Annus Horribilis

Its done.  With one final loss the worst year in Rapids history is over, finally.  I only have two things to say about the game.  First, it was good to see a bunch of the kids get playing time.  Second, there were a lot of complaints that the ball was out on FSL's goal.  Going back and looking at the replays I didn't see any angle that showed the whole ball over the whole line.  Remember the Japan-Germany goal in the World Cup where they ruled just one sliver of the edge of the ball was still over one sliver of the line?  Same thing here, every angle I saw it was very believable that part of the curve of the ball was still over the line.

Ok, one more thing about the game.  Cole Bassett was obviously broken up and angry after the match.  More so than anyone else by far.  He feels the pain of losing to FSL 4 times in a year and of this whole season.

What we move onto is the impending rebuild.  And based on the last 48 hours, it will be a rebuild.  First of all, minutes after the final whistle Diego Rubio tweeted this:

Thank you Colorado, my family and I will miss you!

Then yesterday Jack Price tweeted: 

Thank you Colorado Rapids fans me and my family have had the best 6 years. The support and love shown towards us from day 1 has been top class. Wish the lads all the success in the future an honour and immense pride to captain this club for 4 years cheers, Pricey

Reportedly Rubio has already left Colorado and Price flies out tomorrow. Those are two big pieces that we'll need to replace (but also two big salaries that are freed up to do it).  ITs not an understatement to say that those are the two best Rapids over the last 5+ years and the only other player that has an argument (Yarbrough) is possibly on his way out as well.  Diego and Jack will be hugely missed, not only for their on-field play but also their leadership.  Price in particular is a fan favorite (and a favorite here too) and on a team that doesn't have many fan favorites right now that's a hole that will need to be filled.

Following up on that news, Burgundy Wave is reporting that Jonathan Lewis will not be returning, and is likely to move to an Eastern Conference team.  Lews is under contract for 2024 so this would have to be a trade or a buyout.  Lewis never panned out into the player we hoped for, in 4 seasons he had 104 appearances but only 56 starts, 5409 minutes, but only 18 goals and 5 assists in league play.  That's not much for the $650K in TAM we gave up (pluis an international spot for a year).

Assuming we can get Lewis' salary fully off the books, combined with Price and Rubio that's $1.8M in base salary cleared.  And all but about $70K of it counted against the cap (Price was slightly over max salary and had to be paid down).  That's some nice flexibility to have going into the offseason, which I guess is the silver lining in all of this.

I have a feeling this is just the start of an active offseason, at least with players leaving.  Speaking of the offseason, look for posts over the next couple of weeks going over the roster, naming a player of the year, and reviewing my predictions.  Otherwise I think things will be somewhat quiet through the playoffs, with things picking up around MLS Cup.