Acosta Trade Is Better Than First Reports

So the Acosta trade was made official today, as expected, and it was actually better than first thought.  Let's list it all out first:

Colorado gets:

• M Kellyn Acosta, who's under contract through 2018 with team held options for 2019 and 2020
• Dallas' first round 2019 pick
• Dallas' second round 2019 pick, conditionally
• 50% of any sale of Badji if sold before the end of the summer 2020 transfer window

Dallas gets:

• F Dominique Badji
• International slot through the end of 2019
• Colorado's first round 2019 pick
• 50% of any sale of Acosta if sold before end of the summer 2020 transfer window
• 33% of any sale of Acosta if sold after the summer 2020 transfer window

The condition on Dallas' second round 2019 pick is based on how far down we drop going from our first round pick's to Dallas'.  If its a small drop they keep the pick, if its a large drop we get it ( no info on where the break point is was released).

To me the real key differences in what was reported last night was the fact that Acosta's deal goes through 2020, along with getting picks back and part of any sale of Badji in the near future.  Odds our those latter opportunities don't pay out much but it allows us to hedge our bets a bit.

In then end this is a medium-risk/high-reward trade for the Rapids.  Best case scenario is that Acosta finds his old form, elevates the team at least through 2019, and then we either sell him for a large transfer fee (as he's been clear he wants to go to Europe) or he decides he likes it here and re-signs.  Both outcomes are wins for the Rapids.  Worst case, he doesn't find his old form, he's an average MLS midfielder, and we get him on a lesser deal or we trade him away again.  Not great but the real loss in the move would be Badji, who has largely plateaued here anyway.  And if he suddenly gets better and is bought we get half of that.

Acosta flew in early this morning, was at training today, and may play against Boca Juniors tomorrow.  Hopefully we see him start on the 4th against LA (starting on Saturday in DC might be asking too much).

Rapids To Announce Significant Trade At Noon Tomorrow

The Rapids have announced a press conference tomorrow at noon, and its presumably to announce the trade that broke tonight (and that I've been hearing about for about a week an a half).  Assuming reported details are correct here's the swap:

Colorado gets: M Kellyn Acosta
Dallas gets: F Dominique Badji, an international spot through 2019, our first round pick in 2019, and part of any transfer fee if Acosta is sold

Acosta is a 22 year old homegrown player who has 116 appearances for Dallas and 17 caps for the U. S. National Team.  He's fallen out of favor in Dallas due to injury and a disagreement with Oscar Pareja over his best position.  He wanted to make the jump to Europe but Dallas never received a good enough offer for him.

This deal is a lot to pay but Acosta is a great addition to this team. This is an all-in move though. If the Rapids juju gets him and he fizzles out its going to be overpaying and another massive mistake. If he keeps playing like he has at the MLS and international level though, he's somebody you build the midfield around. Overall I like the move, but its not a total slam dunk.

This is clearly a 2019 and future move. I don't believe we have a striker lined up to replace Badji right now but I don't think we care. 2018 is a write-off at this point and we'll have to muddle through with Barnes, Boli, McBean, and Gashi.  We need to sign the right striker for 2019 and beyond, not worry about the rest of 2018 and make an emergency move.

One concern is that Transfermarkt has Acosta's contract expiring at the end of the season (and he signed a new contract at the end of 2015, so a 3-year deal would be about right). So this move better include signing a new contract.  Paying this much for a rent-a-player that jets for Europe at the end of the season would be a disaster.

I'll update tomorrow if the deal is any different than what's been reported tonight.

Badji Away, Rapids Playing A Friendly In Memphis

Two pieces of news this week.

• Badji is back in Senegal finalizing his green card

Lousy timing, what with the Rocky Mountain Cup this week, but the government offices involve set the timing and the Rapids have no control.  He's not expected to make it back in time for Saturday's game.  On the plus side, we have 2 international slots open now.

• Rapids will play the USL's Tulsa Roughnecks FC in a friendly Sept. 1st in Memphos

This is a kickoff event for Memphis' USL team that will start play next season.  Since they were announced in January Tim Howard, a Memphis resident in the offseason, has been a special adviser to the team.  They'll be unveiling the team logo and such as part of the event.  The Rapids were invited, obviously, because of Howard and will presumably be getting paid for the appearance.  I'm not sure why Tulsa was invited, unless they just happen to be one of the USL teams that have a bye that weekend (the Rapids have a bye because its an international weekend).

Player Of The Year

Usually to pick my player of the year I go back through my game recaps to total up Man of the Match awards, look at the stats, think about the season to consider if there were any lynch pins that don't show up in the numbers, etc.  This year though it was a no-brainer.  The player of the year was clearly Dominique Badji.

