Marvin Ceballos

Hmmmmmmm. Peter Wilt single-handedly occupies a pair of executive positions for the Indy Eleven - President and General Manager - that the Krafts employ two people to fill. And despite being tasked with handling all of the responsibilities that go with each of said executive positions, Mr. Wilt was able to successfully make the acquisition of Marvin Ceballos "come to fruition".

Imagine that. One man capable of acquiring young and dynamic international players, while simultaneously helping to build an engaged and energetic supporter base, and TWICE advancing discussion regarding the financing of a soccer stadium for his team to the state legislative level. All in the span of just over 2-1/2 years!

So, when are Brian Bilello and Mike Burns up for their next (perfunctory) performance reviews?

 

It should not be lost on people that when Peter Wilt was let go from Chicago (in favor of the guy who "masterminded" the brilliant Metro Playoff Fever campaign), the Revolution did not even return his calls.

Chicago was a model franchise when Wilt was running it, and now? They are everything we love to hate, that is if they didn't suck so bad we can't even muster up enough hate.

 

C'mon. Ceballos more than likely signed with Indy because they valued him more than the Revs did (and could promise him playing time), not because one can close a deal while the other can't.

Now, maybe Indy's valuation is better than the Revs, but while many other potential deals may have hinged on closing, I really doubt that was the issue here.

Apparently neither did anyone else in MLS.

 

I'm willing to accept that Ceballos wasn't the player that Burns/Heaps/whoever thought that he'd be, and we made a smart move not signing him. But implicit in that acceptance is that Burns/Heaps/whoever apparently wasted a lot of time on a player not good enough for MLS. Even if we avoided a lemon in Marvin, we can safely ask why the hell we always seem to be picking over the lemon pile in the first place....

 

And the other thing about Wilt is that at the time, there were only a few teams with a possible opening. The fact that others didn't hire him says nothing about whether they had conversations and either side decided that it wasn't the right fit, etc. Ask anyone who is looking for a job, and I bet the one thing that pisses people off more than anyone else is when companies don't even bother to return a call (this is after an interview, not at the 1,000 resume stage). It seems unfathomable that the Revs wouldn't even bother to have a conversation with him, even if it was to tell him no thanks.

As for Ceballos, it raises the question that if the Revs have such limited resources when trying to bring in players, why spend those resources on an end-of-the-roster guy who is not a game changer and certainly not a needle-mover, who plays a position where he'd have a hard time getting minutes due to the level of the existing players. If he was a defender, I could see bringing a guy like that in, but they chased after the proverbial "warm body," and even if he turned out to be much better than expected, he still was not what they needed.

And don't kid yourselves that the Revs didn't want him. The MLS PU had him on their salary lists, so this was about as much of a done deal as could be without a signed contract. The Revs wanted a player who chose to sign with a lower division club.

You can gripe all you want about how hard it is to sign players, and no one is arguing that it isn't. But when they go after little fish like this and still can't land him, how are they going to land the 300-lb tuna that they really need when some of the better players on the team move on?

 

I agree with Tom above.

We need to focus our efforts on signing guys who will compete for spots at the top end of the roster, not the bottom.

I have to imagine that the level of effort required to sign players outside of the draft should correspond in some way to what the GM/coach imagines the player will contribute to the team and what the organization will pay the player. I hope that the Revs did not spend too much of their limited time and resources on this player given what he could contribute and given the needs of the team. Perhaps that is exactly what happened and perhaps that is why he ended up elsewhere? Maybe the Revs did not make him feel as valued as Indy did (rightly so), because from the outside it does not look like he brings much value to the Revs.

I hope that the Revs spent more time lobbying Sporting for a loan than they did working on the Ceballos deal. I do not know? None of us know. When we are given no information about who was almost signed and all we see if another almost with Ceballos and a lead on an out of contract, oft injured, 31 year old Whitbread (29 appearances since joining Leicester City in 2012) it is hard to determine if the Revs are spending their roster building resources correctly. Is Zak Whitbeard really a player we should even consider pursing given his age, injury history, assumed rust? It begs a lot of questions and challenges ones faith in their ability to get the job done.

 

Based on the fact that he didn't get a job offer in MLS.

Is the point that the Revs showed bad manners? Okay, sure. Pro sports is a pretty cutthroat business. If Wilt took that personally, then it's probably best he's working in the minor leagues.

Unfathomable - that's pretty dramatic. Maybe it just fell through the cracks. I can fathom that.

What limited resources does it take? You think talking/negotiating with his agent is going to limit their ability to talk to anyone else?

And, it's kind of ironic that with the criticism of the Revs for not filling up their roster spots, they're getting criticized here for trying to do exactly that.

Clearly there's more to this story than has been made public, but it's just as clear that you're ready and willing to claim that you understand the whole picture.

Again, you are perfectly willing to assume what you clearly don't know.

Like virtually every player the Revs (and most teams) talk to, there's a price-point that they're interested in. Beyond that, they aren't interested. It makes plenty of sense for him to be worth more to Indy, since he's likely to get a lot more playing time there.

 

I'm not bummed about Ceballos playing elsewhere as I doubt he'd have provided any real help for the Revs. That said, what is this team doing? It's bringing in some trialists and that's gone nowhere. It seemingly struggles to execute low-level deals like Ceballos. The lack of urgency is deflating. They're going to take their chances that Jones will be a magic band-aid for the ills of the team.

 

So the Revs sign a guy, the MLS PU puts him on the salary list, and then x happens and he ends up signing with some other lower division team? If it was a playing time issue, why didn't they discuss it before signing him? I'm just trying to come up with a scenario where x happens and its so bad that he won't play, or the Revs don't want him

 

There's lots of potential scenarios

1) He didn't actually sign and was offered better terms (salary, term of contract, other compensation, playing time at his preferred position)

2) He did sign, something happened (on either side), and the Revs didn't want another Moreno situation, so cut bait.

3) He might have been cover for moving one of our existing players as part of a trade or larger signing that fell through.

4) I think playing time could have been an issue. On any given day we have Dorman, Kobayashi, Agudelo and Bunbury on the bench, never mind the swing players such as Hall and Smith.

Per usual, there's enough facts missing to be able to definitively say the Revs screwed up, but they made the usual mess of the communication. That's how they roll.