Player Salaries & Midseason Review Part 1

A few weeks back the Players Union had their annual salary drop but we were going through so many games I didn't have a chance to review it.  Now's a great time to do that, and we're going to combine it with a mid-season review.  We'll go (roughly) position, based on how they're listed on the Rapids website, and go over each player's salary and how they're doing compared to that.  Each player has two values, the first is his base salary, the second is his guaranteed compensation in 2026.  some of the contract and option years are guesses as the contract were signed before the season change was announced, so I'm not sure if a contract thru 2028 is through the 27-28 or the 28-29 season.

Goalkeepers:

Zach Steffen: $1.1M/$1.1M - Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027

I don't think its any surprise to say that Steffen isn't living up to his price this season.  By some measures he's a bottom 10 keeper in MLS this season, and he's been injured.  Nico Hansen hasn't been lights out but he's been better for cheaper.  The Rapids should expect to decline his option this offseason.

Nico Hansen: $160K/$160K Contract Thru: 2027-28 Option Years: 28-29, 29-30

As mentioned Hansen hasn't been great but he's been fine, and at almost a tenth of the price of Steffen.  I'd understand if the Rapids didn't want to name him the #1 going into 2027 (at least not yet) but he should have a shot to compete for the role along with whomever they bring in to replace Steffen.

Adam Beaudry: $113K/$115K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28, 28-29

Beaudry is a work in progress.  Loaned out for this season he's still getting U-20 callups.  As a homegrown its worth continuing to see how he grows.

Central Defenders:

Rob Holding: $1.2M/$1.2M Contract Thru: 2026

Holding has been better than I expected this year, so much so that his salary seems reasonable.  He gives veteran presence to what has been a young backline this season.  He'll be 31 at the end of the season and out of contract.  I'm not sure I want to bring him back for 7-figured, but if he'd take a high 6-figure salary I'd consider giving him a 2 season deal, maybe with a 3rd (28-29) as an option.

Lucas Herrington: $200K/$235K Contract Thru: 28-29, Option Years: 29-30

Obviously the find of the season and one of the best deals in the league.  I did not expect anything this good from an 18-year old moving over from the A-League.  His contract length is pretty much meaningless as it would be absolutely stunning to see him here by the time the 27-28 season starts.  If he plays in the World Cup and plays well we might have a hard time seeing him again in a Rapids kit, but the FO needs to do whatever they can to keep him at least through this season for the USOC run.

Noah Cobb: $130K/$130K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027

Cobb has been a good backup that has had to play more often than I'd like due to fixture congestion.  He'll be 21 next month so he's got plenty of room to grow and I think he has a good skillset.  I'd like to see him extended by a couple of seasons.

Ian Murphy: $400K/$448K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027

Who?  6 minutes of action this year.  If that's all Wells sees in him we should decline the option and release him at the end of the season.

Outside Backs:

Reggie Cannon: $750K/$842K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28

Cannon does a lot of things fine and nothing well.  He's essentially an acceptable MLS outside back being paid a TAM salary.  That doesn't work.  At the same time nobody has claimed the right back spot so there's a chance for him to have a real impact in the second half of the season.  If he doesn't it ight be worth thinking about a buyout in the offseason.  At the very least I think he's done in Colorado after next year's sprint season.

Kosi Thompson: $140K/$145K Contract Thru: 2026

He's a backup being paid like a backup.  I would hate to think he's the best we could do for a starter, but I'm not saying we give up on him either.

Keegan Rosenberry: $300K/$300K Contract Thru: 2027

Keegan is taking the Drew Moor "veteran presence on the bench" role and that's fine.  He's earned that and he can help us out being a late game sub and a very occasional spot starter.  I'm not sure how well he fits into Wells' system but that's not really what you're looking for out of him at this point.  His role is to just protect a lead late.  I'm even fine if they give him another contract at 32 if he wants one.

