Trusty and Jonathan Lewis.  Trusty is now signed through 2023 and Lewis through 2024.  Combined with the extension given Abubakar last week the Colorado is getting as much of their young core under long-term contracts as they can.

No other roster news so far, the team passed on the Re-Entry draft (both phases).  They did put out some promotion of Academy striker Darren Yapi, my gut tells me he'll be signed to a homegrown contract before the season starts.

New Deal On The Back Line

Today Colorado announced they signed CB Lalas Abubakar to a contract extension.  He'll now be with the club through 2024, with a team option for 2025.  That would make him a Rapid during the best years of his career (26-31 years old).  If he continues to be a regular starter that whole time that would make him one of the longest serving Rapids of all-time, getting him near 200 starts and appearances.

Also the team lost nobody to Austin in the expansion draft today.

Roster Moves To Wrap Up 2020

Lots of news in the last 24 hours.  The biggest is that the Rapids announced their end of season roster moves, something that the fans had been waiting on for the last week or so.  In short:

• Options picked up for Sam Vines, Andre Shinyashiki, and Jeremy Kelly
• Released Niki Jackson, Abdul Rwatubaye, and Deklan Wynne
• Signed new deals with Steven Beitashour and Drew Moor for one season, and Clint Irwin, Collen Warner, and Danny Wilson for two years
• William Yarbrough's loan completed but the Rapids are negotiating a purchase from Liga MX side Leon
• The rest of the roster is already under contract for 2021

Most of these are expected, I had Wynne leaving and Jackson and Rwatubaye being coach's decisions based on the lack of time we got to see them.  I had all three options we picked up as the expected moves (they're all very obvious moves).  I did not have Beitashour, Warner, and Wilson coming back and I wasn't sure on Irwin.  I think bringing Warner and Beitashour back is fine, given the realities of an offseason with COVID going with what you know might have a higher upside than usual.  Irwin is a solid backup and it keeps Leon from thinking they have us over a barrel on the Yarbrough negotiations since we have an option to fall back on.  I just thought he might want to go somewhere where he has a better shot at being the #1.

That leads us to the one real surprise today, re-signing Danny Wilson to a two year deal.  I think most Rapids fans had raised eyebrows when we saw that, but after thinking about it for a bit its not a bad move if the deal was right (and I have reason to believe it was).  If he took a 50% pay cut, give or take, and he's going to get his green card soon, he's a MLS-capable role player for $200-$300K that doesn't take an international slot.  While he's not an obvious starter we can put him in without feeling like he has no chance.  His biggest problem is being consistent game to game and for 90 minutes in a game, but he has the skills to play CB in MLS.  I wouldn't want him to get as many starts as he has been getting, but I don't mind him as the 3rd/4th CB option on the team.

We'll get more into the holes the team needs to fill in the offseason later after we get through this busy week with the expansion and the re-entry draft.  Speaking of which, the Rapids also announced their protected list for tomorrow's draft:

• Auto-protected: Rodriguez, Anderson, Ford, Trusty, Vines, Acosta, Bassett, Vint, Hundley
• Protected by choice: Irwin, Yarbrough, Abubakar, Kelly, Rosenberry, Wilson, Galvan, Namli, Price, Lewis, Rubio, Shinyashiki
• Exposed: Rawls, Beitashour, Moor, Mezquida, Warner, Benezet

Again, most of this was expected, I picked 9,5 out of 12.  I had 9 right and had I known Trusty was an HG and auto-protected I would have protected Irwin or Kelly, making 10.  I was wrong on Benezet and Mezquida, the Rapids went with Wilson (who I didn't expect to be re-signed) and the other of Kelly/Irwin.

Really, the only questions here were three of Wilson/Irwin/Kelly/Mezquida/Benezet.  The other 9 are obvious.  Its really a matter of what the FO is hearing about who Austin might be interested in.  Right now I think the only player that might be taken is Mezquida.  There is an advantage to the Rapids losing a player tomorrow.  Anyone who loses a player tomorrow should be exempt from next year's expansion draft where two teams will be drafting and Acosta will lose his auto-protected status (he'll be over 25). It might be better in the long run to lose somebody tomorrow, because if we don't there are good odds we'll lose one next year.

