Keegan Rosenberry Extended 3 Years

Colorado announced today that team captain Keegan Rosenberry has signed a new contract taking him through the 2028 season.  That would be his 10th season as a Rapid and he would be 35 just after that season ends.  Should he play out the contract in Colorado he would have a good chance of passing Pablo Mastroeni for the team record in appearances and possibly starts.  He needs 57 more appearances, or less than 15 per season for the next 4 seasons, and 51 starts.  He needs 3246 minutes to pass Pablo for most in team history, that's 9 full games in each of the next 4 seasons.

I'm more than a little shocked by this move.  I really thought with the signing of Reggie Cannon and the fact that the captain's play has diminished a bit in the last couple of years that the team was getting ready to move on from Keegan.  Instead he's going to settle in and take over Drew Moor's role of wise defensive leader.  I do expect that by the end of the contract he'll likely be a super sub more than a starter.

You Get A New Contract! Any You Get A New Contract! And You Get A New Contract!

A busy day in Commerce City as Padraig Smith was handing out contracts like he was Oprah.  4 existing Rapids got contract extensions and we welcomed new signing Bryan Acosta.  Starting with the extensions:

• Defender Keegan Rosenberry got an extension through the 2024 season, with a team option for 2025
• Midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye got an extension through 2025 with an team option for 2026
• Defender Danny Wilson got an extension through 2023 with team options for 2024 and 2025
• Midfielder and team captain Jack Price got an extension through 2023 with team options for 2024 and 2025

Those last two were originally announced, erroneously, as extensions through 2024 with options for the next two seasons.

These are all great moves for the club, locking up the core of the team for the next 4 seasons.  And with the option years there's flexibility at the end as well.  There was some scuttlebutt that Jack Price might want to go home, but that seems to have been more wishful thinking from some MLSSoccer.com commentators than anything real.

The addition of Bryan Acosta today was probably the big news.  He's on a two-year deal with a team option for 2024.  When he was signed with Dallas he was signed as a DP, but that was due to his transfer fee, so with Colorado he won't fill one of those slots.  His contract last year was for $650K, and the Rapids could have selected him in the first round of the Re-Entry Draft, which would have brought him here on his Dallas contract's option number.  The fact that we didn't do that suggests to me that we only wanted to sign him at a lower number, so he won't be a max salary player this year, though I'm sure he'll be a high earner.

Bryan Acosta is a 28 year old Honduran midfielder.  He's more attack-minded than Kellyn was, and he's particularly skilled at distribution and playing the ball into dangerous spaces.  He does have a very bad habit of taking shots from 35 yards out that end up 35 feet over the goal though.  He also doesn't have the defensive skills of Kellyn, which has me concerned that our midfield will lack the ability to stop players playing through it, resulting in a lot of pressure on our back line.

Acosta is a fairly regular player for the Honduran National Team.  We'll likely see him miss time in late March for the final round of World Cup qualifiers, but barring a miracle turn-around Honduras is not going to qualify (they are in last place, 11 points out of the playoff spot with 6 games left) so that's all the time he should really miss.  While Honduras may play some friendlies over the rest of 2022 I can see the Rapids being somewhat resistant to letting him go outside of any required windows.  This is different from Kaye (or Kellyn) in that there are good chances their teams qualify for Qatar and they'll be needed for warm-ups over the year.

A very busy day of business from Colorado today, and one that largely set the midfield for the next couple of years.  In a Q&A this afternoon Smith talked about the team actively pursuing a #9 signing in this window, so I think that's the last major piece before the season starts.

Acosta, Rosenberry, and Rubio Signed To Long-Term Deals

So I had two of the three right in my prediction, but it was Rubio instead of Ford that got the contract extension.  Big news to tie up three of our big young players to long-term deals.  The exact details:

Kellyn Acosta - 2019-2021 guaranteed, 2022 and 2023 on team option deals
Keegan Rosenberry - 2019-2022 guaranteed
Diego Rubio - 2019-2022 guaranteed

Prior to these signings 2020 was a team option year for Acosta, Rosenberry was out of contract at the end of 2019, and Rubio was on a team option year in 2019 (with an unknown status for 2020).