Miguel Navarro: $498K/$549K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28

Navarro hasn't shown yet he's been worth the "Acquire from Fire, loan to Talleres, sell to Talleres, buy from Talleres" cycle he went through but as a MLS player he's good enough to justify what we're paying him and to compete for the left-back spot.  He's in the prime of his career at 27 so I don't know that we'll see much more than this from him, but that's still better than a lot of left backs we've tried since we sold Sam Vines (the first time).

Jackson Travis: $125K/$128K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027

Travis is lucky he's a homegrown because otherwise I'm not sure he'd have a shot of sticking on the roster after this season.  For every good thing he does he does something bad.  Both he and Navarro seem to have a discipline problem too.  Again, left-back has been a tough spot for us but I think we can do better.

Central Midfielders:

Paxten Aaronson: $2M/$2.23M Contract Thru: 29-30

Aaronson's play has been a recurring topic on the blog this season.  When he's on he's earning his money and looks like the DP we signed.  He's just not on enough.  5 goals and 4 assists since he got here and he went 5 games in a row without any goal contributions in April.  He sees himself as more of a 6 than an 8, which means goal contributions aren't everything, but he's too invisible for long stretches for the highest paid player on the team and the highest cost to acquire in team history.

Hamzat Ojediran: $800K/$882K Contract Thru: 28-29 Option Years: 29-30, 30-31

The best thing you can say about a defensive midfielder is that you don't notice him when things are going well and you don't notice him when things are going badly, for different reasons.  That fits Hamzat the Destroyer this year.  He's had a couple of good offensive contributions and when our defense has broken down I've never seen him being the reason.  I'm a little concerned about how he dropped out of the starting XI the last couple of games, I'm hoping that was just due to the number of minutes we played.

Josh Atencio: $463K/$463K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28

For the first 2/3rds of the season so far I was pretty frustrated with Atencio.  He was not good more often than not and I was wondering what Wells was seeing in him.  The last week or two before the break he really stepped up though and had multiple good games.  Maybe it was just a matter of time for him to find his right spot.  He still takes the occasional stupid card but if he can keep his level like he was showing as the first half wrapped up he should be pushing for starting minutes.

Connor Ronan: $510K/$562K Contract Thru: N/A

The N/A above is because there are multiple reports that the Rapids and Aberdeen have agreed to terms for Ronan to move back to Scotland when the window opens in a week and a half.  Aberdeen is still working out the final details of the contract with Connor but there's no expectation that the deal will fall through.  So Ronan has played his last game in burgundy.  He stood out as somebody who could actually play on the awful 2023 team but he could never reach that level of impact again, possibly because the roster got better around him.

Wayne Frederick: $113K/$113K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027, 27-28

When Wells and Smith made the decision to go with Frederick as the creator and sell Bassett a lot of eyebrows were raised but so far they've been right.  Both Cole and Wayne have 2 goals but Frederick has 5 assists to the former homegrown's 2.  And Frederick is about an eighth of Bassett's salary.  Wayne is going to turn 22 later this month and he still has more to learn, but I'm somewhat confident when he starts now compared to last year when I thought it was a waste.  Like a lot of this team he needs to be smarter, see the red card he took from the bench against Dallas.

Wingers:

Ted Ku-DiPietro: $500K/$556K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28

Starting with two of the U-22 players.  Unfortunately KDP is made of glass.  At this point I think he's missed more games than he's been available for since we acquired him, coming off an injury, last offseason.  If he can stay healthy for any length of time he seems to have some real talent, but as the saying goes the best ability is availability.

Alexis Manyoma: $654K/$712K Contract Thru: July '26 (loan)

Another U-22 player.  Manyoma was brought in on a loan fee with a big purchase clause last summer.  2 starts, 15 appearances, 1 goal. Rumor leaked today that the Rapids won't exercise the purchase clause and he'll return to Estudiantes during the World Cup break.  The right move.   Another Padraig Smith summer-loan special.

