Coaching Update and Roster Analysis

Its still all quiet on the Commerce City front when it comes to the coaching hire, and according to Burgundy Wave it may be a while.  Sounds like either their preferred candidate isn't happy with the offer or is trying to stretch the process out while they feel out other opportunities.  Either way its not a ringing endorsement of this organization.  If they don't announce tomorrow (and that sounds unlikely) they won't announce anything for a couple of weeks.  Making a major announcement like this during Thanksgiving week is just asking for it to get lost.  That also means the new coach will have no say on which current players we extend new offers to (those are due by Thanksgiving) or likely which options we pick up (those have to be decided by December 1st).

Burgundy Wave also reported that Jack Wilshere is no longer a candidate for the role and it sounds like he removed himself.  Its unclear if he just decided it wasn't a good match for him, or if he would still be interested but the compensation package wasn't enough to get him to make the move.  BW believes the unnamed 4th candidate is likely Efrain Juarez, to go along with Little, Armas, and Kah.

With the absence of coaching news lets get to my normal year-end roaster analysis.  Normally this is breaking the roster into core pieces, additional players worth keeping, and areas to upgrade.  That's really not the case this year.  This is a bad roster no matter how you look at it.  There's maybe a handful of players I would keep if I were building a MLS team from scratch, otherwise everyone is replaceable. (For this exercise I'm considering Price and Rubio as already gone, given their announcements)

Those players:

Cole Bassett - If this team has any heart, he's the center of it

Moise Bombito - Good young defender

Andrew Gutman - Experienced MLS defender in the prime of his career

Conor Ronan - What offense we have goes through him

Three others that might be worth keeping with a better team and organization around them:

Andres Maxsø - I think he's better than he showed this year, but not sure he's a DP

Keegan Rosenberry - He had some rough games this year, but he was playing with a questionable backline

William Yarbrough - He didn't need to go out like this, though I expect he will

Literally everyone else can go and be replaced by whomever we can find with little loss of quality.  A combination of being too expensive, ,taking an international spot, or just not being good enough means nobody else on the roster has earned their spot.  That might be a bit harsh on a couple of the homegrowns like Rodriguez and Larraz, but with so little playing time in a year where it couldn't hurt to have played them leads me to believe we shouldn't expect much in the near future.

So that's a maybe-MLS quality backline of Rosenberry-Bombito-Maxsø-Gutman, backed up by Yarbrough (or more likely Ilic) and a couple of number 8s in midfield, but nothing else to build from.  The new coach will have a lot of work to do when he gets here in order to make this a team that won't be embarrassed for a second-straight season.

Just for completion's sake, here are my thoughts on the rest of the roster:

Lalas Abubakar - A max salary player that's backup MLS defender quality

Max - We all know the issues there

Seb Anderson - He would have done it by now if he was going to be a MLS player

Steven Beitashour - Almost certainly retiring

Kevin Cabral - The biggest waste of $$$ and an international slot on the roster

Luis Diaz - Who?  $500K player that I barely remember at the end of the season

Michael Edwards - See Seb Anderson

Braian Galvan - Doesn't have the brain to go with his physical talent, too much of a hothead

Alex Gersbach - Thankful that Cabral is here to take the biggest waste of an international spot

Calvin Harris - Bench player that we spent $200K+ to acquire

Marko Ilic - Why pay a transfer fee and use an international slot on a keeper?

Aboubacar Keita - Never healthy

Jonathan Lewis - At some point you have to accept its not going to happen

Danny Leyva - Well, he's better than Priso?

Rafael Navarro - Didn't show anything to be worth a DP slot and a $5 million fee

Sam Nicholson - Love you Sam, but you look like a League One player in a Championship league

Ralph Priso - Simply not MLS quality

Sidnei Tavares - Depth at best, not worth $525K and an international slot

Gustavo Vallecilla - Maybe we'll get lucky and Columbus will keep him

Danny Wilson - His time is up, he just can't keep up at the MLS level anymore

Darren Yapi - He's got one more season to prove he can make an impact, maybe