Our First Move Of The Offseason

There was a half-day trade window in advance of this week's expansion draft today (forget explaining why, its MLS) and the Rapids made a move.  They, surprisingly, sent Zac MacMath to Vancouver for attacking midfielder Nicolas Mezquida and $100K in TAM.

This is a surprise because by all accounts MacMath was the heir apparent to Tim Howard.  I even heard a rumor late in the season that they were talking about a platoon system in goal next year where Howard would play home games and MacMath would play road games.  Its odd and makes me question prior decision making (largely under Hinchey/Bravo/Pablo) that we would hold on to MacMath when he was hot after his half season as a starter in 2016 only to trade him when his value might be the lowest here in 2018.

As for the trade itself its largely meh, with a catch.  Two bad teams traded backup players.  Mezquida is a 26 year old Uruguayan #10 who has started occasionally in his time in Vancouver.  He's also able to play the wing or as a #9.   He's essentially going to take Enzo Martinez' role.  The catch is that he's an international and I don't love using up an international spot on a backup midfielder.  The $100K of TAM could be used to get us another international spot but I think the trade would have been better, even a notable positive, if instead of getting the TAM we had gotten back the international slot we traded to Vancouver through 2031 (not a typo) for Sanna Nyassi.