Dante Sealy: $150K/$168K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027

Sealy is a 23 year old making sub-$200K that came in with the expectation (due to his acquisition cost) of being a starter and contributor.  He hasn't met that expectation but I'm not sure how much you can blame him for that.  Clearly a purchase for the future, it was just by a team who needs to be winning now.

Georgi Minoungou: $113K/$113K Contract Thru: 27-28 Option Years: 28-29

See Sealy, Dante.  Another high priced acquisition who's not yet ready to be a starter/contributor, though he's a bit closer than Sealy.  He's got the same problem as Jonathan Lewis has, in that he's not afraid to take anyone on, even at time where he should really be passing out of trouble.

Ali Fadal: $113K/$113K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 27-28, 28-29

Been on loan

Forwards:

Rafa Navarro: $1.39M/$1.45M Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28

The first half MVP.  8 goals, 4 assists.  Tailed off a little bit at the end but he was asked to play so much.  1575 out of a possible 1650 minutes.  He was subbed out of the Toronto game with 6 minutes left, and he came into the Union Omaha USOC game in the 69th minute, and otherwise he played every minute of every game, league and cup.  Its not a surprise he only had 2 goals in the last 7 games, but both were in wins.  Another one who could be pursued in this upcoming window but the Rapids have to keep him.

Darren Yapi: $795K/$820K Contract Thru: 28-29 Option Years: 29-30

Yapi got a new contract, one he earned.  Its a little high for what he contributes but as a U-22 player it doesn't hit as hard as it appears.  3 goals and 2 assists so far, on pace for double-digit goal contributions.  I'd like to see him step it up a notch after the break and really give us somebody to rely on without Navarro.

Alex Harris: $88K/$90K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28, 28-29

Had one start and 3 late game sub appearances.  Hasn't done much but you can't expect much at this point.  Good that the coach has enough confidence in him to get him on the field.

Kimani Stewart-Baynes: $115K/$116K Contract Thru: 2026 Option Years: 2027, 27-28

One appearance for 9 minutes.  He looked to be a rising star and got looks from the Canadian Nats, but he hasn't been in their picture at all leading up to the World Cup   I think he's released at the end of the season.  

Sydney Wathuta: $88K/$88K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28, 28-29

One bench appearance this season

Mamadou Billo Diop: $88K/$88K Contract Thru: 27-28 Option Years: 28-29, 29-30

2 appearances, 17 minutes.  Too soon to tell anything.

Bryce Jamison: $113K/$126K Contract Thru: 2027 Option Years: 27-28, 28-29

Been on loan

Donavan Phillip

Been on loan

What I draw from all of this is that we have enough 'replacement level' MLS players, but not enough game changers, and some of the players we're paying to be game changers (Aaronson, Steffen, Cannon) aren't getting the job done.  That matches our results where we can (generally) handle the bad-to-average teams but the good teams are running us over (for the most part).  Our talent isn't high enough to hang with the big dogs. 

This got really long already so I'm going to end it here and come back sometime in the next couple of days to do a part 2 about the coaching staff and where the team sits.

Business Affairs

Around the two games last week there were to notable business items for the Rapids.  In reverse order on Thursday the Front Office and KSE announced that Haley Durmer would be the club's new Chief Business Officer, filling the position vacated by Wayne Brant in the offseason.  Durmer has a history in Major League Baseball, first with the Evil Empire (Yankees) and then most recently with the Seattle Mariners.  She was named to multiple up-and-coming sports executive lists and has had a focus on ticketing, marketing, and partnerships.

As a Mariners fan I can't say I recognize her name but I'm note nearly as tied in with front office names there as I am with the Rapids.  I will say that as a team that underwhelms on the field and struggles for relevance in this market I can't fault the Rapids for recruiting from a team that underwhelms on the field but remains very relevant in their market.  Obviously baseball has a higher profile than soccer but despite only making the playoffs once in the last twenty-three years the M's are regularly a part of the Seattle's sports consciousness in a way that the Rockies aren't in Denver.  If she can bring some of that off-field success from the Mariners to the Rapids it can only be a good thing.