The last bit of news is that the Rapids sent $125K in GAM to Chicago for the #6 pick in next month's draft.  This is right in line with what draft picks have been priced at in recent years, for example last year the #3 went for $150K and the the #10 went for $100K.  In the last two drafts the Rapids have pinpointed one player (Shinyashiki, Kelly) and made moves to acquire them.  This feels like another one of those moves.  Its also happened soon enough that the Rapids can have some influence on who gets offered a Generation Adidas contract, so they may have a target in mind that's coming out early for a GA contract (the league offers GA contracts based on interest teams have shown in players, they don't want to sign a player to a GA contract and then find out nobody wants them, that has happened in the past and the league had to "encourage" a team to select the player in the draft).

2020 Expansion Draft

Austin FC is starting play in 2021, which means sometime this month (probably, maybe after the holidays) there will be an expansion draft.  So far there's been no report that the draft will differ in any significant way from the last couple of expansion drafts.  What that means is that the Rapids will likely be able to protect 12 players, their homegrown players 25 years old or younger (which is all of them) will be automatically protected on top of that, and they can't lose any more than 1 player to Austin.

Given that, lets try to figure out the best protected list.

First, here are the automatically protected homegrown players:

Kellyn Acosta (his homegrown status with Dallas transferred to Colorado), Seb Anderson, Cole 'Goal'  Bassett, Kortne Ford, Matt Hundley, Abe Rodriguez, Sam Vines, Will Vint

So after that group we have 12 other players we can protect.  First I'm going to go through the super-obvious ones that need no explanation:

Lalas Abubakar, Braian Galvan, Jonathan Lewis, Younes Namli, Jack Price, Keegan Rosenberry, Diego Rubio, and Andre Shinyashiki

So that leaves 4.  To me the next two are equally obvious but may need some explanation:

Auston Trusty - We spent a lot to get him and I think (and I'm sure the coaching staff thinks) he's still the likely starter next to Abubakar in the future.  He's worth way too much to let him get picked.

William Yarbrough - The Denver Post reported that we are working on bringing him back, and we know that almost every loan into MLS includes a buy clause.  The only questions are "Do the Rapids want to pay that much or are they going to try to renegotiate lower?" and if they are going to pay that much "Will Liga MX try to screw MLS on a buy clause again (see Castillo, Edgar)?".  Regardless we own his MLS right now and Austin could pick those rights up if we don't protect Yarbrough.  I think the risk of him getting picked is bigger than the reward of protecting somebody else.

That leaves the final two spots.  I could make a case for up to 5 players for those two slots, but I think they'll go with the two Nicolas, Benezet and Mezquida.  Benezet has a good amount of TAM invested in him and if he can get healthy is a likely starter.  Mezquida would be a nice young pickup for an expansion team and would be at risk of being picked.

The other three I thought about protecting were Clint Irwin, but I'm not sure Austin FC is going to want to use a pick on a guy who isn't a sure fire day one starter in goal, Drew Moor, but as valuable as his veteran leadership would be there's probably a real risk of Moor saying "I'm not interested in moving to Austin, I'm retiring" which would waste the pick for Austin, and Jeremy Kelly, who probably didn't show enough to be worth one of Austin's five picks but could be at risk in this scenario.

Assuming that Benezet and Mezquida are protected, that would leave the following unprotected:

Steven Beitashour, Clint Irwin, Niki Jackson, Jeremy Kelly, Drew Moor, Andre Rawls, Abdul Rwatubaye, Collen Warner, Danny Wilson, and Deklan Wynne

I would be willing to bet that Austin passes on that whole group, but if they pick somebody it would likely be Irwin or Kelly.

