Roster And Expansion Draft News, Finally

With the expansion draft coming tomorrow the Rapids finally released their end-of-year roster news and their protected list for the draft.  Starting with the roster moves:

Options picked up: Barrios, Keita, Larraz, Markanich, Rodriguez, Rubio

Options declined: Beitashour, Edwards, Mayaka

Out of contract: Irwin, Zardes

Loans expired: Esteves, Gutierrez

Everyone else is under contract for 2023.  Colorado is negotiating with Zardes, Edwards, and Beitashour about coming back in 2023 under different terms than their options.  They're also talking to Gutierrez about coming back but that would either be a new loan or paying a transfer fee for him.  The Rapids have until December 1st to decide if they want to exercise their buy option in Esteves loaned, reported to be $1M for 50% of his rights,

Really the only surprise here for me is cutting bait on Mayaka after just two seasons, and being in position to do so.  Normally a Generation Adidas contract is longer than that, and generally the league invests more into those players.  In the 2021 draft Mayaka was seen by most commentators as the "most MLS ready" player in the draft, yet the two players taken in front of him (Daniel Pereira and Calvin Harris) have a combined 79 appearances in 2 years and Mayaka has 0.  I can tell you that the Rapids did not buy the "most ready player" line and when they moved up to third in that draft it was with the belief that Mayaka was going to be selected by Austin or Cincinnati in front of them and they made the move expecting Harris to be available, but they ranked Pereira ranked ahead of Mayaka as well.

This is not to suggest that I think the Rapids are making a mistake moving on from him.  From what little I've seen of the Switchbacks and Rapids 2 the last two years he did not stand out, and the reports from people who followed those teams more closely were that he did not look particularly good playing at that level.  He also requires an international slot, so it makes it hard to keep him as an on-going project if they're not seeing improvement.

Outside of that I think I called the rest of these moves except Barrios, who I wanted to see brought back on a lower contract.  And I still don't want to see us spending $1M on Esteves.

Now that we know who's here and who's not, we can figure out the expansion protected list.  Because of the end of his GA contract Mayaka i not automatically protected, but we obviously won't be prtecting him.  The 12 we did protect:

Yarbrough, Abubakar, Rosenberry, Vallecilla, Acosta, Price, Max, Galvan, Barrios, Lewis, Nicholson, Rubio

Along with our auto-protected players:

Rodrigues, Anderson, Edwards, Keita, Travis, Bassett, Larraz, Priso, Toure, Yapi

That leaves these 10 players available in tomorrow's expansion draft:

Irwin, Beitashour, Esteves, Moor, Markanich, Wilson, Gutierrez, Mayaka, Warner, Zardes

I went 10 for 12 on my expansion draft picks.  I protected Zardes and Markanich over Acosta and Nicholson.  After further thought Acosta probably makes more sense than Zardes because as a free agent the only thing St. Louis can get out of selecting Zardes is a little more freedom to offer him more money, which would be a waste of a pick.  I don't think Acosta is at any risk of being picked but its still more likely than Zardes.

Nicholson over Markanich makes no sense to me though, as Sam looked like a shell of himself this season and I can't imagine St. Louis taking a flyer on him.  Markanich at least has the benefit of being young and showing a few flashes this season.  Honestly though I look at those 10 players and think "there's got to be better options elsewhere".  I predict this will be the seventh straight expansion draft that a Rapid is not picked (Cascio and Mwanga in 2014 were the last ones).