The other, more notable for fans like us, bit of news last week was that on Wednesday the Players Union released the 2025 Salary Guide.

That's fairly small but hopefully you can blow it up.  My options were small or too big to fit.  Thanks Google.  Anyway the key numbers here are for some of our new players.  Atencio $350K, Awaziem $1.4M, Sam Bassett $80K (about a tenth of his brother), Cannon $841K, Hansen $80K, Alex Harris $80K, Ted KDP $456K, Murphy $448K.

There are some steals on that list (Hansen) and some solid numbers.  There are also some players getting paid way more than they should for their performance, mainly in defense.  Awaziem is good, but the highest paid non-DP on the roster?  Cannon has not been a "above max salary" player this year.  Even Murphy seems a bit high.  Add to that the $1.4M we're paying Maxso (rounded, a few thousand less than Awaziem) and $912K for Vines and that's about $5M we're spending on 5 backline players for a backline that's 18th in the league in Goals Allowed.

Outside of the backline the numbers are fairly good, with one notable exception.  Kevin Cabral is getting $2.1M to be a bench warmer.  Now half of that is being paid by the Galaxy but that still means that he's getting more from this team than anyone other than Mihailovic, Navarro, Maxso, and Awaziem.  Brutal.

The good news is that we can get out of Cabral's and Maxso's contract at the end of the year (and Awaziem's too if we wanted to).  Tom Bogert is reporting that we're still on the hunt for a center back even after the Lamkin contract fell through which suggests Maxso will be going by the end of the year of not sooner.  I can't imagine we'll pick up Cabral's option at this point so that will immediately free up about $2.5M.  I assume we will keep Awaziem and hope his level raises with a better partner in central defense.

The other question is hoe to get $1.45M of value out of Navarro.  He's clearly got the talent to be deserving of that but we need tp build a roster and strategy that results in more games like we saw in New England where he's dangerous in creating and scoring goals, not just doing good things that result in no shots.

2024 Salaries

As I mentioned, last week the Players Union released the MLS salaries for 2024.  Rather than doing a bunch of rework I'm stealing this table from Burgundy Wave.  I hope Matt Pollard doesn't mind.

Name	Base Salary	Guaranteed Compensation
Kévin Cabral	$1,950,000	$1,950,000
Djordje Mihailovic	$1,350,000	$1,675,000
Rafael Navarro	$1,125,000	$1,452,708
Andreas Maxsø	$1,150,000	$1,342,500
Zack Steffen	$900,000	$900,000
Lamine Diack	$750,000	$864,150
Sam Vines	$850,000	$862,500
Cole Bassett	$850,000	$850,000
Sidnei Tavares*	$525,000	$750,600
Lalas Abubakar	$665,000	$702,125
Omir Fernandez	$575,000	$636,875
Connor Ronan	$470,000	$522,400
Marko Ilic*	$420,000	$442,850
Jonathan Lewis	$410,000	$435,000
Keegan Rosenberry	$400,000	$400,000
Sam Nicholson*	$350,000	$385,313
Miguel Navarro*	$300,000	$339,000
Aboubacar Keita*	$240,000	$270,313
Jasper Löffelsend	$230,000	$255,833
Sebastian Anderson	$150,000	$150,000
Michael Edwards	$130,000	$130,000
Calvin Harris	$125,000	$127,000
Moïse Bombito	$89,716	$107,928
Oliver Larraz	$100,000	$105,375
Darren Yapi	$89,716	$100,549
Daniel Chacón	$90,000	$97,750
Jackson Travis	$89,716	$92,216
Rémi Cabral*	$89,716	$89,716
Adam Beadury	$71,401	$75,568
Kimani Stewart-Baynes	$71,401	$72,401
Wayne Frederick	$71,401	$71,401
Nate Jones	$71,401	$71,401

The starred players have various exceptions to how they're being paid.  R. Cabral, Keita, M. Navarro, and Ilic are on loan and aren't counting against the cap (and likely their teams are picking up some or all of their salaries.  Tavares and Nicholson were waived by the Rapids so they're still getting paid by us, minus whatever they're making at their new teams.  In Nicholson's case we can subtract his Motherwell salary from that number.  For Tavares he's just playing for Porto B so presumably Porto is still charging us all of the agreed upon loan deal.

