Roster 2023

Discussion in 'Houston Dynamo' started by quiznatodd_bidness, Sep 16, 2022.

  1. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
  2. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #328 juvechelsea, Dec 6, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2022
    do i have to say target USMNT and U20s every time as i propose them? that's like the implication of every shopping list i offer every window. who is stuck on a B team or bench in europe but heralded enough they have US senior camps or U20 games. i feel like we have gone the wrong direction on this, looking for proven old farts with no tread left instead of trying to find raines-type young upside. or trying to be the salvation for someone like moore. who btw made the world cup team and played some sub minutes after coming home from spain to nashville. particularly if GB remains head coach the NT incentives favor getting playing time and stats over ambition and the highest prestige address.

    most telling -- he left off pepi who is in B.1 with some productivity, and had some NT goals this year -- in favor of sargent -- who still hasn't scored for the NT in 3 years, wright who scored by accident almost, and ferreira. the first two of those ironically had been in germany recently also but left for easier leagues. he rewards the opposite of behavior as klinsi. now if we get a new NT coach whose pendulum swings back over to "talent" (which i wouldn't mind, i think this has turned way too much into some sort of MBA "chartism" stuff making bad bets on ideas of form) or US production, or is more of a club snob, not so much. but i think you can begin making "we will be your platform" sales pitches now regardless.

    to be fair, bigger picture, i think we both probably agree it is just odd for a US team with limited foreign slots (and one fewer than the field) to be so focused on foreign players. doesn't make practical or numerical sense nor is it something they appear to have a particular knack at since 2017 and the honduran pipeline.
     
  3. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #329 juvechelsea, Dec 6, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2022
    this is one concern i have with the general "playoff wilderness" situation as well as those proposing a slow build back up. you might be able to talk some players into hope but a lot of players will do "overdog." part of why the best college football teams (and often soccer as well IMO) repeat themselves. people will sign at georgia because they just won. you can't bs that. you either do it or not. in a competitive league why us and not one of the nearly 30 others. if you're not 1 you need to be high enough up the food chain where you can sincerely make your own championship case to beat LAFC next year.

    one of the reasons i was very very pushy about last summer, cap/budget aside, is you only so many times get to sell that the reset button has been pushed. new majority owner, buying spree. that year ending in next to last wastes playing that card, which is kind of an exception to "show me." that's burned. we're back to the hard way. actually go assemble a team and win enough to be compelling. what a waste. i kind of felt that last summer and it was why i was so insistent to keep the momentum up. as much because i didn't have a good feeling for that year ending well, as that if you sell this is going to be different, we are going to spend........it has to actually be different, and you have to keep spending.
     
  4. ElNaranja

    ElNaranja Member+

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Jul 16, 2017
    Just because you are a U20 doesn't mean you're any good, ready for professional ball, or ever will be.

    Not saying that applies to these kids (I honestly have no idea. I've had 0 time for the baby eagles). Just pointing out that when it comes to strategy, you have to take each one at their value. Otherwise you're no different then letting YouTube videos dictate your player acquisition.
     
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  5. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    It’s also worth considering from the perspective of these young players. Between YNT appearances and early career European signing having to take step back to play in MLS can be pretty tough on players, then on top of that going to a losing club can be too much. This is not me excusing the Dynamo, sure they should definitely be putting out feelers to these guys, but I certainly can’t blame a player for not looking at Dynamo offers with wide eyes
     
  6. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020


    Officially signed now
     
  7. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    signed for ‘23 with an option for ‘24. That’s a good way to mitigate risk. Onstad has generally been better at that
     
  8. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020


    Kyle Edwards signed for Hartford. 5g 2a in 12 appearances last year for D2
     
  9. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    This made me curious about which deals expire next year. Aside from the aforementioned the expiring deals per transfermarkt are:

    Quinones (loan expires next year)
    Clark
    Lundqvist
    Baird
    Vera
    Dorsey
    Hadebe
    Nelson
    Bartlow
    Avila
    Raines
     
  10. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Other than Herrera (Ok let’s hope this doesn’t become a boat anchor contract) and CoCo, Onstad has created decent flexibility in the longer term. For a guy like Archara, you are only committed for a year which is an appropriate risk. I forgot that there are some veteran rules under the CBA that may guarantee certain deals for 2 years (I think) but keeping the risk at least short term on these guys is good.

