Revs Current Roster - A work in progress

That roster is straight-up deplorable.

With roughly a million in cap space available, these next few weeks before training camp will be very telling.

This team current though.....absolutely appalling compared to just a few seasons ago.

 

Yes, it is. It looks like we may spend many many years in the wilderness before this team begins to approach the level of what it was in the middle of the last decade. ....... if we ever do manage to get out of that wilderness.

 

"these next few weeks before training camp will be very telling." That's the understatement of the year and it's also the proof in the pudding. If nothing much happens given the situation, then it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this franchise is just like that 4th car in the car collection; collecting dust!

 

That's all well and good; I'm sure everyone, most all Steve Nicol, wants that.

But ... the hard part comes if/when they don't exactly what they are looking for, should they take the best they can sign, purely to make sure they can get guys in for camp ... or keep looking for the right guy. Surely Perovic was worth waiting for. Clearly it would have been better to have him earlier, but that was probably not a possibility. OTOH, we did get Niouky in earlier, but what good did that do?

If we don't get everything we're looking for before camp, I'll be disappointed like everyone else, but it won't be the end of the world. If you're working to build a quality team for the long run, you look to add quality players whenever you find them.

 

Transfer Window for MLS doesn't open until Jan 15.

 

I agree. To rkupp's point however: if, as Monty says, we need 4-5 players but we get "only" 4 of 5 prior to the season start, it's not an unmitigated disaster, particularly if the 5th player shows up about when Perovic did last year.

Frankly, if they get 3 serious contributors, they will have significantly outperformed any off-season in club history (save year 1 and the 2002 windfall). I'm not saying that's adequate, I'm just trying to keep in mind that it's the Revs we're talking about here...

 

Spot on. The "right playerS" are the 4-5 guys who are needed to come in and make an immediate difference. That requires time spent together during camp.

Although he is a headcase, Mateja Kezman is still without a club. If he is really welcoming offers from MLS/Qatar/somewhere not in europe, then why not try to give it a go with him? And wouldnt it be nice if there is a little bit of truth to the rumors regarding his former Fenerbahce teammate Alex coming here. Both would be DP's - that's $670k of the current available cap gone, not counting whatever available allocation cash we have to lower that total with. Then go for two $150k-$200k range players. South America is loaded with capable players that fall into that price range.

Perhaps Nicol and 'Mr. Personality' Burns himself are already working on all this behind the scenes. At least let it be somewhat known that an effort is being made to sign certian players - "we're talking to a few potential DPs", or something of the like. And if they fail, then we'll know that they at least TRIED, and can chalk it up to Burns' failure to sell the club and/or the player not being able to understand a single word Nicol says, whatever, just anything to let us know that a legitimate effort is being made to improve this team. Telling the fans that Nicol and Co will be going on trips to Norway, Argentina, and that world-class talent factory Niger, and then moving on to cornhole games, or the Rev Girls, or the Rev Girls playing with cornholes is not enough when this organization already has a piss-poor fan-to-team relationship, as well as a rapidly growing reputation for half-assing it/not caring.

 

I'm not sure it's more than 4 guys who'll hit the starting lineup (and it might only be 3 depending on how we shop). Based on the cap space available, we're looking at about $1 Million, correct. One DP (whatever the actual salary) brings the cap available down to about $650K for the remaining players. That'd get us four more at $175K per, or three more at $220 or so. Might work. Should we sign two DP's, the $ available drop to about $300K, just $150K for the two remaining players. And that's not counting the additional smaller contracts for the new draftees and other guys to fill the roster.

Of course, with allocation $ buy down of cap space and general MLS funky rules, who knows what the reality is...

 

Personally, I'd rather have three/four Javi Morales-level players ($200k) than a DP.

That would leave us with an additional $2/400k to fill out the roster with reserves and young players with upside.

