2024 Prediction Review (aka I Take My Medicine)

Ok, getting the 2024 prediction review in just under the wire.  I originally made these predictions back in February.  Usually I'm too optimistic about the team but this year I' pretty sure I was too negative.

• The Rapids either don't participate in the USOC (due to the ongoing negotiations between the USSF and MLS) or if they do they get knocked out in their first two rounds to another MLS team.

Ok, got that one correct (Rapids 2 doesn't count)

• They also don't get out of their Leagues Cup group, but give Portland a scare in Portland.  Leon is too much for them at home in Colorado though.

I'm sure I could have missed this worse but I'm not sure how 

• And to finish out the competitions, they finish 10th overall and miss the playoffs.  They're eliminated in the next-to-last week.

That should have been "10th in the West" not overall, but either way I missed it

• All that said, the team is improved and plays entertaining soccer at times.  It won't be the pointless soccer we saw last season.

I'd say we were entertaining!  At least until the last 5-6 games.

• The rapids don't buy Diack or Navarro at their current price this summer.  Navarro doesn't show enough to be worth $4.5M and Diack gets renegotiated to a lower number before we complete the transfer.

If I'm generous I could give myself .25 here?  Nah, whiffed on this.

• Needing a striker to replace Navarro Colorado makes a big trade within MLS for a striker in the summer window.

Which of course made this a miss

• Mihailovic is the Golden Boot and Player of the Year.  He gets back into the National Team picture by the end of the season.

Not the Golden Boot but he did have the best offensive season in team history.  And got on the Olympic Team and is in the picture for the January camp.  I'm counting this as correct.

• Steffen gets a look by the Nats for either the Gold Cup or the Copa, and becomes part of the regular Nats rotation.

Going to count this as .5 as he did get a look but isn't yet in the rotation

• Vines is Defensive Player of the Year but doesn't get a Nats look.

LOL, no

• With trips to Portland, Salt Lake, Seattle, and LAFC in the first 6 weeks the Rapids will be looking up the table all season after getting no more than 2 points out of those 4 games.

LAFC was actually a home game, but we got 5 points in the 3 road games, including an unexpected win in Sandy.  So that's a miss.

• Because of that, and the fact that we have to go back to Sandy in May before FSL comes to Colorado, we once again fail to win the Rocky Mountain Cup.

Here's a prediction I'm happy to be wrong about.

3.5 out of 11.  Ouch!  Still that's slightly better than my 4 of 14 from last year so I've stopped my 3 year slide!  Nowhere to go but up, right?

Wrapping Up 2024

Well as I was busy with the holidays two big things happened, the SuperDraft and the schedule drop.  We'll get through those two today and then I'll circle back to reviewing my 2024 Predictions hopefully no later than New Year's Day so we can move into 2025 and look forward.

Starting with the schedule the big change this year is that San Diego joins the league, so its 14 home and away against the West and 6 against the East, split 3 and 3 home/away.  No 3-game Rocky Mountain Cup anymore.  Speaking of, we defend the Cup at home on May 17th and then finish our road slate in Salt Lake on October 4th.  We start the season in St. Louis on Feb. 22nd before the home opener against Dallas on March 1st.

Unfortunately for all of us who wanted a new road trip, or away day at San Diego is midweek right before the RMC home game which makes it a difficult road game for most of us, since we all want to be back in time to support the boys against FSL.  (Specifically for me I'll likely use that week for my spring work trip to the UK and fly back Friday night so I can be at the game on Saturday).  San Diego comes to the Dick on April 12th.

There was hope that Apple would spread out the game times this year and they have, but not so much for Rapids home games.  All but two home matches kickoff at 7:30, the season finale is at 7pm and Charlotte's visit on March 29th is at 2:30pm.  The Galaxy's visit on June 25th (Wed.) and KC's visit for the annual 4th of July match (Fri.) are the only home games not on Saturday.  We have two Wednesday road games in May, one in July, and a Sunday away game in August, the other 13 road games are also on Saturdays.

May is going to be tough with 7 matches.  We start the month in DC and then come home to San Jose the next weekend.  Then the rest of that week is the trip to SD and the FSL home match.  Then after 7 days off we get St. Louis at home before a midweek trip to Portland followed by a trip to SoCal for LAFC on the weekend.  Those are our only two 3-game weeks (at least for league play) though.

