2020 Player Evaluation

 Lets go through the annual roster break down and see who should stay and who should go:

Goalkeepers:

Keep: Abe Rodriguez - I mean, obviously.  He probably needs another year in the Springs but he is the future

Buy: William Yarbrough - The Denver Post reported the Rapids are already working on this, but he's solid and should be the starter going into 2021

Replace: Clint Irwin and Andre Rawls - Irwin will probably want to go somewhere he can compete for minutes, here he'll be a backup.  Rawls is in the same boat.  If one of them wants to stay as Yarbrough's backup and we don't want to invest time/money in anyone better that's fine, but we don't need both of them

Defenders:

Keep: Lalas Abubakar, Seb Anderson, Keegan Rosenberry, Auston Trusty, Sam Vines - These should be fairly obvious.  Three regular starters, a homegrown, and a young player we invested a lot in

Pick-up option: Jeremy Kelly - Good rookie season, still cheap

Re-sign: Drew Moor - Its really up to Drew if he wants to keep playing, but if he does we should give him a contract.  Veteran experience and loyalty to an all-time team great

Replace: Steven Beitashour, Danny Wilson, Deklan Wynne - Two guys who got 0 playing time in 2020 and one guy who's overpaid and takes an international slot.  We can do better

Coach's Decision: Kortne Ford, Abdul Rwatubaye - For Ford he's 2 years from being a MLS player and I doubt he still has MLS level skill at this point, but if the coaches think he can contribute then bring him back.  Rwatubaye is an unknown to me

Midfielders:

Keep: Kellyn Acosta, Cole 'Goal' Bassett, Braian Galvan, Younes Namli, Jack Price, Will Vint - Five guys who were big contributors or showed flashes of being a big contributor, and a homegrown player.  Easy choices

Sell/Trade: Nicolas Mezquida - A solid squad player but if we can get value for him and free up his international slot, that might be the best move

Replace: Collen Warner - We can do better, in fact DM may be a place we want to invest

Forwards:

Keep: Nicolas Benezet, Jonathan Lewis - Obviously we keep Lewis.  I'm not thrilled with Benezet's availability this season but he has obvious quality. Given his contract situation I think we give him another year

Pick-up option: Andre Shinyashiki - Also obviously

Sell/Trade: Diego Rubio - He's not the number 9 we need and I expect the club to invest on a major player to play the 1 in the 5-4-1.  Rubio has value, we should cash that in

Replace: Niki Jackson - Too many better options on this team

Coach's Decision: Matt Hundley - As a homegrown he's probably going to stick around, but I have no idea

So 7 players that should be allowed to walk away, and another 2 we should try to move for value.  3 more that are unknowns to me.  12 is actually a higher number than I expected going into the offseason.  I think I'm likely being too harsh on some players (like Jackson and Rawls).  I doubt we see that many players replaced.

Prediction Recap 2020

As always at the end of the season its time for me to own up to my predictions and see how I did.  Even with the craziness of 2020, I still have to take my medicine.

• Rapids finish in 5th or 6th, but lose their first playoff game on the road

Ding, ding, ding, nailed it.  5th place finish, loss to Minnesota in our first playoff game, in Minnesota.

• Colorado looks like they re finally taking the USOC seriously, but don't make a deep run

I'm taking a N/A on this one, since the USOC didn't get played this year due to COVID

• We bring the Rocky Mountain Cup home

We pulled this off.  I can't say I saw a 3 goal deficit being overcome by a 5 goal win on the road, but we did get it back

• Kamara fades at the end of the season but still finishes with the Golden Boot

Well I missed on this, though not as badly as you would think.  Kei had 3 goals, our co-Golden Boots had 5

• Namli is the team MVP

Close, I think he was second.  Bassett was the MVP though

• Vines is the defensive player of the year

Yep

• The Rapids make an unexpected major move in the summer window, either a notable player leaves or a significant signing (or both)