 

I think we see this similarly. We'd all love it if the Revs could bring in 3/4 Javi Moraleses this off-season but let's be realistic here. Over the past 4 seasons (as far back as the MLS Players Union salaries info go) they have brought in 5 players from abroad with salaries over $100k per year in their first years. They are:

Name / Base Salary / Guaranteed Salary
Gabriel Badilla / $138,000 / $138,000
Mauricio Castro / $90,000 / $96,250 [his got a significant raise in his second season so I included him]
Edgaras Jankauskaus / $240,000 / $240,000
Marko Perovic / $180,000 / $190,000
Ilija Stolica / $216,000 / $221,500 [the jury might be out with him but I'll just say 9 shots on goal in 1,049 minutes]

How does this track record look? 1.5 success, maybe? I'd rather not have them repeat that. I don't know what the problem is, if it's just a Revs thing or if this success rate is common throughout the league but I don't think having them bring in 4, no-name, $200k players is such a great idea.

I'd prefer they bring in one medium-to-high profile DP (chances of success are much greater), roll the dice on a $200k player, and give someone a modest raise and contract extension. But that's just me.

 

Well said. The ROI has been mostly awful for all the players you've listed. Take away Perovic's midsummer heroics where he alone was scoring goals for this club and we'd have been far, far worse off in 2010.

On Stolica, 9 shots in over 1k minutes played for a forward is a telling stat. Either he is not worth more than $200k, (but apparently the team can't pay Castro's on the job medical bill) or he's got crap players table setting him with chances. Maybe it's in the middle. Let's hope he does not get injured in pre-season or it's EJ Part Deux.

Couldn't agree more with this thread's title. The Revs' roster has been a work in progress since the start of the 2009 season sans Twellman (at least).

 

I have to admit I was take aback when at a tailgate last year a Rev Girl approached me and asked me if I like to do cornholes!

 

Agree with most of the posts here. You can slice it up any way you like with a mix of a DP plus a few more guys who make somewhere in the 200k range, and it will all be good. I would be happy with whatever the breakdown of players, since there is no real disagreement that we need about 4-5 significant players who we expect to be in the top-half of the league at their positions.

If they want to sign this guy for that role and another guy to play somewhere else, whatever. I'm fine with letting Nicol and crew to figure that out. The one indisputable fact is that we have both the money and the dire need to bring in several new players who we expect to make a difference. If, out of the 5 significant additions we need right now, two join us after the season starts, OK, it isn't perfect, but I would be more than happy as long as they had the other 3 guys signed ahead of training camp, or at the very least, the start of the season.

I hope I am wrong about this, but with so little movement or even talk in this area and so many holes to fill, I fear that the "big additions" this pre-season will be our college draftees and maybe one guy no one has ever heard of (not in and of itself a bad thing) from a team in a lesser-known league. Yeah, our new big gun can turn out to be a great player, but when we need so much right now and so little is being done, and the FO isn't likely to say much of anything at all, there is very little reason to be excited.

As Doctor Evil would say, "Throw me a frickin' bone."

 

Okay. Dying to know. What was your response?

 

Just some feelings about where the roster seems to be headed:

In reading the evaluation articles written by Jeff L recently, I picked up a couple things:
1- The FO wants Marko to be our LM
2- They seem to be looking to bring in one starter at the following positions: LB, CM/CAM(guy in front of SJ), ST(guy to relpace Marko)

Id guess they're hoping to start the season like this:

NEWSTRIKER---Stolica
Perovic---NEWCM---Joseph---Nyassi
NEWLB---Barnes---Osei---Alston
Reis

And I think the striker they pick up will be a faster player

 

Wasn't Perovic touted as being a nutrual LM when he signed? or at least LM was his preferred position... If so and that's where they want him I think it's probably a good thing.

 

He was but doesn't play enough defense for Nicol's liking out on the left. There were times when he left Sinovic / whoever was the LB out to dry and a left mid should never do that. I think that's in part why Tierney got time on the left and Perovic was moved up top.