    Yeah, a number of his signings this year didn’t pan out but they were able to move on quickly and at no cost
     
  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    keeping portions of parker's next 2 years is the apotheosis of this contract expiration nonsense. it's a responsibility until it isn't and seems to be an excuse for passivity and incompetence. kinnear used to be able to ship out people in 2 months if he wanted.
     
  12. Westside Cosmo

    Westside Cosmo Member+

    Oct 4, 2007
    H-Town
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Jordan was the moron that signed Parker to that 3-year deal in June 2021. Onstad made the best of it. I think you are unusually ignorant that in modern MLS with veteran guaranteed deals that you can’t just cut guys like you could in 2009. Every other major sport has deals where teams retain salary or attach prospects to deals to get the other side to take on bad deals.
     
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  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    oh dear god. are we pretending like listing USMNT and US U20 players in bad club situations is like picking players off the internet? nothing is certain but sorry what you're implying is horsesh*t. you're the one pushing a theory that ends up being closer to any old player out there is equally viable. that's the actual horsesh*t. i'm suggesting graze where the highest grass is seen to be growing. it's more likely gold than our own academy or the draft. it brought us holden before.

    by my count 11 of the 2019 U20 worlds team earned senior USMNT caps this cycle. 3 made the world cup team, and richards if healthy would have been 4. that's roughly 50/50 odds we get a USMNT pool player and 16% or so we get a US world cup squadie. i get some kids don't turn out but surely the odds are higher here than in the draft, academy, or loan deals in south america.

    i'd understand the reticence if we weren't shopping abroad for U23/U20 players WHO FLAT SUCK, if we weren't trading for or signing journeymen, or if the team was any good. but you have 2 main options for building a MLS playoff team. veterans for the going rate. or sign a bunch of kids like Dallas or Philly and have some of them turn out. they don't have to all turn out -- Appel didn't for the astros -- but if you refuse to pay for competitive adults then your other choice is luck out on kids. buy the ticket or run a farm system. there is no third way.

    the other supposed option of playing ageing value veterans has basically refuted itself.

    and since we already are in the U20/U23 signing business refocusing on raines type players offers the same field and sale potential upside without the international slot issues.

    courage of your convictions, people, if you are going to p*ss on me about the youth movement idea then quit being so passive about the utter veteran mediocrity we sign.
     
  14. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    what's funny to me is getting crap for basically proposing the sports model of philly and dallas who were playoff teams. like i get you're beyond jaded and cynical about our team but can we at least be objective and honest some others teams make it work? i think you're either defeated or mirroring the attitude of the very team you're criticizing. i cannot take anything a next to last team believes as gospel.
     
  15. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    I’m not saying don’t go after the guys I’m just pointing out why YNT players wouldn’t exactly chomp at the bit to come here. To be honest the team painted themselves into a corner. I think they thought a youth focus would be too reminiscent of the old regime to the fan base as a cheap way to work. To their credit, they’ve bought 4 DPs in 3 transfer windows (Hadebe Summer 21, Sebas & HH winter 21, Coco Summer 22). I think they feel what little credibility they have left is in spending money. Which is a shame because they could do what Montreal did but still manage to keep some of the players.
     
  16. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
    The Dynamo aren’t like other teams though. The worst playoff qualifying since 2014, unproductive academy, unproven GM, inexperienced owner. I would love to build up through youth like those teams but Segal decided he didn’t want to that when he signed Hadebe in his introductory press conference. He had one more off-ramp when he hired Onstad. He could have given Onstad a directive to punt 2022 and build up but didn’t. They signed 3 more DPs. I guess it’s worth considering that Segal is on a different timetable than us. He can take 4 losing seasons and be like “whatever” while we’re under a decade+ of debris. And to answer your question, yea I am defeated, I support a team incapable of making the playoffs.
     