In June we have 3 straight home games before finishing the month in New England.  We only have one home game between Vancouver at home on July 12th and Houston at home on September 13th, that's Atlanta in mid-August.  Otherwise we play in Seattle, Philly, and Minnesota before the ATL game and at the Galaxy and SKC after.  That's going to be a tough stretch.  But that's the only times we have more than two home or away games in a row.  We finish the season at home against, you guessed it, LAFC.

Now, onto the Superdraft.  We already covered the trade for all of Philly's picks but we were busy trading on the day of the draft.  Summing it all up we traded $287,500 in 2025 GAM, a 2025 International Slot, and the #8 pick for the #4, #6, and #12 picks and $50K in 2026 GAM.  That left us with 5 first round picks and nine picks total.  So we went to town on the draft,  The full list:

Round 1: Alex Harris (No. 4) - F, Cornell

Round 1: Matthew Senanou (No. 6) - D, Xavier

Round 1: Efetobo Aror (No. 12) - M, Portland

Round 1: Sydney Wathuta (No. 16) - F, Vermont

Round 1: Joshua Copeland (No. 26) - F, Detroit Mercy

Round 2: Charlie Harper (No. 38) - D, UNC Chapel Hill

Round 3: Donovan Phillip (No. 62) - F, North Carolina State

Round 3: Shawn Smart (No. 68) - D, Las Vegas Lights

Round 3: Matthew Van Horn (No. 75) - M, Georgetown

Most reviews of our picks were positive, with the caveat that we shouldn't expect much from this group in 2025.  Specifically Aror could return to school for a year before coming out.  Also Smart is already signed and playing for Las Vegas but Colorado retains his MLS rights now.  Reports are that we're happy to let him play out his contract in Vegas (he has one year left) before negotiating with him and we're not looking to pay a transfer fee to get him here this season.  He's also being scouted by Sparta Rotterdam and a couple of Championship clubs so this seems more like a flyer on somebody we might be able to flip quickly than any expectation he will have a notable impact on results.

We'll see how many of these guys join camp next month and how many of them make the team.  I expect most of them to be on Rapids 2 if they're not back in school (or in Las Vegas).

Jasper Löffelsend Selected In Expansion Draft

Surprisingly just a few minutes ago Jasper Löffelsend was selected by San Diego FC in the expansion draft.  This won't be that much of a loss for the Rapids.  With Bassett, Larraz, Ronan, and talk that they're looking for a 6, playing time was going to hard to come by for Jasper.  He made 18 appearances last season but never really stood out.

Colorado will receive $50K in GAM for losing a player.  We originally gave up an international slot last year, our 2nd round pick in next week's draft (which we replaced with Philly's) and up to $100K in GAM based on performance.  My bet is that we didn't pay out more than $50K of that so we probably broke fairly even on the GAM and we didn't need the international slot.  So really we gave up a 2nd round pick to take a one year flyer on him.  No harm, no foul.

Expansion Draft List. Maxso Leaving?, and CCC Draw

Ok, we got a lot of news today.  First of all the team made the trade with Philly for their draft picks official.  They also released their protected list for the expansion draft and its a bit different than I predicted, largely because the roster designations on the league website weren't accurate.

The first miss was on me, I didn't notice that Mihailovic just turned 26 which made him ineligible for automatic protection.  But homegrowns Vines and Fernandez also didn't qualify for some (currently unknown) reason.  Neither did Calvin Harris who's still listed as a Generation Adidas player but apparently graduated from the program.  However Kimani Stewart-Baynes, who's not listed as a GA actually is so he was automatically protected and Travis who isn't listed as an HG actually is.

Along with that the trade yesterday meant we wanted to find room to protect Awaziem and Murphy.  So in the end the protected list looks like this (* - automatically protected)

GK: Steffen, Beaudry*

D: Chidozie Awaziem, Reggie Cannon, Ian Murphy, Keegan Rosenberry, Sam Vines, Seb Anderson*, Michael Edwards*, Jackson Travis*

M: Wayne Frederick, Djordje Mihailovic, Connor Ronan, Cole Bassett*, Oli Larraz*

F: Kévin Cabral, Calvin Harris, Rafael Navarro, Kimani Stewart-Baynes*, Darren Yapi*

That leaves Ethan Bandré , Lalas Abubakar, Daniel Chacón, Nate Jones, Andreas Maxsø , Omir Fernandez, Jasper Löffelsend, Rémi Cabral, and Jonathan Lewis unprotected.  Douda Amadou's contract doesn't become a full MLS contract until 2025 so he's ineligible to be selected.

The surprises on that list I think are Maxso and Fernandez, maybe Jones.  I wouldn't have expected Fredrick to be protected over Fernandez.  If we lose anyone I'd expect it to be him.