Lets take a look at this from bottom to top.  Everyone up to $400K base is arguably making the appropriate amount (or is underpaid in the case of guys like Bombito and Larraz).  I originally thought Harris was not living up to expectations but reviewing things for this post I realized we only paid $200K in GAM for him and he's only getting paid $150K, so I have to say he's doing a good job.  The next name on the list, Jonathan Lewis, is not.  At $410K for a winger that's played for only 101 minutes without a shot on goal is a lot, especially when we paid $650K in TAM to get him initially.  He paid 1188 minutes last season and had 1 goal with no assists.

The next major name standing out as being paid out of line with his contributions (ow or high) is Lalas Abubakar.  He's a top-10 paid player and yet is clearly a substitute as Maxso and Bombito are out playing him.  A max salary player is a lot of money to keep on the bench.

Next up is Cole Bassett, who is probably underpaid, certainly compared to the other top-10 names on this list.  He's even technically below Sam Vines.  Speaking of Sammy, he is not the player that left Colorado in the middle of 2021.  He had a disastrous night against FSL and despite the lack of an obvious replacement I think Armas really has to consider sitting him down for a couple of games to see if he can get back into his groove.  Right now he's not helping anyone at left back.

Now we get to the glaring red flag on this roster (well, one of two of them).  Diack.  On loan her through July he's played...16 minutes.  Essentially we've paid him $50K a minute so far.  Plus the loan fee, whatever it is.  This is a guy that was on loan to Nantes, the Rapids approached Nantes about acquiring him, and Nantes was convinced enough of our interest that they exercised their purchase option on Diack from his Turkish club so they could turn around and loan him to us with a purchase option.  And yet he can't even make the gameday roster for 2 of the 3 games in a 3 game week.  This is another Marko Ilic disaster and hopefully we've learned from that and don't exercise the purchase option.

Next up Zack Steffen, who's been Mr. Inconsistent this season.  He's had really bad games, like Portland and last weekend, but then he's also had some good games and made some impressive saves.  Unfortunately we need the 4th highest paid keeper in MLS to be more than inconsistent.  Using advanced stats he's currently the worst keeper in the league, but again that's largely due to the games he's been really bad in.

4th through 2nd, Maxsø, Navarro, and Mihailovic, all fall into the same category for me.  They are producing solid performances and mostly aren't hurting the team, but they aren't producing at a level to be top 5 paid players on their team.  Really the top 3 paid players because, as we'll get to in a second, the number for Cabral is misleading.  They need to step it up to earn their salaries (and transfer fees) but I don't get worried when I see them in the lineup.

Then we get to the other red flag on the roster, Kevin Cabral.  First of all the Galaxy are paying half his salary, so from the Rapids POV he's actually the 4th highest paid player, not the 1st.  Not that it changes anything, he's grossly overpaid for what he does.  Add to that we shipped $1m in GAM to LA just to get him and in the last season+ we've essentially spent just short of $3M on a player that's managed 1805 minutes, 3 goals, and 4 assists (and i think the assists have been generously helped with the use of secondary assists).  We knew it at the time and nothing in the last 48 games has changed this opinion.  
He is a horrible waste of salary, an international slot, and a DP slot and the best thing the Rapids can do is to use the new additional buyout being added midseason and move on from him.

So that's it.  Really we only have 4 players of note who are meeting or exceeding their expectations & salary (Bassett, Bombito, Harris, and Larraz), we have another group that are playing well enough but not up to expectations or just isn't getting enough time to know, and then a important group of high paid players who aren't anywhere close to earning their money.  Until we fix that we're only ever going to be a "in the hunt for a playoff spot" team.

