2020 Expansion Draft

Austin FC is starting play in 2021, which means sometime this month (probably, maybe after the holidays) there will be an expansion draft.  So far there's been no report that the draft will differ in any significant way from the last couple of expansion drafts.  What that means is that the Rapids will likely be able to protect 12 players, their homegrown players 25 years old or younger (which is all of them) will be automatically protected on top of that, and they can't lose any more than 1 player to Austin.

Given that, lets try to figure out the best protected list.

First, here are the automatically protected homegrown players:

Kellyn Acosta (his homegrown status with Dallas transferred to Colorado), Seb Anderson, Cole 'Goal'  Bassett, Kortne Ford, Matt Hundley, Abe Rodriguez, Sam Vines, Will Vint

So after that group we have 12 other players we can protect.  First I'm going to go through the super-obvious ones that need no explanation:

Lalas Abubakar, Braian Galvan, Jonathan Lewis, Younes Namli, Jack Price, Keegan Rosenberry, Diego Rubio, and Andre Shinyashiki

So that leaves 4.  To me the next two are equally obvious but may need some explanation:

Auston Trusty - We spent a lot to get him and I think (and I'm sure the coaching staff thinks) he's still the likely starter next to Abubakar in the future.  He's worth way too much to let him get picked.

William Yarbrough - The Denver Post reported that we are working on bringing him back, and we know that almost every loan into MLS includes a buy clause.  The only questions are "Do the Rapids want to pay that much or are they going to try to renegotiate lower?" and if they are going to pay that much "Will Liga MX try to screw MLS on a buy clause again (see Castillo, Edgar)?".  Regardless we own his MLS right now and Austin could pick those rights up if we don't protect Yarbrough.  I think the risk of him getting picked is bigger than the reward of protecting somebody else.

That leaves the final two spots.  I could make a case for up to 5 players for those two slots, but I think they'll go with the two Nicolas, Benezet and Mezquida.  Benezet has a good amount of TAM invested in him and if he can get healthy is a likely starter.  Mezquida would be a nice young pickup for an expansion team and would be at risk of being picked.

The other three I thought about protecting were Clint Irwin, but I'm not sure Austin FC is going to want to use a pick on a guy who isn't a sure fire day one starter in goal, Drew Moor, but as valuable as his veteran leadership would be there's probably a real risk of Moor saying "I'm not interested in moving to Austin, I'm retiring" which would waste the pick for Austin, and Jeremy Kelly, who probably didn't show enough to be worth one of Austin's five picks but could be at risk in this scenario.

Assuming that Benezet and Mezquida are protected, that would leave the following unprotected:

Steven Beitashour, Clint Irwin, Niki Jackson, Jeremy Kelly, Drew Moor, Andre Rawls, Abdul Rwatubaye, Collen Warner, Danny Wilson, and Deklan Wynne

I would be willing to bet that Austin passes on that whole group, but if they pick somebody it would likely be Irwin or Kelly.