News: Matt Pickens Waived

Haven't checked my Twitter account in a couple of hours.

It's great news. I hope he gets The starting spot.

 

Good news for Matt and the Revs

 

Good for Matt - glad to see him picked up right away.

 

I'm happy for Matt, too. However, not happy about this, if true:

@TerraceBlog They're still on the hook for most of it.

— Kyle McCarthy (@kylejmccarthy) March 21, 2014

Though I guess if "on the hook" means they pay him, but it doesn't count against the Rapids' cap, that's ok.

 

Ah, the game vs the Revs this year is in New England, 7/30.

 

Let's hope he has a much much better tenure than Burpo.

 

So, the part in the "Roster Rules and Regulations" doesn't sound good:

McCarthy makes it sound like there was some settlement, but it sure sounds like the Rapids will be carrying a lot of dead weight in their salary budget.

 

And it's a Wednesday, so it's really tough for me to go. Stupid Gillette Stadium being an hour south of Boston and having a parking lot designed by Satan.

 

Been there, got the t-shirt ("TWELLMAN" for my son), drove the rental car all the way back to where we were staying near Salem after the match as well. Revs beat the Fire in an Oct. playoff match whatever year that was ...

 

OK, now I feel comfortable saying this. The Rapids f-ed this one up:

So the Revs claim Pickens for free and less than a week later sell him to Tampa, getting allocation money in return. Nice job FO. Oh, and we may still be feeling some salary cap hit from all of this.

 

Sure, but perhaps the Rapids really wanted to give Pickens a chance to stay in MLS (maybe upon his request) and did not go through with selling him to another "lower" league, instead waiving him to go to NE. And how much do you think the Rowdies really gave the Revs for him? If the Rapids are still not stuck with paying his salary then that may be the biggest pay-off for them.

 

Rumored $150K sale, according to the Revs board.

And given how quickly this turned around Matt never had a chance to stick in NE. This was the Revs jumping all over the opportunity to make some free allocation money.

 

Another feather for Bravo's cap, he does seem to find good players to pick-up but usually gets basically nothing for players we trade away. Bravo best ability is finding value off the scrap heap.

Now to hear from all the "Bravo delusional" fans about returns from Thomas, etc which I will toss out Mwanga for our #1 pick in 2015.

Edit: to support Jason's info, retweet from Bianchi.

Ives Galarcep ‏@SoccerByIves ·27 mins
New England Revolution send newly-acquired GK Matt Pickens to NASL's Tampa Bay Rowdies in a transfer. Fee was undisclosed but I hear $150K

 

Logically we should be free of any cap hit he may have had on our 2014 cap, as he's contract has been sold outside the league. Given this is MLS though I can't be 100% sure of that yet.

 

Ok now that's noteworthy trade money. I don't know how the "market place" for available pro-soccer players works in this country but if the Rapids could not find a buyer for Pickens but NE found a home for him that quickly and got paid, I agree there is some 'splanin' to do from our FO.

 

Think we can all agree on this comment:

Ives Galarcep ‏@SoccerByIves ·41 mins
Still a bit head-scratching that Pickens didn't find an MLS starting job. No chance there are 19 MLS starting goalkeepers better than him.

EDIT: MLS soccer article

Pickens holds the Rapids’ club records in career games in goal (116), shutouts (29) and wins (41).

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...-newly-acquired-goalkeeper-matt-pickens-tampa

 

Could very well be that the Revs claimed Pickens thinking he could solve whatever goalkeeping issues they have, and Pickens told them to pound sand and that he wasn't going to play in Foxboro.

 

Some info from the Facebook discussion:

Pickens had a deal worked out with Tampa before the Rapids waived him. Then at the last minute the Revs claimed him on waivers and used that lever to get $150K out of Tampa. Pickens was never going to go to NE, this was just a move by the Revs to get some free allocation money.

Which leaves the question, if Tampa was so interested that the Revs were sure they could get allocation money by picking Pickens up on the waiver wire, why couldn't the Rapids sell him to Tampa for that money?

 

I wonder how the rowdies feel about that move by New England. Sure it's legitimate business, but it appears to border on extortion, assuming that info on Facebook is correct. And yeah, why couldn't the Rapids "extort" a little money of their own?

 

What one calls extortion others call negotiation.

You would think MLS would have rules about this since if presented as above it appears to possibly make teams not want to deal with this structure.

Regardless the Rapids should have gotten something. That part seems clear

 

interesting, Revs TD Mike Burns says they didn't know about the deal with the Rowdies when they claimed him, they wanted him, but the offer from Tampa was too good to pass up.

 

OK, I don't know if this is bizarre MLS rules or FO spin:

http://www.coloradorapids.com/news/2014/03/pickens-deal-good-everybody

So if we sold him to Tampa supposedly we would still be on the hook for part of his salary, but because NE sold him we're off the hook? WTF? And we were on the hook before NE decided to sell him? Nice work there guys...