Welcome Back Robin Fraser!

Well after yesterday's sad news, on to something better.  The news was announced on Sunday but yesterday the Rapids officially introduced Robin Fraser as the club's new manager.  Fraser joins the team immediately and will be in charge for the final seven matches of 2019.  Robin has many ties to Colorado, having played here first for the Foxes and then the Rapids.  His daughters still live here and he sounded very happy to be back in a place that holds so much importance to him.

I've long advocated for Fraser as the manager, going back to before Pablo was hired and again before Hudson was hired.  If we're budget-limited on the manager (and given our recent manager choices, it seems that we are) it's hard to do much better than him.  He's got a long history in MLS, he has experience with being the head coach with Chivas USA, and he was an assistant with successful squads in Toronto and with the New York Red Bulls.  That's a better resume IMO than a Josh Wolff or a Tab Ramos.  About the only other person who wasn't already a head coach that would compete with that was Wilmer Cabrera when he was unemployed for a week earlier this month after being fired by Houston, but Montreal jumped at the chance to hire him (and according to rumors we had already settled on Fraser by that point).

I hear a lot of fans talking about his lack of success at Chivas, which is fair, his record is not good.  That said, Chivas was a joke of an organization by the time he was in charge.  His leading scorer in his two years in charge was Juan Pablo Angel, with 19 goals.  His second leading scorer, with one goal less than Angel?  Nick LaBrocca.  Yes, that Nick LaBrocca.  There was little talent and little interest from the FO in changing that, unless in involved getting players from the parent Chivas playing time.  Combined with a FO in so much chaos it actually got into legal trouble over employment practices I'm not sure you can take much from his record.  The important thing is that he knows what it means to run a club day in and day out, which is something no Rapids manager could say when they came to Colorado since Fernando Clavijo.

Now don't get me wrong.  This is still a bit of a risk by the Rapids.  And by the Rapids I really mean KSE.  I think its obvious that KSE has handcuffed Padraig Smith with how much money he can spend on a manager.  Given that, I think Smith made a great choice, but I would have loved the budget to be expanded so Smith could have gone after a real top manager.  A great choice would have been former Rapids Aitor Karanka, who has been an assistant with Real Madrid and the Spanish National Team, and was the manager at Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest.  But somebody with that resume is going to cost a lot more than Fraser costs and was probably not in our budget.

The one bit of sad news in all of this is that Rapids legend Conor Casey is leaving the organization.  He was offered the jobs of either lead assistant for Fraser or the manager job for the Switchbacks in the Springs and turned them both down.  I have to assume he thinks he can do better than a top MLS assistant/USL manager role, but I think that's optimistic.  Some fans (and maybe Casey himself) thing Conor should have gotten the full time job and the Rapids "screwed" him by not giving it to him, but the evidence doesn't back that up.

Casey has the team playing at 1.39 pts/game since he took over.  That's likely not good enough to make the playoffs had he had them at that rate for a full season and it would have only made the playoffs in 3 of the last 9 seasons (in most of the other 6 seasons it would have made the playoffs had there been 7 playoff teams from each conference like there will be this year).  He also had an embarrassing loss to the USL New Mexico United in the Open Cup.  He did that while having a fairly favorable schedule, with 10 of 18 games at home (plus the USOC game) and some weak teams in that time like Montreal, Columbus,  Cincinnati, and Vancouver.  With 4 of the remaining 7 on the road and 6 of the 7 against teams currently in a playoff spot the odds of him keeping up that borderline 1.39 playoff pace was unlikely.  Its hard to claim Casey made a strong play for the job given those results.

The rest of this year is a wash, especially after yet another debacle in Utah last weekend, so this will be a good time for Fraser to get a feel for what he has on the roster and what he'll be looking for in the offseason.  An offseason where only a third of the salary is on guaranteed contracts for 2020 and all the DP slots will be open, so there will be plenty of flexibility to build the roster as he sees fit.  I'm kind of excited to see what he does.