Catching Up On Rapids Moves

Ok, lots of moves to catch up on.  I was waiting to post about the goalkeeper moves on Friday for an official announcement about a contract deal but I think it may have gotten buried by today's news so I'll catch up now.  We sent a 2nd round pick in next month;s draft to Toronto for Clint Irwin.  On the surface swapping $175K MacMath for Irwin with a $220K option in his last contract year doesn't look great.  There are heavy rumors though that Clint is signing a new deal with the Rapids that will bring him in under MacMath's number for at least two seasons.  That makes this move a no-brainer.  Arguably Irwin is a better keeper than, certainly he's as good as, MacMath and he's familiar with the club.  He gives us a quality backup for Howard this year and will compete for the starting job in 2020.

We then used the 2nd pick in the Re-Entry Draft to select Andre Rawls from NYCFC.  I don't know a ton about Rawls but he's 26, was drafted by NYCFC in 2015 and spent that first year in the USL while being their back up the last 3 seasons, but never played a league game.  I'm sure he'll spend 2019 in Colorado Springs unless we need him on the bench as a backup of Howard or Irwin are unavailable.

That sets our keeper roster for 2019 at Howard, Irwin, and Rawls, which is a solid 1-2-3.

Today we made a big move, sending Edgar Castillo to New England for Rowe and then sending Rowe, $200K of GAM, and $100K of TAM to KC for Diego Rubio.  The $100K TAM matches what we got in the MacMath trade so you can kind of look at this like MacMath+Castillo+$200K of GAM = Mezquida+Rubio which is a nice piece of work.  Rubio is a 25 year old striker from Chile that has played in Chile, Portugal, and Spain before signing with KC in 2016.  He's been a spot starter/sub for KC, scoring 8 goals in 9 starts/20 appearances last year (averaged 39 minutes an appearance).  He also got his green card in KC so he does not count as an international.

I can see Rubio being a starter in 2019 or competing with another signing to start along-side Kamara.  Either way he's better than anything we had starting up top last year and paired with Kei we could see a combined 20 goals from them, which is better than anything we've had since C+C Goal Factory.

The Rapids still need to shore up the defense, I expect at least one outside back signing, and a couple more solid signings in attack would be helpful, but this is more moves before Christmas than we've ever seen from this organization so these are positive signs.  The question is, can Hudson make it all work on the field?