I'd call trading away last year's Golden Boot counts

• Galvan arrives in the summer and doesn't contribute immediately but shows why we invested in him with promise for 2021 and beyond

I'm calling this correct.  While Galvan did have a couple of good appearances he's not a starter.  But he toes have talent

• Yarborough is signed after his loan and is expected to be the starter going into 2021

This is incomplete so far, but the Denver Post reported yesterday that we are pursuing buying him

• Nicholson doesn't finish the season in Colorado

Told ya ;)

• At least one Rapids home game is played behind closed doors or postponed due to coronavirus

The only miss here is that I significantly underestimated the impact of COVID-19.  When I wrote this on March 6th Colorado had just confirmed its 8th case and the country had a total of 282 cases.  At that time I was still thinking that things were going to get bad but maybe not to the point of full life disruption.  If only we knew what was coming.

11 predictions.  7 right, 2 wrong, 1 incomplete, and 1 N/A.  That's notably better than I normally do. 

Rapids Season Ends With A Thud

We should have seen this coming.  In the three longer-than-a-week breaks this team took in 2020 they ended up losing the 3 following games by a combined score of 10-1.  So losing this game 3-0 is right in line with how we've done things.  While we didn't look so listless initially as we did in those earlier games it was the same result, once Minnesota withstood our initial flurry in each half we were left looking like we were just happy to be in the playoffs.

I have real concerns with the tactical approach to this game.  Apparently Sam Vines was fighting a hamstring issue all week and the Rapids had to plan for the possibility, and eventual reality, that he'd miss his first start of the season.  The plan was apparently to drag Acosta out of position and place him at left back.  This despite having Deklan Wynne and Jeremy Kelly, both of whom are capable of playing LB (its Wynne's natural position) on the roster and signing Steven Beitashour mid-season specifically to back up Sam Vines!  When asked after the game Fraser said he didn't think it was fair to throw Beitashour in there for his first game time in a playoff game after more than a year off.  Dine, but then why didn't Fraser get Beitashour some playing time during the season if that was a concern?  And that still doesn't explain why Acosta was chosen over Kelly or Wynne.

Not that Acosta was bad or to blame or anything in his efforts at left back.  You'll see at the end of this that I named him the man of the match.  But having Acosta at LB took him away from the area where he was more valuable.  Combined with rather off games from Price and Namli the center of the pitch was wide open to Minnesota and they regularly took advantage of it.  Honestly Minnesota could have had another goal or two given the chances we gave them.

Maybe this game turns out different if in the first 10-15 minutes of each half, when we were really pushing and looked dangerous we scored.  Going up 1-0, or tying the game at 1-1 would have given us confidence and might have kept us in that aggressive posture.  Instead on both halves we regressed to looking like a young team getting their first playoff experience.  Combine that with some poor play from Wilson, Lewis, and Rubio and we never felt like we were going to turn it around after the initial surge.

We'll get into the offseason discussion more in coming weeks (but probably not until next week, given Thanksgiving) but this game showed how much the Rapids need to go out and get a top quality #9 this season.  Its great that anyone on the team can score, but its a problem when you can't lean on anyone with an expectation to score.  Rubio showed he can't carry the team as a 9 last night.  We need somebody in the Conor Casey mold (not in style of play, but in reliability and consistency).

Man of the Match: Kellyn Acosta.  Asked to play out of position and did it well.  And given how many of his teammates had off games, not having an off game when out of position says something.

What Are These Playoffs You Speak Of?

Its been a long 4 years (especially this last one) for Rapids supporters but yes sports fan, tomorrow the Rapids return to the playoffs for the first time since the Seattle series in 2016.  They're off to Minnesota again to face the Loons in the 4-5 matchup.  Looks like there will be some snow showers early tomorrow morning but by game time it should be clear and in the 40s.  Kickoff tomorrow is scheduled for 5:30pm, but the game is on ESPN so that may be when a 20 minute preshow starts, or it might be a 5 minute preshow.  Either way the good news is that the game is on ESPN and not blacked out in the Denver area for the first time since the MLS Is Back tournament.

