2017-18 Roster Movement Thread

Given Benny’s late season swoon we now need a proven scorer and a playmaker.

 

late season swoon? Benny hasn't exactly had a good season period. At least not by the standards we've come to expect.

Need to get younger too, Melia, Sinovic, Besler, Zusi, Espinoza, Feilhaber (all starters, over half of arguably our best XI this year) are the wrong side of 30.

 

So what no name or past their prime attacking options will we pick up this year that we will have to try and be excited about?

I'm also looking forward to the possibility of a formation change. Perhaps a 4-3-3. Or a 4-3-3.

Who will win the beep drill to become the next king of sporting fit?

 

I hate soccer.

 

Yeah, I'm kind of there right now. I mostly just hate MLS and how SKC is approaching it.

MLS: Let's expand the league to 67 teams and completely dilute the talent pool.

SKC: Getting sofaking frustrated watching a team with no clue how to actually play soccer on the offensive end.

I've moved out of Kansas City and maybe its time to move on from SKC and perhaps even MLS.

 

Vermes out.

 

Wrong choice of words on Benny. I should have said the inability of Benny to step his game up in crunch time this year tells me he can’t be relied upon to be our main playmaker.

 

i'm not on the out entirely bandwagon, but i am for him being off the sidelines next year. 'course i've been for that for a long time now.

 

I used to think that PV the Technical Director was still viable, even if PV the Manager is not. The problems with that are:

1) In what universe is a maniac like PV going to give up any part of his control?
2) More importantly, PV the Technical Director has some serious shortcomings. Who's to blame for a lack of good bench options last night? Who's to blame for a near decade's worth of horrible forward play? Who's to blame for a roster filled with aging players with no obvious replacements around? Are we really going to overhaul the roster with brand new players? And if so, why should we expect the Technical Director to all of a sudden bring in a bunch of quality Starting XI players when his track record is decidedly mixed?

It's time. It's been time. But now it needs to happen. Vermes out.

 

Besler, Zusi, Ilie, Melia, maybe Roger, we don't have to worry about. Ike was amazing again in the playoffs, but we do have to worry about his injury history. Seth had a great season, but I think there's cause for concern there.
No member of that front line leaves us without concerns. And Benny? Is this the return of Bad Benny, is he aging poorly, did we simply not have a side that could take advantage of his skills?
Our most dangerous attacker this season was Gerso, and I'm not sure he will be around next year.
It's always better to tweak a lineup than do a teardown/rebuild.
But can we do that? Can we trust on our four frontmen to play significant roles, and improve if we bring in a focal point and a high quality wing? Would that improve Benny? Gerso?
Can we get by with Medranda at LB (he was solid in the playoff, and he's a good player whereever he goes, but not one who will ever score a lot). Can Didic step in for two months if Ike goes down? Losing EPB is a blow.
And backup keeper sounds like a small thing, a barely worth thinking about this, but FFS...
How many Garberbucks do we have? Did we get the full $1.6m for Dwyer, and we get a new like $1.2m on top of that, plus what we've saved, so maybe $3.5m?
So that means we can buy down all of our DPs and have three open slots (with enough left over for an extra year or two)? It would be nice to use those slots. But are we willing to go in that deep?

 

i'm not directly disagreeing with anything you say here, but there are extenuating circumstances. when you're the only guy in charge of it all, i reckon you'll have a very strong ability to rationalize shortcomings. however, if you have a separate head coach who's managing this team day in and day out and he tells you that we need another forward/midfielder, you might be more inclined to listen to him. now, that would fly directly in the face of point #1 on your list there, but anyway...

 

We'll see if I have the patience or coherence to write up everything I'm thinking for this offseason. I'll give it a shot, because what does the internet love if not my opinions?

