Rapids Soccernomics Explained

 Ok, so Burgundy Wave actually put up my article tonight.  Check it out here:

Rapids Soccernomics Explained

Mihailovic Reportedly Signed, Info On Steffen

Thanks to the great work from Tom Bogert at the Athletic, Matt Pollard at Bugundy Wave, and Braidon Nourse at the Denver Post, taking over the Rapids beat from Brendan Ploen (who we wish well in his new job in Chicago) we got a bunch of information about the two big names we've been talking about this week.

First, Bogert is reporting that Djordje Mihailovic has passed his medical and the contract is done.  So expect to see that announcement from the Rapids on Monday or Tuesday.  Nourse has independently confirmed Bogert's report and is also reporting it will be a 4-year deal with a team option for a 5th year.  Also confirmed is that its Maxso who will be bought down from his DP status, leaving the DP's as Cabral, Navarro, and Mihailovic.  Nourse says that club sources have told him that a #6 is a priority, and "there are expected to be multiple additional inbound moves both domestically and internationally."

Both players are expected to arrive before the reporting date a week from today (Saturday the 13th).  That's something I didn't give the Front Office credit for in my last post.  We've seen this Front Office (and historically, the Rapids FO many years) struggle to get deals done in preseason, resulting in players showing up after camp has already started or once, infamously, the club met Joe Mason the first time in Boston's Logan Airport when they arrived for the season opener against New England.  So credit should be given for getting these two big moves done before camp even opens.

On the Steffen front, Burgundy Wave reported that they've confirmed that Steffen arrived on a free transfer, which is a nice bit of business from the FO.  Man City took a both on his acquisition but they can afford it, we can't.  So expect Steffen to be making right at the max-TAM salary of around $1.6M.

Speaking of Burgundy Wave, keep an eye out on the site tomorrow for an article I wrote for them.  I'll link it here assuming it does go live as expected.

Steffen Official

As expected the Rapids made the Zack Steffen signing official today.  He's signed through the 2026 season with a team option for 2027 on a TAM deal.  As part of the deal Colorado sent $50K of GAM to the Revolution for his rights.  There was no mention of the Yarbrough deal with San Jose, I expect that will drop tomorrow.  There's no mention of what transfer fee was paid, but seeing that he's not a DP it can't be that high, Burgundy Wave believes no more than $2 million.

Speaking of Burgundy Wave, they have learned as part of the Rapids move to bring Americans who are looking for a new start home from Europe (Steffen, Mihailovic) that the club reached out to see if there was any interest from Sam Vines to return to the club after not getting much playing time this season with Royal Antwerp and the response from Vines was that there was no interest.  He has played their last couple of games and at age 24 I'm sure he still feels like he has a future in Europe, even if Antwerp doesn't work out.  Plus you have to wonder if the way things ended between Richard Fleming and the club has any impact (for those who don't know, Sam is engaged to Jessica Fleming, Richard's daughter).

Colorado On The Verge Of Signing Two Americans

Tom Bogert at the Athletic broke two major stories about the Rapids today.  First, that the rumored deal for Zack Steffen from Man City is done, its a 3-year deal with a team option for a 4th year, and he won't take a DP slot.  Bogert reported that Steffen has passed his medical.  The team seemed to later confirm this report by posting a teaser on social media, specifically "0161 -> 303" which are the primary phone codes for Manchester and Denver, followed by a pair of glove emojis.

Bogert's second report was that the club is nearing agreement on a club-record $3M transfer fee for attacking midfielder Djordje Mihailovic from AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands.  Reportedly he's been held out of training as the final details get worked out and he takes his medical.  The Rapids didn't go so far in confirming this report, but they did post a meme suggesting more deals are to come.  At this point I feel fairly confident that Steffen will be announced tomorrow and Mihailovic will likely be next week.

Since we're certain Steffen is signed, we'll start there.  He'll be in 29 in early April. coming off leading Middlesbrough to a 4th placed finish in the Championship in the 22-23 season (6 points better than my Rovers) before being eliminated in the promotion playoffs 1-0 in a 2-legged series.  He then had knee surgery and hasn't played regularly since.  He mad ~ 20 appearances for Man City in his time at the club.  Before that he was the regular starter for the Crew from 2017 through his transfer to Man City midway through the 2019 season.  He has also, at times, been the #1 for the U.S. but due to injury and a decrease in his play he didn't make the squad for the 2022 World Cup.  Part of his goal in moving to Colorado is almost certainly to move back up the depth chart for the U.S.