Badji had 9 goals and 6 assists this year, the team leader in both categories.  He came up a few inches short of hitting double-digit goals in Seattle and it also would have given him 16 combined goals and assists which means he would have contributed directly to 50% of the goals the team scored this season.  Doyle was second in all those categories with 5 goals and 4 assists.  He was also second in games played and started, playing in all but one game and starting all but 5, and fifth in total minutes.  Miller, Hairston, Azira, and Howard are the other players near him in those categories.

Badji took a big step forward  this year, going from the frustrating forward who could score the hard goals and miss the easy ones of past years to a dangerous striker on the break.  Ok, his penalty taking apparently needs work but I feel much more confident when I see Badji get a look at the goal after this season.

Dominque got a new contract near the end of the season and we can expect him to be part of the plan going forward.  Personally I'd like to see him still as the 3rd striker that's used as a sub, change of pace, or to fill in when one of the starting two is unavailable but we'll be well off if he's our second striker next year.  He shouldn't be called on to carry the team like he did (as much as he could) this season.

Two Bits Of News

Two pieces of news today.

• The players union's salary guide was updated today.  We know that Aigner is making $425K in base salary per year, with guarantees he's at $470 which is just over max salary range, making him a TAM player.  I assume he has an escalation clause for next season.
• Badji signs a new contract through 2019 with team options for 2020 and 2021.  Good move and well deserved.  He's clearly the team MVP this year.

2015 Season Preview

Well the big news in the last couple hours is that the owners and the players have agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and the season will start as planned.  For the Rapdis that means 2pm MST in Philly on Saturday.

Also today the Rapids announced they had signed their final draft pick, striker Dominque Badji, to a contract.  No surprise with the amount of play he's gotten this preseason.  That leaves Colorado with 26 signed players and 7 of 8 international spots filled.  We'll have to see what the roster rules are with the new CBA to know if the Rapids have room to make any more moves.

Along those lines the Post's Daniel Boniface was at training and had a few updates.  Charles Eloundou is now in camp so his visa issues have apparently been settled.  Trialists James Riley and Ben Newnam while trialists Benji Joya, Oscar Montoya, and Francisco Flores have not been seen in a couple of days.  Wes Knight was officially released Saturday and VDC and Neeskens were not present (Neeskens is under contract, VDC isn't).

So with all that I've updated my camp roster, it will be at the bottom of the preview.

The Rapids certainly attempted to improve this offseason, though I don't think they've done enough yet.

Goalkeeper: Clint Irwin is back and should be the #1.  Sounds like that he's missed some time this week as a player rep in the CBA talks and MacMath is ineligible to play against his home team so Berner could get the start on Saturday.  Based on preseason I think Irwin will be the nominal #1 but I expect he and MacMath to both get starts.  That's bad, but it seems to be Pablo's way.  If the two of them can settle into friendly competition as a way of staying at the top of their game that might work.  If one or the other feels like they're being disrespected we could see a repeat of the second half of 2014.  The silver lining is that I would think Irwin would see MacMath as more worthy of taking starts from him than Nasco and Berner were last season.

Defense: This seems like a mismash of talent that if we can find the right combo with we'll be in good shape, but it might take a while still to figure that out.  I think O'Neill and Harrington will start almost every game they're available for, but the other two positions are murky.  The big question mark is will Moor return to his old level after the injury?  If so that gives us 3 solid positions.  If he doesn't he'll still start for a while but I'm not sure how confident I am in any of the other CBs to play in his place.  Burling has experience, Sjober has the physical stature, and Watts is Watts.

As far as right back this is what I wrote last year:

Right back seems particularly questionable.  O'Neill might be good.  Wynne might be able to move back there.  Bursch might be able to fill in.  There doesn't seem to be a great fit on the roster though.  We can duct-tape our way through another season but we should really look at finding a true right back.

Substitute Riley (if signed) for Wynne and I could use the same statement about this year's team.  One of the areas we failed to address this offseason.

Midfield: The Rapids made their biggest strides this offseason in the middle of the aprk.  Sarvas, Pittinari, and Ramirez all look like solid starters already.  Mix in Powers, Sanchez, Serna and Torres and we've got a MLS-quality midfield with at least a couple of backups.  This should be the strength of the team this season and the key will be figuring out the best 5 (assuming we use the 4-2-3-1 formation we've been seeing in preseason) on a given night.

Forward: Um, yeah, nothing much happened here.  We signed Badji!  Otherwise we're apparently hoping that what we have can get us enough goals until a move can be made.  At this point I think the assumption is that Kevin Doyle will be joining the team but the question is when.  If we have to wait for the July transfer window then Brown, Torres, and Badji are going to have to figure out how to score without a holding forward.  If somehow we can get Doyle before the end of Wolves season then we can probably muddle through for a few games until he gets here.  If we don't make any move at all we're in trouble.

Bench: The quality depth is paper thin in defense and forward.  We saw that in Arizona when anyone but the expected starting group got on the field.  Its not pretty.  Even after the top 7 midfielders things take a nose dive.  The only place where we're absolutely set is goalkeeper.  Lets hope players stay healthy and out of trouble.