First priority: Vermes soul-searching. I don't think he has to go. But how could he possibly not look at the last four years of identical results, identical problems, and identical failures and not think that maybe it's tied to his approach to his team? The 4-3-3 is hamstrung in the modern game. All three midfielders need to be workhorses, which means the creativity needs to come from the wings. And if the coach is demanding that the wings be workhorses instead of playmakers, you get a five man midfield with several players playing outside their strengths. And limited creativity. It's weird watching this team, as the offense is often rigid in where players are positioned, but the vaunted defense is often incredibly chaotic. But that's neither here nor there. The issue is Vermes and his lack of viable solutions. I don't really have a cure for it, but I honestly think he could find one. If he can't, then it's clear the league has left him in the dust.

But let's continue by assuming the 4-3-3, sigh.

Players to definitely keep for next season: Ilie. Opara, Besler. Melia. Gerso. Zusi, honestly. I have no problems with Rubio if he isn't expected to play 90 every game. One of Feilhaber or Espinoza. And I suppose there's some consideration for Medranda, Salloi, SAS, and Blessing, as they're all cheap and often workable. That's not to say everyone in there should be a starter, either. But those are guys we'd be less without.

Primary needs:

1. A third CB
2. Striker, as starter
3. Playmaking winger to go opposite Gerso--or a wide forward for goals, if we get
4. A playmaking midfielder

And then it's all depth from there. Left back depth. Center mid depth, very much. We have three players guaranteed to get absolutely ground into the dirt by the coach's demands. So we need guys who can passably step in, take games, and save us. I think if we get that starting striker and starting winger, we have no problems with front line depth--just need front line growth from the kids, plus some confidence.

That's all a little more concise than it was in my head. That never happens. Anyways. I expect we'll shell out amazing sums of upwards of $300,000 to snag randos, and we will not see more than two new starters signed at all. Probably one. Depends on if any players leave for greener pastures in the offseason.

 

I bet PV is currently scouring tapes from the Comets open tryouts to find next year's starting CF.

 

I don't think he should go, but I understand the arguments. That said, you, I, and everyone here know it's not going to happen (unless he decides to leave).

 

In Vermes defense, we won the Open Cup.
That is not a small deal. Vermes is a silverwarewolf.
But especially at high pressure times, quality costs. The outlier this year was Houston, lowest salary spending in MLS.
But, besides Houston, we spent more on players than Montreal, DC, Minnesota, New England and Dallas,
The full pay table, with LA as a huge outlier and Colorado a lesser one, pretty much follows the actual table, and remember these numbers are from before we traded DD, so take away something like 40 percent of his salary which would put us just about where Dallas is:

Rank Club Base Salary Compensation
1. Toronto $20,153,697.00 $22,478,565.27
2. NYC FC $17,370,525.68 $17,930,365.69
3. Orlando $12,382,053.80 $13,219,199.70
4. Chicago $12,272,624.00 $12,952,278.17
5. Los Angeles $9,768,662.64 $12,117,892.11
6. Portland $9,294,532.04 $10,824,144.54
7. Seattle $9,052,852.89 $10,372,300.48
8. Atlanta FC $7,958,612.04 $8,930,754.26
9. Vancouver $7,040,366.08 $8,079,371.07
10. Colorado $7,254,748.75 $8,040,619.75
11. Real Salt Lake $7,156,440.44 $7,734,355.44
12. Philadelphia $6,516,876.00 $7,117,010.10
13. San Jose $6,429,566.00 $6,959,287.11
14. New York Red Bulls $6,313,982.00 $6,895,186.17
15. Columbus FC $6,345,232.48 $6,747,544.99
16. Kansas City $6,365,856.00 $6,730,358.78
17. FC Dallas $5,690,579.28 $6,510,760.94
18. New England $5,406,993.25 $5,800,118.33
19. Minnesota United FC $4,926,046.04 $5,322,864.55
20. DC United $4,812,135.44 $5,272,447.94
21. Montreal $4,995,921.08 $5,215,855.89
22. Houston $4,837,899.98 $5,025,066.65
Depending on how far Houston and NYRB go, and maybe toss in Vancouver, SKC got more bang for the buck than any MLS club. We did, after all, win the Open Cup, and we made the playoffs.
I'd like to win another MLS Cup, but we're going to have catch lightning in some young, cheap players coming up, and we didn't this year, and we're going to need career years from others. Ilie, Zusi, Melia and Opara obliged.
Question, is it realistic for us to expect SKCm with the garber bucks abounding, to spend $8m on 2018?