    Ethos repped this.
  17. Ethos

    Ethos Member+

    Houston Dynamo
    Apr 28, 2019
    Houston
    LAFC didn't use the build up model. So, we can make it work too. Plus, it's Segal's money. Only him and his accountant know what he can spend.

    I think he cares and wants the Dynamo to be big. I think he sees a day, in the not too distant future, where MLS is beating the NHL and knocking on the door of MLB.

    Thats why the HH signing could never be a mistake to me. He was trying to show us that he wasn't just a rich guy. He wanted to show us that change had come. Now, most of us realized that changing a MLS roster can't be done in one season, he knew that too. Knew that another losing season was likely. So here's HH, just give me time.
     
  18. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #344 juvechelsea, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
    you have to pick some area and chase it. mediocre veterans = no playoffs. you either have to spend the money on actual good veterans or you have to commit to youth.

    i think you're conflating signing some U20s and younger NT pool types with our own academy. half my point there is "pull a raines" some. get some other young upside talent in. ideally we'd have an academy but if not buy some others' academicians and reservists. try to get your hands on the next taylor booth, who was rotting in germany and now plays in holland. bet that either germany's talent pool was harsh on a real talent, or that he didn't get along with his coach, or something. stu couldn't crack sunderland's first team. that's their loss. and when he was playing bolton EPL when he went back, maybe sunderland didn't know their a$$. i learned long ago make my own assessment and don't just assume they are correctly pegged.

    if the premise here continues to be quintero and ceren this is f*cked. you cannot make the playoffs with older veteran discards from teams that themselves struggle to make it. the sport rewards speed and skill, and punishes age. and a handful of really talented people matter more than an accumulation of average or slightly below average ones. some of goals and key plays is excellence, the ability to snipe the shot, to put the pass right where you mean with the correct touch, to defend. there is too little emphasis here on accumulating excellence.

    a youth movement is not guaranteed excellence but what you're doing is cheaply betting on upside. if you want older veteran upside you will have to pay for it. we seem unwilling.

    personally it's funny to watch people year after year swatting away such ideas acting like if you give jordan or pat another season they will find just the right surplus veterans and cheap signings to make this work. ever considered the general premise is just crocked? playoffs say go either "LAFC" or "Dallas/Philly." pay up or go young.

    i think you're also missing that young is also actually often cheaper. artur is $560k. raines is $83k. i doubt artur is 7x the player. i think he might be worse. this is GM 101.
     
  19. Ethos

    Ethos Member+

    Houston Dynamo
    Apr 28, 2019
    Houston
    I think 2026 is going to be the year MLS finally gets the relevance it needs and deserves. I'm always isolated when I watch the World Cup because it always happens in summer and I'm off. I've never seen a World Cup around people. All I can say is that the kids in my school are crazy about it. It's on the big screens around campus, I can't keep the boys off their phones when a game is on.

    I always knew it was big, but 2026 is going to be the wildest, most intense, must go moments in U.S soccer. As Garber once said, it will be rocket fuel for MLS.

    Can't say I doubt that after seeing all the reactions from my school.
     
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  20. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #346 juvechelsea, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
    i could understand the nerves when we were good. "but he's unproven." and yet holden or cameron would help. bluntly i think this team is such trash you could probably get as good of results and better game fitness from kids from HD2 and brought in for a youth movement. i think you badly overestimate how much better "darwin ceren" is than replacement level.

    my plan is as follows, astros. crew c. 2008. clear the vets out. everyone. you put a couple of years into a youth movement. chase a bunch of raineses. figure out which ones can ball. then when we get closer, then you sign the veteran DPs and salary guys to fit in around the talent. in the meantime, even if we were passive about it, the roster and cap situation unf*cks itself in 2 years.

    but, whatever. rumor i heard was we were interested in jimenez. another retirement home guy. 56' in the world cup, will cost millions, barely plays in club, 1 goal this season. bravo. have at it. there's a reason we suck and it's you're more scared of chasing other raineses than signing that kind of crap. personally at our level of suckage at a loss why any of this is scary anymore. we are in the cellar. it's already a horror movie. do something. all they seem to be doing is trying to sell tickets to the gullible.

