Two Out For Sure, Third Probable, One In Possibly?

I was going to spend today focusing on the new kit but that's going to have to wait for the weekend because the Rapids had a busy day of roster moves today.

The big one was that Kevin Cabral has been waived.  This immediately frees up a DP slot that can be converted to a U-22 slot if we want.  There's now sugar-coating this, Cabral was a disastrous signing that not only hamstrung us for 2.5 seasons but also helped the Galaxy, who went on to win a  MLS Cup in that time.  On December 2nd 2022 the Galaxy were fined $1M, had $1M of GAM taken away, and were put on a transfer ban in 2023 for international players due to not reporting Pavon's salary correctly and cheating the cap.  This put LA in a bind as they had no open DP slot and little flexibility to bring in helpful signings from around the league (inter-league moves were outside the ban).

Enter Padraig Smith 6 days later, who gave LA $1M in GAM for Cabral, instantly making them hole on GAM after the fine and opening their DP slot for the flexibility they needed while under the ban.  All this for a player who looked out of place in MLS while playing for LA.  It was a bad move on it face and Cabral's play proved it.  He started less than half the games while he was here, played 3772 minutes across 2.7 seasons across all competitions (34 game regular season is 3060 minutes, plus playoffs, CCC, and Leagues Cup) and had 7 goals and 5 assists.  Those are MLS bench warmer numbers and for this he was getting paid $2.2M a year, half of which was paid by the Galaxy.

Its not hard to make the argument that he is the second worst DP signing in team history behind Juan Ramirez, and unlike Ramirez we knew how he would react to MLS since he had been in LA for two seasons (1689 minutes) and scored 6 goals with 0 assists.  The decision to trade for him alone is enough to explain why Padraig Smith should not have any say in player moves, before we get to any other mistakes.

The good news is that cutting him free instead of letting him finish his contract and be released in the offseason is a sign that the Rapids are willing to do something this window.  We'll get to that in a second after we go over the other move today and an update on Awaziem.

After announcing Cabral's departure the Rapids also announced that goalkeeper Adam Beaudry has been loaned to the Switchbacks for the rest of the season.  This is a logical move to get him playing time above MLS Next PRO now that Hansen has surpassed him for the number 2 spot.

Braidon Nourse at the Denver Post, among others, is reporting that the Rapids are finalizing the deal to send Awaziem to Nantes.  Its now a matter of not if, but when. he leaves it seems.  I would expect it to happen before the Philly game next week but it would be very helpful if they could work it out for him to be here for that one.  The transfer window for incoming players doesn't open until Thursday and with the Rapids not linked with any CB's right now the odds of us filling his spot before the Philly game 48 hours after the window opens is essentially nil.  That means some combination of Cannon, Rosemberry, Murphy, and Atencio would need to play CB in Philly.  That's not a great set of options.  Still, I expect the deal to get done early next week.

Lastly there is a rumor about what the Cabral move is setting up.  Before today the Rapids had 3 DP's (Navarro, Mihailovic, Cabral) and 3 U-22 players (Bassett, Atencio, Ku-DiPietro) which meant we were limited to TAM deals to bring in anyone new.  The league allows teams to move from the 3+3 model to a 2 DP + 4 U-22 model if they want.

Enter Alexis Manyoma.  Multiple sources are reporting the Rapids interest in the Colombian winger who currently plays for Argentinian side Estudiantes.  Tom Bogert, however, is suggesting they are considering him as a U-22 signing, something that wasn't possible until Cabral was waived today.  Right now the reports point to a loan with an option to buy.  Transfermarkt shows his value at $1.7M.  He turned 22 this year and was an off and on starter in this year's Apertura, with no goals or assists in 369 minutes of play.

Look I'm going to be blunt.  We've all seen this story before.  Smith goes out and finds a young player to bring in at midseason on a loan to buy, and then (Navarro excepted) either the player doesn't work out out or the agreed on price in the buy option is higher than we want to pay and we let him go.  I don't see why Manyoma will be any different.  He's clearly another prospect with "potential", not somebody who's going to have an immediate impact on results.  I'll get excited about this move when he shows up and is able to contribute regularly at MLS level.  AKA, when he's better than Cabral.