Business Affairs

Around the two games last week there were to notable business items for the Rapids.  In reverse order on Thursday the Front Office and KSE announced that Haley Durmer would be the club's new Chief Business Officer, filling the position vacated by Wayne Brant in the offseason.  Durmer has a history in Major League Baseball, first with the Evil Empire (Yankees) and then most recently with the Seattle Mariners.  She was named to multiple up-and-coming sports executive lists and has had a focus on ticketing, marketing, and partnerships.

As a Mariners fan I can't say I recognize her name but I'm note nearly as tied in with front office names there as I am with the Rapids.  I will say that as a team that underwhelms on the field and struggles for relevance in this market I can't fault the Rapids for recruiting from a team that underwhelms on the field but remains very relevant in their market.  Obviously baseball has a higher profile than soccer but despite only making the playoffs once in the last twenty-three years the M's are regularly a part of the Seattle's sports consciousness in a way that the Rockies aren't in Denver.  If she can bring some of that off-field success from the Mariners to the Rapids it can only be a good thing.

The other, more notable for fans like us, bit of news last week was that on Wednesday the Players Union released the 2025 Salary Guide.

That's fairly small but hopefully you can blow it up.  My options were small or too big to fit.  Thanks Google.  Anyway the key numbers here are for some of our new players.  Atencio $350K, Awaziem $1.4M, Sam Bassett $80K (about a tenth of his brother), Cannon $841K, Hansen $80K, Alex Harris $80K, Ted KDP $456K, Murphy $448K.

There are some steals on that list (Hansen) and some solid numbers.  There are also some players getting paid way more than they should for their performance, mainly in defense.  Awaziem is good, but the highest paid non-DP on the roster?  Cannon has not been a "above max salary" player this year.  Even Murphy seems a bit high.  Add to that the $1.4M we're paying Maxso (rounded, a few thousand less than Awaziem) and $912K for Vines and that's about $5M we're spending on 5 backline players for a backline that's 18th in the league in Goals Allowed.

Outside of the backline the numbers are fairly good, with one notable exception.  Kevin Cabral is getting $2.1M to be a bench warmer.  Now half of that is being paid by the Galaxy but that still means that he's getting more from this team than anyone other than Mihailovic, Navarro, Maxso, and Awaziem.  Brutal.

The good news is that we can get out of Cabral's and Maxso's contract at the end of the year (and Awaziem's too if we wanted to).  Tom Bogert is reporting that we're still on the hunt for a center back even after the Lamkin contract fell through which suggests Maxso will be going by the end of the year of not sooner.  I can't imagine we'll pick up Cabral's option at this point so that will immediately free up about $2.5M.  I assume we will keep Awaziem and hope his level raises with a better partner in central defense.

The other question is hoe to get $1.45M of value out of Navarro.  He's clearly got the talent to be deserving of that but we need tp build a roster and strategy that results in more games like we saw in New England where he's dangerous in creating and scoring goals, not just doing good things that result in no shots.