There was a lot of talk going into the international break that teams would be missing players due to having to quarantine after returning from international duty.  Specifically for the Rapids Diego Rubio was called up by Chile.  We found out this week that shortly into his time with Chile he came into general, but not close, contact with a person who tested positive for COVID and the decision was made then to have him return to Colorado to go through quarantine.  He's been training by himself in that time but he is available tomorrow (and I think he joined the team for training for the last day or two).

Minnesota had multiple players going on international duty, including former Rapids striker Kei Kamara, and on top of their injuries they were going to be very thin tomorrow.  MLS apparently realized that having so many players missing in the playoffs, for all playoff teams, was a bad look for the league and they arranged charters home for as many players as they could, which greatly reduced the required quarantine time.  As far as I know all of Minnesota's players were included so nobody on either side will be in quarantine for this game.  The Rapids were probably better off had MLS not done that, but I understand why the league made that decision.  And there's still an advantage to the Rapids having not travelled in the last week while Minnesota's players are recovering from some long flights, such as Kamara returning from Sierra Leone.

I feet pretty good about this lineup, the only real change I could see would be Trusty over Wilson.

Prediction: 2-1 win, goals by Bassett and Namli (in extra time).  This is likely to be a very cagey affair with nobody wanting to make a mistake.  I think the game plays out pretty evenly and forces an extra 30 minutes, where our youth and depth (not to mention lack of jet lag) gives us a slight edge.  Namli scores the winner on one of his ankle-breaking runs to put us through to the next round.

Houston Had A Problem

This week's games have been long periods of quiet play combined with a couple of moments of celebration.  Sunday was similar with a first half that wasn't anything to write home about and a second half that held all the goals, but was king of meh in-between.  In the end though,  with almost the last kick of the game, Rubio found the back of the net and moved the Rapids up from 7th to 5th.  They also shut down any talk about them not being deserving of a playoff spot.  MLS announced today that the Minnesota United - Colorado Rapids playoff match will be at 5:30pm MT on Sunday Nov. 22nd and will be broadcast on ESPN.

Both Rapids goals were remarkably similar.  Both came from long runs out of midfield down the left side that went completely unchecked (you can see why Houston wasn't in the playoff race).  For the first Namli played a pass to Shinyashiki who had his shot parried, but directly back into Namli's path who put it away.  For the second Rubio broke the goalkeeper's ankles cutting inside and curled the ball home for the late winner.  In neither case did the Dynamo defense even bother either player.

The Dynamo goal was just a bit of bad luck more than anything.  After a poor clearance by Yarbrough the ball came back into the box.  Rosenberry made a successful interception of a pass but the ball fell right into a gap between him and Abubakar where the Dynamo forward was waiting.  Despite that Yarbrough had the shot covered but a slight touch as it went back Abubakar deflected it just enough to go between Yarbrough's legs.  Band bounces all around.

With the win the Rapids finished the regular season 5th in the West.  This despite the on-going battle with COVID that stopped the season three different times.  Starting the year, what feels like a decade ago, I thought the Rapids needed to win a home playoff game in order to achieve the standard they set for themselves with their talk in the last 3 years.  That would have required a 4th place finish.  I'm willing to say 5th is good enough given the COVID difficulties and their success in the youth movement, plus winning back the Rocky Mountain Cup.  Topping it off with a playoff win a week from Sunday would really show that we've improved but even without it I think the team is in a good  place.  We'll get more into that in the offseason.

Man of the Match: William Yarbrough.  Yeah,  his clearance on the Dynamo goal wasn't great but otherwise he had another strong game.  Its not often he gets beat due to positioning, it takes a quality shot to get by him.  He showed that again in this game.