Well, Preseason Is Here

I went pretty quiet over the holidays, first because we got caught in Southwest's meltdown and our Christmas back in Seattle with my extended family became a Christmas in Denver with our cat for my wife and me.  Then after enjoying some downtime I was hoping the Rapids would do...something in the lead up to training camp opening but instead we got more silence than the lack of announcements about the cancellation of our flight.  So here we are.  The players report to Commerce City tomorrow for fitness checks over the weekend and camp officially opens on Monday.

I did leave one thing out, right before Christmas Colorado waived Collen Warner.  He was under contract for 2023 so unless we're using our one allowed buyout per offseason on him we will have to take his cap hit next year.  That was a grand total of $84K, unless he was a Supplemental Player who didn't count against the cap.

So with that the Rapids "offseason" moves are officially over.  They amounted to letting Irwin, Zardes, Mayaka, Edwards, and Warner go and letting Esteves and Gutierrez return to their teams from their loans.  To replace them we recalled M Cole Bassett, traded for M/F Kevin Cabral and F Calvin Harris, and drafted D Moise Bombito and GK Oliver Semmle.  We also re-signed D Steven Beitashour.

Um, yeah.  I don't see how this team got better.  Yes, we get Keita, Larraz, and Galvan back from injury (and Price as well) but this is not a MLS-caliber team right now.  We might have a competitive starting XI, but there are real questions about our depth pretty much everywhere.  We have a complete hole at LB and our striker options to partner with Rubio are questionable right now.

Hopefully what that means is that there are still moved to come when camp opens, but you have to winder what's taking so long.  The more time the players have to work together in camp the better.  This week has been full of news from other teams making signings, including a report tonight that FSL is dropping $4M on a winger.  If the worst team in the Rockies can drop that kind of coin on a signing there are real questions as to why the Rapids aren't making significant moves, especially after landing UC Health as a sponsor and stockpiling GAM.

Moving away from the roster, the team also announced their plans for preseason today.  After getting the basics out of the was in Commerce City the team will head to Queretaro in Mexico for about 3 weeks for altitude training in warmer weather than Colorado.  While there they will have closed-door matches against Liga MX side Queretaro FC and second-division clubs Celaya FC and Mineros de Zacatecas.  This is a great thing to see from Colorado, its time to get out of the "comfort zone" of spending the full training camps in Arizona or Florida playing other MLS sides and USL clubs.  I just wish we had done it last season when the work in Mexico might have helped us with our opening match in CCL play in El Salvador.

After their Mexican stay the team will come back to Commerce City just long enough for everyone to check in and see their families and friends before turning around and heading to Orlando on February 5th.  They'll stay there through the end of preseason and fly from there directly to Seattle for the season opener on February 26th.  While in Florida they'll have closed door friendlies against Orlando City and Philly, as well as USL side Miami FC.

A really good looking preseason plan.  I just hope we have a good roster to go along with it.