With some help from Joseph Samelson on the contract status I'm going to separate the players into groups of "out of contract/loan", "team held options", and "under contract" and go through what I think the Rapids should do.
Out of Contract/Loan:
Gyasi Zardes - Even if you could negotiated him down to half his $1.5M contract, there's still the reported ~$750K of GAM we would ow to Columbus if we re-sign him as part of the trade. Zardes just isn't worth that. There are better ways to use that money. I think the Rapids need to let him walk.
Clint Irwin - I think Clint's second stint in Colorado has come to an end. Its time to let Abe Rodriguez claim the backup spot and sign another young keeper to give him competition. Hard to justify $200K a year for a to-be-34-year-old backup who seems to be falling off.
Collen Warner - We're pretty sure Warner is out of contract though the union doesn't list him as a free agent (which he would be). Assuming he is a free agent the Rapids should consider bringing him back in a limited role. We should be able to do better than relying on him to start any games but as a senior leader coming off the bench to close out games we could do worse. Consider it the Drew Moor role. Warner was on $84K last season, and presumably wouldn't be looking for/expecting a big salary bump at this point in his career.
Felipe Gutierrez - Gutierrez's loan was just until the end of the season. To retain him we'd have to buy him in a transfer or convince Universidad Catolica to loan him to us again. He's 32 years old and was making $700K last year. I don't think that's where we should be investing our money. If a loan is a possibility it might be worth keeping that in our back pocket for a "in case of emergency break glass" option this offseason, but it kind of feels like that's why we got him on loan this summer when nothing else happened in the window.
Lucas Esteves - His loan from Palmeiras is up and I don't think we should look to renew it or buy him. Rumors are that Palmeiras wants $1M for 50% of his rights. So essentially they place the same value on him as we did on Sam Vines, and Esteves is no Sam Vines.
Team Held Options:
Drew Moor - Retired, obviously. But if he wanted to come back we should have brought him back.
Diego Rubio - Yes you pick the option up. There are hints that Colo Colo might be interested in a transfer but that rumor has been out there for 2-3 years at this point. There's some question to if Colo Colo could come up with any kind of transfer fee with their current financial difficulties. It would have to be at least close to Sam Vines money to consider selling him I think.
Michael Barrios - He's going to be 32 years old, is making $680K, and didn't break 2000 minutes this season. I don't see how you can justify picking up the option at that number. We're better off to release him and try to re-negotiate a contract at a lower number.
Steven Beitashour - The 35 year old played a surprising amount of games this year (and played well), and with Drew Moor retiring there's a need for veteran leadership on the bench. Assuming he wants to come back the Rapids should pick up his option.
Aboubacar Keita - You have to bring him back off injury to see what you have. He should be a good addition but you never know after an ACL tear.
Anthony Markanich - On a rookie contract, doesn't hurt to pick it up
Ollie Larraz - Had some good flashes in 2021, as a homegrown you bring him back and hope the injury didn't set him back too much
Under contract:
As far as we can tell everyone else is under contract for 2023. I'm going to go through some players I think the Rapids should look to move if an opportunity comes up, but I'm not going to go through everyone on the roster. The rest are either obviously core players like Price and Yarbrough, are unlikely to have an option to move like Max, or are young kids who we just don't know enough about like Seb Anderson and Michael Edwards.
Jonathan Lewis - For whatever reason Lewis just can't put it together as a 90 minute player. He's a good to sometimes great super sub but if he hasn't locked down a starting spot by now I don't think he will. If a good offer comes our way we should absolutely take it.
Lalas Abubakar/Danny Wilson - I put these two together because I think they're both in the same position. One of them can start but not both of them. If we get an offer for one of them we should take it. Ideally I'd like to move Wilson and keep Lalas, because I think Lalas is the better player. Wilson can start but probably shouldn't unless its in a 5 man backline.
Sam Nicholson - I'm sorry, but whatever he had in his first tenure wit the team he no longer has. The fact that he's on a multi-year deal at $300K is going to hurt us for a while. If we get an out, take it.
Bryan Acosta - He's a MLS replacement level midfielder. Which means we can probably find somebody to contribute what he contributes at a lower number but he's not hurting us being out there.
Gustavo Vallecilla - Right now this looks like the worst move we've made in a few years. A huge price tag for a guy that doesn't look close to MLS ready. I doubt we'll ever get back what we invested in him, now we just need to minimize the damage as much as possible.
So, the tl;dr version:
Allow to leave: Zardes, Irwin, Gutierrez, Esteves
Pass on options: Barrios
Move if there's an offer: Lewis, Nicholson, Acosta, Vallecilla, Abubakar OR Wilson
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