Luton Shelton In Camp...Again

Yesterday the Rapids tweeted that Jamaican striker Luton Shelton was training with the team.  This isn't the first time the Rapids have been linked with Shelton, having him in camp at the beginning of last season.  He's been bouncing back and forth from his Russian team Volga NN to Colorado apparently since that time, recovering from a serious injury.  I heard his name being talked about earlier this season as well.

This may just be that Shelton likes Colorado and the chance to train with us but we might be interested in signing him as well.  Assuming this is real interest it poses a bit of a problem.  First of all we don't have an international spot open to sign him with.  That at least is easily solved buy removing the recall option in Castillo's loan to Charlotte.  That would make it a "season-long" loan at which point he would not take up an international or roster spot.

Secondly is the salary.  As noted before the Rapids are pretty close tot he cap based on the info we have.  Shelton ws making about $1.6 million a year in Russia but its been more than a year since he's played and at 30 years old coming back from a serious injury he's not going to command nearly that much.  My bet is that if we sign him it would be for something like $150K for the second half of the season.  We may have enough room and allocation money to make that work.  If we don't we'd have to move somebody to free up room.

Now I'd rather see us sign a CB than another striker.  While depth is good and Shelton certainly looks like the right kind of player for us our backline is so thin I'd like to see us get help there.