 

I agree with the post, but I do wonder about the Rubio sentiment. Only Rubio consistently gets called a diver by the national folks. the Univision folks must has called him "a Master of the Dark Arts" a dozen times.
We complain on here about Blessing, but he's been much, much better since his first couple weeks.
On you list, 1 is fairly doable for us. 2 apparently is impossible. 3 we've shown an ability and willingness to address.
It really comes down to 4, doesn't it?

 

I don't blame you.

 

Robb Heineman on Twitter tonight: "Guarantee we'll fix it. We will invest in #9 and #10." I guess that settles it, since we all know from past experience how much we can count on him to follow through when he says something like this.

 

In regards to Rubio, the guy is a 60 minute player. Leave him in all game, he'll get tired and lazy and start going down really easily. He just doesn't have a Dwyer level motor, and what Vermes and a bunch of skc fans need to realize is is that that's not a bad thing. Not necessarily. Give him an appropriate amount of minutes, he'll be less exhausted and frustrated, while more motivated to score in the time he's out there. Again, just my impression. He's got talent and plenty of yet unlocked potential, but playing him like he got the last month or two will net us very little.

 

Please no more "we won Open Cup". It's a tournament that is NOT prioritized by the better teams. A historically awful DC United won a few years ago. We were within minutes of playing a bad USL team in the final. It's not even televised. So we can win the tournament that good clubs punt on. So what.

"We won the Open Cup" is great for clubs that are building not clubs that are top tier. Toronto won the Shield. They're the best team in MLS by miles no matter what happens in the post season. For once, I'd like to contend for the shield, not a consolation trophy that literally the worst team in the league (DC) can win.

 

A. Always take anything he says with a grain of salt.
B. Just because they've said they've tried for certain type of players and not signed them doesn't mean they didn't actually try to get them. (Now I won't argue that they could probably be more successful in this if they would throw a little more money on the table for said players.)

As Matt Doyle said in his club-by-club end of season break down, he's a soon to be 25 year old that has only scored 25 top flight goals in his career. If he's back as a depth player (and he's actually used instead of just running our starting forward into the ground) I'm fine with it. If he comes back in as our expected starter, I don't see our goal scoring improving.

 

Sorry, but no.
Toronto total team spending for 2017: $22,478,565.27
SKC total team spending for 2017: $6,730,358.78 (and. as noted, we shed a bit of that when we sold DD).
We do not have the money to sign players like Gio, or Altidore, or Bradley (proven,as we tried). It's easier to win a cup, Open or MLS, with a lesser roster than a SShield, which requires sustained excellence. Coming as close as we have in the past is a testament to what we do very well. but this league is getting better and better and a SS is a much bigger ask than it was four years ago.
My bottom line, I support SKC, and I will enjoy our success, just as I will mourn our failures.
We faded at the end of the season and stumbled at first asking in the playoffs, and that sucks.
But we won the Open Cup, and whether or not others were pushing as hard, they did compete. and I don't buy your premise. NYCFC did not want to lose to NYRB. Atlanta cared about getting beat by Miami, just as Chicago was embarassed to Cinci.
At the end of the season, there are only three pieces of silverware possible, and we have one of them, and one that rigtly puts us in the Champions League, as we are champions. As for DC winning it, that is the beauty of Cup football, always has been. Anything can happen.
I, also, will celebrate MLS Cup and SS wins, but your complaint sounds like a Groucho Marx take, it's not joining any club that would have us..

 

Agreed, give him 11 starts over the course of a season and cups to spell a legit striker, and he's an asset, and may well get six valuable goals.