Some Rapids fans are already questioning why we would sign two players who have yet to play a competitive game in burgundy and blue to long-term deals.  Beyond the concerns over their contract status, where at least one of them if not both could walk away for nothing at the end of the season, these are two young players with great interest within the league and (in Rosenberry's case) interest from the National Team.  Worst case scenario these guys don't fit in and we can pretty easily flip them to another MLS team.  More likely though these three are core members of the Rapids for the next 3 seasons with possibilities to sell them down the line.

Great long-term planning from the Front Office tonight.

News and Notes 1/22/19

Ok, a few news and notes from today.

Starting with the big one.  Tim Howard announced he's retiring at the end of 2019 today.  I don't think anyone was surprised by the news, but it calls the end to a great career.  From the Metrostars to Everton to the 'Secretary of Defense' to the Colorado Rapids he's been the top keeper everywhere he plays.  While age, and that injury at the end of 2016, have taken their toll his leadership on and off the field has been key.  Enjoy one last season with arguably the best keeper in American history (I'd argue Friedel was better ;) ).

Secondly if you didn't see my revision to yesterday's post, I was wrong about the international statuses.  We only have 6 slots, not 7, and Boateng got his green card last season.  So we currently have 7 internationals and that assumes Shinyashiki does have his green card.  So we still need to make a move.

On the schedule front the Rapids announced that the Wednesday July 17th home game against Minnesota will now be played on Saturday June 8th.  This will push the game into the gold Cup window so some players may be missing, but I'm all for that trade off to get another Saturday night game and remove a weeknight game.

Lastly the final rosters for the upcoming U.S. friendlies were announced and Keegan Rosenberry will be part of them.  Kellyn Acosta did not make the cut and will leave u.S. camp in California to join up with the Rapids in Florida.

Rapids Make Yet Another Move

I'm not used to a Rapids FO that's this active before Christmas (or even before the Desert Diamond Cup!).  Colorado made another move today, sending bags of MLS funny money to Philly for RB Keegan Rosenberry.  Officially we sent $150K in GAM and $50K in TAM this year and $100K in GAM next year.  There's another 100K in GAM that could go to Philly next year based on Rosenberry's performance.  Like I said, lots of funny money.

Keegan is 25 years old and played for Philly's youth team, but not long enough to be considered a homegrown player.  After going to Georgetown the Union selected him 3rd in the 2016 draft and immediately started every game his rookie year.  He was in and out of favor with coach Jim Curtin in 2017 but reclaimed his starting spot this year, starting all but 3 games.  He's also been on the edge of the National Team picture, getting one invite to the January camp already but not yet appearing for the team.  BTW, this year's January camp roster is revealed tomorrow and some are saying Rosenberry could be on it.

While $300-$400K in funny money is a high price to pay getting a 25-year old borderline National Team player at a position of need is probably worth it.  Nobody settled in and claimed that spot last season and I fully expect Rosenberry to own the spot going forward.  The only down side is that this is Rosenberry's last year of his contract so if for some reason he doesn't want to re-sign he could walk away to another league at the end of 2019 and we'd end put paying Philly in 2020 for a player we no longer have.  I have my doubts that would happen, but it would be great to get him signed to a new deal.

Going into the offseason I said we needed to add 3 clear MLS starter level players, at least 2 in attack, if we were going to be serious about turning this mess around.

• Kamara - Clear starter, attacker
• Rosenberry - Clear starter
• Rubio - Almost a clear starter, attacker
• Mezquida - Not quite a clear starter but serious potential, attacker

I think combining Rubio and Mezquida counts as one, so I have to say the FO came though, and before Christmas!

Guess I'll need to renew my season tickets after the holidays...