The transfer window closed last night. Its not unusual for the paperwork to get submitted at the last minute and the announcement to come the next day but the move that sources were reporting as "done" yesterday seems to have fallen through late last night based on the latest rumors. I'll state up front, if the Rapids pull a rabbit out of a hat and announce multiple moves later today I'll admit I was off base with this post and take my lumps. But with a game on Saturday and a game preview to write tonight it was either now or sometime next week that I can cover this.
That said, let's go back to
Padraig Smith's comments about this window a month ago when we traded MAK to Toronto. At that point we had already brought Sam Nicholson back and we obviously acquired Ralph Priso in the trade with TFC.
This is not the last deal we're going to make in this window. This is the first of what I certainly believe is going to be a very active window for us, and I think really what has to be done is it has to be judged in terms of the total package of what the overall situation looks like, what the roster looks like when we're finished making those moves
Well, we can now judge what the roster looks like now that we're finished. In that active window since the comment we made one move announced yesterday. We've acquired Chilean midfielder Felipe Gutiérrez on a short-term loan from C.D. Universidad Católica in Chile. Gutiérrez will turn 32 on the final day of the regular season and prior to his return to Chile was a Designated Player for Sporting KC. The book on him while in MLS was that he was a highly talented player, but quite injury-prone. He was with KC for three seasons, but missed all of the COVID-shortened 2020 season due to injury. In the two prior seasons he made 49 starts, putting up 19 goals and 5 assists.
Its good to bring in somebody who's familiar with the league and has had success, but he is almost 3 years older on the back-side of 30 since he played here. He's also only on a short-term loan, and nothing has been mentioned about having an option to buy him at the end of the season. To me, this doesn't feel like a move for the long-term and more to plug the hole in midfield caused by the injuries to Galvan, Larraz, and Price.
I don't think a short-term loan as the only move counts as "very active". Nobody in their right mind would. Clearly, once again, what the Rapids FO sells and what they actually deliver, don't add up. This was a very disheartening window after some success in prior years.
Lets move on to what we were targeting in this window. Smith said:
I think when I look at the chances we're creating, I still think we can look at our overall attacking area and say, ‘Okay do we need to bring somebody else in that's going to give us another cutting edge in the attacking third?’ That is something that we're looking at,
I think long-term we're certainly going to look to bring in another center back to challenge, and we are also now are looking at bringing in an 8 to reinforce the midfield. So from my perspective, it's really about looking at the overall group and what we've got for this year – but also what we're planning for in next year as well.
So that's 3 positions. A cutting edge in the attack, a midfielder in an 8 role, and a center back. And remember, this was stated after we acquired Nicholson and Priso. So if we consider Gutiérrez the "cutting edge" that means we're still looking for the 8 and CB. The failure to sign them wasn't because we couldn't afford it, again, according to Smith:
“We can buy players down, we've got a lot of flexibility,” Smith said about their DP situation. “We've built up a war chest over the past little while in terms of GAM as well
So its safe to say this window hasn't lived up to expectation. The only reason for that is because the Front Office couldn't get whatever deals they had planned over the line. I'm expecting we will hear in the coming days that they were close on a number of targets and just couldn't get the deal done, but that's a line that has been so oft-repeated that it has reached the status of cliché. A "perennial playoff team who regularly competes for trophies", as stated in the Rapids Way, can't throw away a transfer window while they're struggling at the bottom of the table. Not if they want the fanbase to think they really believe they can achieve their stated goals.
This is sadly, the second window in a row where we haven't done enough. While we've replaced the number of minutes lost (+/- 5%) from last year to now, we haven't replaced the production. Player that have been added since the end of 2021 have 3 goals and 5 assists (all Zardes and Acosta). Players who have left had 19 goals and 16 assists last season. Even if you add in what Trusty, Shinyashiki, MAK, and Mezquida did in 2022 before leaving (4 goals, 1 assist, from Shinyashiki and MAK) that's only 21% of the goals and 38% of the assists despite being 65% of the way through the season. If we had a like for like production replacement we'd have 6 more goals and a top-10 offense. Just under half our games would have had a different outcome if we had scored one more goal. Turning two losses into a draw and a draw into a win with 3 goals would have us right on the playoff line.
Obviously we couldn't plan for the injury bug we've had this year, especially in midfield with Galvan, Larraz, and Price missing significant number of games (or all of them). But our failure to replace our depth over the last two windows is why we're struggling to deal with those injuries and why we're looking up at most of the league. Coming up empty this window not only likely dooms this season, but it leaves fans questioning if we can be ready for 2023.
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