2020 Player Evaluation

 Lets go through the annual roster break down and see who should stay and who should go:

Goalkeepers:

Keep: Abe Rodriguez - I mean, obviously.  He probably needs another year in the Springs but he is the future

Buy: William Yarbrough - The Denver Post reported the Rapids are already working on this, but he's solid and should be the starter going into 2021

Replace: Clint Irwin and Andre Rawls - Irwin will probably want to go somewhere he can compete for minutes, here he'll be a backup.  Rawls is in the same boat.  If one of them wants to stay as Yarbrough's backup and we don't want to invest time/money in anyone better that's fine, but we don't need both of them

Defenders:

Keep: Lalas Abubakar, Seb Anderson, Keegan Rosenberry, Auston Trusty, Sam Vines - These should be fairly obvious.  Three regular starters, a homegrown, and a young player we invested a lot in

Pick-up option: Jeremy Kelly - Good rookie season, still cheap

Re-sign: Drew Moor - Its really up to Drew if he wants to keep playing, but if he does we should give him a contract.  Veteran experience and loyalty to an all-time team great

Replace: Steven Beitashour, Danny Wilson, Deklan Wynne - Two guys who got 0 playing time in 2020 and one guy who's overpaid and takes an international slot.  We can do better

Coach's Decision: Kortne Ford, Abdul Rwatubaye - For Ford he's 2 years from being a MLS player and I doubt he still has MLS level skill at this point, but if the coaches think he can contribute then bring him back.  Rwatubaye is an unknown to me

Midfielders:

Keep: Kellyn Acosta, Cole 'Goal' Bassett, Braian Galvan, Younes Namli, Jack Price, Will Vint - Five guys who were big contributors or showed flashes of being a big contributor, and a homegrown player.  Easy choices

Sell/Trade: Nicolas Mezquida - A solid squad player but if we can get value for him and free up his international slot, that might be the best move

Replace: Collen Warner - We can do better, in fact DM may be a place we want to invest

Forwards:

Keep: Nicolas Benezet, Jonathan Lewis - Obviously we keep Lewis.  I'm not thrilled with Benezet's availability this season but he has obvious quality. Given his contract situation I think we give him another year

Pick-up option: Andre Shinyashiki - Also obviously

Sell/Trade: Diego Rubio - He's not the number 9 we need and I expect the club to invest on a major player to play the 1 in the 5-4-1.  Rubio has value, we should cash that in

Replace: Niki Jackson - Too many better options on this team

Coach's Decision: Matt Hundley - As a homegrown he's probably going to stick around, but I have no idea

So 7 players that should be allowed to walk away, and another 2 we should try to move for value.  3 more that are unknowns to me.  12 is actually a higher number than I expected going into the offseason.  I think I'm likely being too harsh on some players (like Jackson and Rawls).  I doubt we see that many players replaced.

Prediction Recap 2020

As always at the end of the season its time for me to own up to my predictions and see how I did.  Even with the craziness of 2020, I still have to take my medicine.

• Rapids finish in 5th or 6th, but lose their first playoff game on the road

Ding, ding, ding, nailed it.  5th place finish, loss to Minnesota in our first playoff game, in Minnesota.

• Colorado looks like they re finally taking the USOC seriously, but don't make a deep run

I'm taking a N/A on this one, since the USOC didn't get played this year due to COVID

• We bring the Rocky Mountain Cup home

We pulled this off.  I can't say I saw a 3 goal deficit being overcome by a 5 goal win on the road, but we did get it back

• Kamara fades at the end of the season but still finishes with the Golden Boot

Well I missed on this, though not as badly as you would think.  Kei had 3 goals, our co-Golden Boots had 5

• Namli is the team MVP

Close, I think he was second.  Bassett was the MVP though

• Vines is the defensive player of the year

Yep

• The Rapids make an unexpected major move in the summer window, either a notable player leaves or a significant signing (or both)

I'd call trading away last year's Golden Boot counts

• Galvan arrives in the summer and doesn't contribute immediately but shows why we invested in him with promise for 2021 and beyond

I'm calling this correct.  While Galvan did have a couple of good appearances he's not a starter.  But he toes have talent

• Yarborough is signed after his loan and is expected to be the starter going into 2021

This is incomplete so far, but the Denver Post reported yesterday that we are pursuing buying him

• Nicholson doesn't finish the season in Colorado

Told ya ;)

• At least one Rapids home game is played behind closed doors or postponed due to coronavirus

The only miss here is that I significantly underestimated the impact of COVID-19.  When I wrote this on March 6th Colorado had just confirmed its 8th case and the country had a total of 282 cases.  At that time I was still thinking that things were going to get bad but maybe not to the point of full life disruption.  If only we knew what was coming.

11 predictions.  7 right, 2 wrong, 1 incomplete, and 1 N/A.  That's notably better than I normally do.