    honestly my assessment is y'all are so desperate you would buy this 50 point nonsense they cannot even execute instead of run some sort of actual plan to try and fix the place. maybe if we sign just the right $300k veteran from the crew or san jose magic will happen. maybe if we leave the core untouched they will somehow be better this year. an actual plan requires heads to roll and then you either buy good players or you begin building something around young talent. youth movement might take 2-3 years but at the end of the project the players aren't 45 y/o they are like 22.

    i wouldn't even mind going the buy players route -- it worked in 2017. but i personally think the more affordable route for a budget conscious team is youth movement. real veteran talent will cost and as i pointed out with artur, who isn't even that great, a significant multiple of what the youth equivalent does. to ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISH mission 50 points you need to spend more than you think. IMO need to shed some DPs and reboot.
     
  21. quiznatodd_bidness

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Apr 14, 2020
     
  22. ElNaranja

    ElNaranja Member+

    Houston Dynamo
    United States
    Jul 16, 2017
    If only the players hadnt fought so hard to be treated better we could continue treating them like garbage and have huge roster turnover on a whim!

    Get outta here JC
     
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  23. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    over the past 2 years we have averaged 13th place on 33 table pts, 8 wins, 17 losses, 9 ties, 40 GF, 55 GA. it's really more like 3 years of that but the partial pandemic year would have complicated the math, though probably not changed the outcome. since when do results like that entitle you to professorial tenure. i am proposing change hopefully leading to success. you're defending a roster that would get fired from their job anyplace other than here or san jose. fine, whatever.

    to be crystal clear, since you imply i am anti-player, urruti went deep in the playoffs, lassiter made the playoffs, pasher was on a playoff team before being waived, boniek looked happy with olimpia, ramirez was very successful for aberdeen, corona got to play in europe, and bizama and bajamich got to return home. "treating them like garbage" something something blah blah. cute rhetoric, not true in terms of actual facts. now, you likely go from starting here to sitting there, but some of the players found upside.

    this is not complicated. bad teams that care about fixing it churn their rosters. the players know it's a business. i doubt many would hold it against us. it might make us more competitive and more attractive actually. "they are losers, but they honor their contracts through expiration?" how many players you believe think that way. if any exist they are probably something like HH or parker, very expensive, falling apart, one foot out the door for retirement. yeah, i am sure they are watching closely that we keep them around and pay their millions. lot of good that does.

    i wish them all well. this is business and not personal. i sometimes feel torn like well we didn't get his best. but i think that speaks more about our poor overall GM work, roster sucks, poor results, underperformance. you don't fix that by treating the roster as sacrosanct. the team will continue to do worse than people thought because we're not getting a critical mass of quality to really compete every night. we have to work too hard just to tie. that is not sustainable 34 games a season including through almost half a season in a texas hot summer.

    the irony to me is people will adore just as much the next bunch, and probably more if they are better at soccer. it's cold blooded but even valentin just found a job with MINN.
     
  24. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #350 juvechelsea, Dec 8, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2022
    also, how many years do we owe? regardless what i personally would do, the dynamo have put multiple recent years into players like nelson, memo, adam, junqua, vera, coco, ceren, DQ, fafa, baird, corona, fuenmayor, valentin, etc. we long ago shifted more to the alex lopez model from the ade akinbiyi or koke approach. and around then the results went south too.

    some of them the half-decade thrown down a hole looks very naive. that's half a soccer career living off optimism that year 4 is better than year 3. we are already on the indulgent end for the league, and relative to the short tenures players had under kinnear. and we are sitting in the cellar in soccer terms.

    how much more indulgent do you want? adam finish his career in orange at all costs? that used to be something earned by winning us hardware or at least competing in the playoffs. now they are apparently getting the segal endowed left back chair or something, which they use to teach "Get Beat Backdoor Studiies" classes.

    pasher was picked up and waived in a matter of months by NYRB. as were hoffmann and lemoine in USL. why are we special.
     

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