Maxso being unprotected is a combination of our new defenders and the other piece of news that dropped today.  Tom Bogert reported that the Rapids are in discussions with a Middle East team to transfer Maxso and apparently he wants the move.  So really all we're risking is losing on a possible transfer fee if San Diego takes him and I'm betting there's an understanding that won't happen.  

Maxso has been an above average MLS defender but he never stood out to the level of his big DP signing when he first arrived.  I was also told he was a Fraser choice more than a Smith/Taylor choice and with the new coaching staff its probably a good time for everyone to move on.  He was an ironman, playing every minute of all 43 competitive games last season, and I have nothing but positive things to say about him, but I also don't think he's irreplaceable.

With his likely departure that means we still need a CB, either somebody to play nest to Awaziem or if we're going to go with Murphy as a starter somebody to fill the Abubakar reliable backup position.  So instead of filling two spots with yesterday's trade we've really only filled one.

Lastly the CONCACAF Champions Cup draw was held tonight and out of the 11 teams we could have ended up drawn against we got...LAFC.  *yawn*  A team we see regularly.  Pretty boring and shades of the 2018 competition and getting drawn against TFC.  Even though we're the lower seeded team we'll play Leg 1 in LA and Leg 2 here in Colorado, which will get us an additional 2 weeks closer to Spring before we host.  The home game will be a Tuesday or Wednesday in the second half of February with the road match two weeks earlier.

Expansion Draft tomorrow but I'll probably only post something if somebody from the Rapids actually gets selected.  Then on Thursday its the opening of free agency and end-of year waivers, with Round 1 of the Re-Entry Draft on Friday.  

Is That Ricky Williams' Music I Hear?

 

In 1999 New Orleans Saints coach Mike Ditka thought running back Ricky Williams was such a sure bet that he traded every pick he had in the draft and two of their top three picks in the 2000 draft to move up to #5 and pick Williams.  Well today Philly said "Hold my beer".  But we'll get to that in a second.

With the half-day open trade window before the various drafts this week the Rapids made a move they've already announced before we get to the Philly trade.  They sent $1 million in GAM to FC Cincinnati in exchange for center backs Chidozie Awaziem and Ian Murphy.  FCC could get up to $200K more in GAM based on performance and retains a percentage of any sale outside the league.

Awaziem is a clear CB starter and should fill the hole next to Maxso.  He's a 27 year old (28 on New Year's Day) Nigerian who was signed by FCC in midseason, mainly as an injury replacement for Miazga.  Now that he's coming back FCC needed to make roster and cap room to bring him off IR.  Prior to coming to MLS he played for Portuguese sides Boavista and Porto, though he spent most of his time in the country on loan to other teams in France, Spain, Turkey, and Croatia.  He did appear 42 times for Boavista and he's been capped 33 times by Nigeria since 2017.

Murphy was drafted by FCC out of Duke before the 2022 season and over his 3 years there he made 80 appearances.  He also played for the U.S. U14s, 15s, and 17s.  He moved back and forth between a regular starter and a bench player and will likely take the Abubakar role of being the first option off the bench of Macso ot Awaziem aren't available.  This should allow Maxso to actually get some minutes off and not be an ironman like he was in 2024.

This trade immediately fills two of the needs I identified last week and probably means Abubakar won't return.  There may not be a spot for Edwards either.  Now the focus shifts to winger, a 6, and a backup striker.

Later today Tom Bogert, the Denver Post, and Burgundy Wave all confirmed the details of a trade the likes of which MLS has never seen before.  Colorado is sending $350K in GAM + up to $250K additional based on performance metrics to Philadelphia.  In exchange Philly is sending us every one of their draft picks, for the next 3 seasons.

for a further three years

That's the 8th (1st round) and 68th (3rd round) pick in the draft at the end of next week.  We already have their 2nd round pick from the Semmle deal.  We also get all 3 of their natural picks in the 2026 and 2027 drafts.  (Despite taking place in Dec. of 2024, next week's draft is the 2025 draft).

Not surprisingly there's been a lot of talk about this trade today in MLS circles.  This isn't the first time Philly has bailed on the draft but it is the first time they've bailed on 3 in a row.  They have a lot of faith in their Academy and they don't want to block players moving up with a bunch of college players.