2023 Rapids Salaries

Its halftime in Atlanta-Colorado, we're down 1-0 with 0.1xG, and Atlanta missed a PK already.  I don't see it getting any better so on to the salary info.  Here's the raw data, the first number is the base salary, the second is the 2023 guaranteed compensation.

 

Lalas	Abubakar	$665,000.00	$702,125.00
Bryan	Acosta	$675,000.00	$731,667.00
Max	Alves da Silva	$232,000.00	$313,360.00
Sebastian	Anderson	$120,000.00	$121,667.00
Michael	Barrios	$650,000.00	$680,000.00
Cole	Bassett	$450,000.00	$450,000.00
Steven	Beitashour	$150,000.00	$172,500.00
Moïse	Bombito	$67,360.00	$85,572.00
Kévin	Cabral	$1,800,000.00	$1,800,000.00
Michael	Edwards	$125,000.00	$125,000.00
Braian	Galván	$365,700.00	$462,022.00
Alex	Gersbach	$230,000.00	$270,433.00
Calvin	Harris	$100,000.00	$113,000.00
Marko	Ilić	$350,000.00	$382,489.00
Aboubacar	Keita	$160,000.00	$160,000.00
Oliver	Larraz	$85,444.00	$85,444.00
Jonathan	Lewis	$410,000.00	$435,000.00
Danny	Leyva	$200,000.00	$224,900.00
Anthony	Markanich	$68,775.00	$68,775.00
Andreas	Maxsö	$1,100,000.00	$1,292,500.00
Sam	Nicholson	$325,000.00	$360,313.00
Jack	Price	$762,500.00	$825,000.00
Ralph	Priso-Mbongue	$89,716.00	$89,716.00
Abraham	Rodriguez	$88,200.00	$88,200.00
Connor	Ronan	$460,000.00	$512,400.00
Keegan	Rosenberry	$400,000.00	$400,000.00
Diego	Rubio	$660,000.00	$704,667.00
Jackson	Travis	$67,360.00	$69,860.00
Gustavo	Vallecilla	$336,000.00	$368,880.00
Collen	Warner	$85,444.00	$85,444.00
Danny	Wilson	$330,000.00	$354,750.00
Darren	Yapi	$85,444.00	$96,277.00
William	Yarbrough	$400,000.00	$475,000.00

A couple of notes.  About half of Kevin Cabral's $1.8M salary is being paid by the Galaxy.  $92K of Danny Leva's salary is being paid by Seattle.  All of Gustavo  Vallecilla's salary is being paid by Columbus.  I don't know why both Vallecilla and Leyva are listed as Rapids, it should be one or the other.  And I have no idea why Warner is still listed.

Using the raw numbers the Rapids are 20th in spending in the league, but when you make those adjustments I just listed they fall to 26th.

The Rapids spend the smallest percentage of their salary on their top3 and top 5 players of any team in MLS, but those numbers were calculated with the raw data above.  I can't quite figure out how the Athletic ran their calculation but I doubt its going to get much better for the Rapids if you use the adjusted data. Maxsø is the 6th highest paid defender in the league.

On to individual salaries, Cabral is not yet earning his $900K as a DP, but at least we're only paying that much and not all $1.8M.  I'm not sure he's even the most overpaid player on the team though, as Acosta is getting a ridiculously high $730K+, which makes no sense for a guy who wouldn't start if everyone was healthy.  Abubakar isn't good enough to be a max salary player but he's probably a $500K player so he's not far off.  Max is eating $313K while dealing with his match fixing accusation.

For the best deals on this list I'm looking at Rosenberry at $400K and Priso and Yapi at under $100K each.  Yarbrough at $475K is a good deal as well.  Gersbach and Cabral are overpaid for what they've contributed so far in their first season but the rest of the new guys all come in at decent numbers.

Its really hard to tell what cap space (if any) we have as we don't know how much GAM or TAM is being spent on this roster.  There must be a significant amount as our senior roster is way over the salary cap (as is most team's).  Hopefully there's room for some summer moves.