There has been no report on what fee, if any, we're paying for Steffen.  For reference Man City paid $7 million to get him from the Crew.  Obviously we're not paying anything close to that.  He's on a $3M contract at City, but given that he's reportedly not a DP he's making at most ~$1.6M with us (the max-salary for a TAM player).  So taking about a 50% pay cut.  This is a big investment for the Rapids, and comes on the heels of buying Marko Ilic this past summer.  Burgundy Wave reported that we paid $800K for Ilic, plus possibly a bit more in performance clauses, and he's making $430K.  So in the last ~6 months we've invested $2M in salary and probably at least $1M in transfer fees in goalkeeping...all while having William Yarbrough as our capable starter already signed.

Speaking of Will, Bogert's report is that his rights have been traded to San Jose as part of this deal.  No report as to what we got out of the trade, but probably something on the order of $50K in GAM, since its just the MLS rights to an unsigned player.

Maybe its just me, but this seems like digging out of a hole we created unnecessarily.  The move for Ilic never made much sense from the beginning, starting with loaning in a guy only through July 5th, when he'd be lucky to get more than a couple of spot starts in MLS play and a couple of Open Cup matches before we would need to make a decision, to then deciding to purchase him.  By the end of the season he seemed like a less-capable keeper than Yarbrough but maybe good enough to play in MLS.  Credit to the Front Office for realizing that we had weakened that position and moving to reinforce it, but maybe we shouldn't have spent time weakening it when we had so many other problems?  And really, with LAFC having signed Loris and having a couple of MLS capable keepers who are looking for homes there may have been a cheaper way of fixing this problem.  Still, I expect Steffen to play very well for us so its a positive step from that point of view.

Next up a more expensive move that makes more sense, Djordje Mihailovic.  He got his start in the Chicago Fire academy and with the Fire for 4 seasons.  He really broke out as an attacking mid and a winger after being traded to Montreal (for $1M in GAM) before the 2021 season.  Over two years in Canada he made 61 appearances, scoring 13 times and adding 22 assists.  That let to him being sold for $7 million to AZ Alkmaar last August.  Unfortunately things didn't work out as he had hoped in the Netherlands, and along with the fact that he and his partner are expecting in May it was time to come home and get a fresh start.

Mihailovic got a look from the Nats back in 2019 but was not part of the squad leading up and through the World Cup.  He's had 5 callups in 2023 though and at 25 still has time to claim a spot on the team, though with our talent up front likely as a substitute.

This is absolutely the type of player a team like the Rapids should be looking at, so I'm very happy with this move on the field.  I'm not sure how you get Mihailovic, Ronan, Bassett, and the #6 we desperately need on the field at the same time though, unless you play Mihailovic on one wing and Fernandez on the other in a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1.  Djordje would clearly be the best midfielder on the team though, so its more about how to work Ronan/Bassett in than him.

I do question a bit making him the highest transfer ever paid by the Rapids.  Before this the record was the $2.65 million spent on Juan Ramirez in 2015 (and by the gods was that move even worse than I realized, but that's for another time).  Mihailovic has shown a lot of potential, but he feels more like a guy you put on a max-TAM deal at most.  He's currently AZ Alkmaar's highest paid player at ~$1M a year, so its really only the transfer fee that makes him a DP (likely).  It will be interesting to see the exact terms of this deal, it feels like with some creativity there might be a chance to get it low enough to be that max-TAM move and leave that DP slot open.  If we can't, Maxsø will have to be bought down to a TAM deal to open the DP slot.

Finally, Bogert mentioned that the Rapids aren't done yet, so we'll see what else in in the plan.  Today it appears the club is spending somewhere north of $3M in transfer fees and likely $2.5-$3M in salary, which is a singificant unexpected step, but one in a good direction.

Rapids Waive Scottish Duo

New year, new news.  Colorado waived defender Danny Wilson and midfielder Sam Nicholson today.  Wilson first joined the team as part of the influx of players Anthony Hudson brought in in 2018.  After a much-to-large contract to start given his leve3l of play his second contract came down to a reasonable level for an decent starting defender in MLS.  Unfortunately over the years MLS's level rose while Wilson's didn't (and arguably declined) to the point where he's really only backup quality now, and we're paying him more than that.  He gave us good service over the years and hopefully he's successful moving on.

Sam Nicholson first joined the team in 2018 under Hudson as well, and was a solid player in his first stint, and a fan favorite.  During the pandemic he was released due to family issues that needed him to return home, and played for two years for Bristol Rovers before returning to the Rapids in the summer of 2022.  Unfortunately by that time the progress of the league had moved past Nicholson and he was unable to bring that same level of impact to the team.  It was clear last year that he wasn't going to be more than an occasional bench player going forward.  Releasing him also frees up an international slot.

Both these moves were necessary to move forward, and its more of the rebuilding we all knew needed to happen.  The Rapids now have 24 players under contract, including Generation Adidas draftee Kimani Stewart-Baynes.  At last report they were still negotiating to bring Yarbrough back, but the rumors around Steffen suggests that they expect to move on from him.