Coaching:  I don't see much improvement here.  As far as I can tell Pablo's planned trip to Arsenal to work with Wenger never happened.  Instead he went to 'Boro for a week and spent time with former Rapid and current Boro manager Aitor Karnaka.  No knock on Aitor but that's not exactly the same thing.  No experienced assistant coaches were brought in to help, instead two more of the 2010 midfield were added as rookie coaches, Claudio Lopez and Brian Mullan.  I think its great that so many ex-players are now involved in the club (Jamie Smith from that midfield is working with the Academy) but it was clear last season that Pablo needed some experienced advice to level out some rookie mistakes.  Hopefully he got enough experience on his own I guess.

Overall I think we improved, but the rest of the West improved more on average.

So here are my predictions for the season, last year I got just over half of my predictions correct:

• We're not really a playoff threat this season but we improve from last year's disaster.
• The winless streak reaches 17 games before being broken on Jameson Night
• Pablo makes it through 2015 as coach and is not immediately fired after the season
• We do win back the Rocky Mountain Cup in an upset, its a large part of why Pablo keeps his job
• We host a USOC game but we still go losing a game we were favored in
• Doyle joins in July and proves to be a great, but too late, signing
• Torres wins the team Golden Boot
• Irwin or MacMath leaves at the end of the year if not before
• Ramirez turns out to be worth the young DP slot, but Pittinari returns to Argentina after his loan
• We go most of the season without a jersey sponsor, again

Updated camp roster:

(* = international):

Goalkeepers:
John Berner
Clint Irwin
Zac MacMath

Defenders:
Marc Burch
Bobby Burling
Michael Harrington
Drew Moor
John Neeskens
Shane O'Neill
Axel Sjoberg*

Midfielders:
Carlos Alvarez
Sam Cronin
Marlon Hairston
Nick LaBrocca
Lucas Pittinari*
Dillon Powers
Juan Ramirez*
Marcelo Sarvas
Dillon Serna
Jared Watts

Forwards:
Dominique Badji*
Deshorn Brown*
Caleb Calvert
Charles Eloundou* (not yet in camp, visa issues)
Vicente Sanchez
Gabriel Torres*

Unsigned but still around:
D Joseph Greenspan (draftee, on Naval duty through 2017 probably, was in Vegas)
D Ben Newnam (trialist)
D James Riley
D Grant Van de Casteele
F Kevin Doyle* (negotiating)

Rapids Add Three More Giants In Second Day Of Draft

Today was the second two rounds of the draft.  The Rapids had no picks in the 3rd round but had 3 picks in the 4th and final round.  They had their natural 5th pick, the 16th pick in the trade that sent Rivero to Chivas USA, and the 21st pick from RBNY.  It was a conditional Supplemental Draft pick from the Andre Akpan trade but with the elimination of the Supplemental Draft there were two picks tacked on to the final round of the draft for us and Portland due to prior trades.

Just a reminder, on Thursday we picked a 6'7" and a 6'6" defender.

With our first pick today we took Dominique Badji, striker, out of Boston University.  Badji is 6' tall and came to BU from Senegal.  Reports are he dominated all the physical tests at the combine but needs work on his technical skills.

For our second pick we took 6'4" defender Matt Jeffery out of Monmouth.  Jeffery is the two-time defending MAAC defensive player of the year.

Our final pick was Brandon Fricke from Butler University.  He's a 6'1" defender that has already faced off against our first round pick Axel Sjoberg in college play.

So total in the draft we took 5 players, all 6' tall or more, 4 of which are defenders.  If we get beaten on a defensive header in the box this year somebody is going to have some explaining to do.

Here's an updated roster.  I've now separated out the unsigned players and include two (Alvarez and VDC) who's options weren't picked up and who's names have not come up this offseason, but who still appear on the Rapids roster, despite other players in their situation being removed.  I think that's an indicator that they've at least been invited to camp to earn a contract, or possibly that they're already working on a new contract with the team.

(* = international):

Goalkeepers:
John Berner
Clint Irwin
Zac MacMath

Defenders:
Marc Burch
Bobby Burling
Michael Harrington
Drew Moor
John Neeskens
Shane O'Neill

Midfielders:
Sam Cronin
Marlon Hairston
Dillon Powers
Marcelo Sarvas*
Dillon Serna
Jared Watts

Forwards:
Deshorn Brown*
Caleb Calvert
Charles Eloundou*
Vicente Sanchez*
Gabriel Torres*

Unsigned:
D Brandon Fricke
D Joseph Greenspan (on Naval duty through 2017 probably)
D Matt Jeffrey
D Zat Knight*
D Axel Sjoberg*
D Grant Van de Casteele
M Carlos Alvarez
M Nick LaBrocca
F Dominique Badji*