- Made the Beeny Feilhaber signing official
- Traded Marlon Hairston for $175K in GAM ($125K this year and $50K next year)
- Traded the #15 pick and $100K of GAM to Chicago for the #5 pick
- Used the #5 pick on DU forward Andre Shinyashiki
- Used their two second round picks on defenders Marcello Borges and Jacob Hauser-Ramsey
So at the end of the day we ended up with two signed players, two trialists, and $75K in GAM. We did had to lose Hairston to do it.
All in all, a really good day. We covered Feilhaber last night. Shinyashiki comes to us from across town at DU where he played with Kort Ford and Sam Hamilton. He had 28 goals and 4 assists in 21 games last year and 51 goals with 15 assists over his four years with the Pioneers. He plays a bit in-between attacking mid and full striker. As a Brazilian he does require an international slot (more on that later) but he already signed a deal with MLS so he's pretty much assured of making the roster. It will be interesting to see how much time he spends in Commerce City compared to Colorado Springs, given that he has Kamara, Rubio, Feilhaber, Jackson, Gashi, Nicholson, and Mezquida battling for minutes in similar positions.
Borges is an outside back that, if he makes the roster, I expect to spend most of the season in the Springs and be an emergency backup behind Rosenberry, Vines, and Wynne. Hauser-Ramsey is a tall centerback that's probably a long-shot to make the roster but given that we're a little thin there he'll have a shot.
One interesting point with the roster right now is that we've got a bit of an issue with international slots. Right now we've traded for one and traded three away, leaving us with 6. We currently have 8 internationals though. Blomberg, Gashi, Mezquida, Nicholson, Price, Shinyashiki, Smith, and Wilson. I'm not particularly worried about this, we've got plenty of time to figure it out. There are a few options. The most obvious one is Ena Patel's work getting green cards for some of these players. Shinyashiki has been here for at least four years going to school, Blomberg and Nicholson are entering their third season in MLS, and of course Gashi has been here since 2016, though he may not be too interested given that he's probably leaving at the end of the season. Other than that there's the always the unlikely possibility of trading one of them away, or the more likely scenario that we trade for an international slot or two. They tend to go for around $100-$150K of GAM. Lastly, we could always buy somebody like Blomberg or Boateng out of their contract before the season starts (that would only work for one of our two extra internationals). Regardless we have 7 weeks to figure it out so no need to panic.
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I think Blomberg will be starting his second season in MLS in this season. But I do think the Rapids will find ways of getting green cards or transferring out one or more international players. At this point it would seem that there won't be any more big acquisitions, but who knows what Pádraig and Co. have up their sleeve given what they've done the last month and a half.
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