From Colorado's standpoint they only need to hit on 2 players becoming MLS quality to come out ahead.  Last year they got Kimani Stewart-Baynes, who's already spent time with the Canadian Nats.  In 2023 it was Moise Bombito of course.  Before that it was Anthony Markanich in 2022.  So that's 3 MLS players in 3 drafts.  In 2019 they got Newcomer of the Year Andre Shinyashiki.  In 2015 it was Axel Sjoberg and Dominque Badji.  That's 6 MLS players in 10 drafts.  So getting 2 in 3 is certainly doable.  And if they land on a Badji or if we're lucky a Bombito then they come out ahead with only one pick.  The trades of Shinyashiki and Markanich alone almost got as much GAM as we gave up today.

One notable thing is that Chris Zitterbart, Philly's Director of Scouting, was signed by Philly from Colorado in June.  So I have to wonder how involved he was in draft scouting in Colorado vs. Philly.  Is it possible that after the success he had here he doesn't see that level of talent in upcoming drafts?  Or was he responsible for international scouting here and didn't have much influence on our draft strategy?  Or is it just the case that its two different clubs with two different ways of building?

Regardless, what this tells us is that we're going to be prioritizing the draft as our acquisition strategy over the next couple of offseasons.  That could mean stocking up on young talent, but it could also mean using those picks as trade bait for other moves.  I would expect us to be busy next week as we have 3 first round and 3 third round picks, along with Philly's 2nd round pick (we traded our 2nd round pick to FSL for Lofflesend).

Next up is the CONCACAF Champions Cup draw tomorrow at 5pm.  We are the best team in Pot 2 sadly, which means we will face either a Liga MX or another MLS team in the first round.  The options are Monterrey, Tigres, Cruz Azul, Pumas, Chivas, LAFC, Miami, Seattle, Cinci, Vancouver...or FSL.  I'm rooting for Miami as it would be the only chance to see Messi at the Dick (though he'd proibably use the cold as an excuse not to come).

Looking Forward To The 2025 Roster

If I had to predict the 2025 opening day roster right now, this is what I come up with (assuming no injuries):

At right back I think Cannon gets the nod over Rosenberry, otherwise the positions I'm confident enough to predict I've fairly confident on.  So lets talk about those wholes we need to fill:

Left Back: Is there a MLS quality starting left back that can be cobbled together from Vines. Travis. Rosenberry, Cannon, and Anderson should he re-sign?  (Reports are that Tallares have exercised their option to buy Miguel Navarro).  If not we need to go find one, again.  My feeling is that the Front Office doesn't want to put any more money into the position right now and will hope that Vines returns to something near his old form or that Travis can step-up to an every game starter next season.

Center Back: Smith and/or Taylor have already been quoted as saying this is an area of focus this offseason, and it needs to be.  Not only do we need to find a quality starter to pair with Maxso (that person isn't on the roster yet) we need to find a dependable backup.  Maybe that's re-signing Abubakar.

Left-Wing: Another must have this offseason, though it hasn't been mentioned as much by leadership as center back has been.  I think Cabral was showing that he can be a starter in this league before he got hurt (he's still overpaid as a DP, but at least we're splitting that with the Galaxy) but neither Harris or Fernandez (or Lewis if he re-signs) claimed the other spot.  If we're going to make a big splash this offseason I want to see it at this position.  Djordje and Navarro need some other threat to take the pressure off of them, we saw how they struggled when both Cabral and Bassett were injured at the end of the season.

Bench: We need at least 3 solid bench options down the spine of the team.  As mentioned earlier we need more center back depth behind whomever we sign to fill the starting hole.  I still believe we need a true defensive 6 as an option off the bench for when the matchup dictates it.  There were a number of games last season that Larraz and Ronan (and sometimes Bassett) just got run over due to the lack of bite in midfield and we had nobody to plug in to handle that scenario.  Lastly we need a true backup to Navarro.  Yapi is not a quality backup for him.  He's the guy you bring off the bench to run at tired defenses, not the guy who steps in when Navarro isn't available or needs a game off.

With the backup at left-back, many of whom can also play right-back, and the winger options already on the roster we should have enough depth on the outside if the staring holes are filled.

So that means we're looking for 5 acquisitions:

• Starting CB
• Starting winger
• Backup CB
• Quasi-starting/backup 6
• Backup striker

With Bamdre being released we probably will sign a 3rd GK too, either directly to the first team or somebody who can be called up to Rapids 2, but not somebody I would expect to have any impact on the first team in 2025.

Next week is the trade window, the expansion draft, and the waiver and first round of the re-entry drat.  Keep an eye out to see if the Rapids make any moves to fill these holes.