I was extremely bored this evening, and something interesting came to mind. I thought to myself, since most of the moves around the league (trades etc) are thought to be manipulated in the name of parity, what trades would I force through to help make all the teams more competitive? Below is a list of the teams, their perceived (by me) needs and trade-able assets. After that is a series of trades I think would strengthen all involved (Keep in mind, I was VERY bored ) DCU: Needs: D-Mid, Striker, A-Mid, Depth Assets: 1st Overall pick Columbus: Needs: Experienced center back, Dump salary Assets: Strikers, attacking mid, D-Mid Metrostars: Needs: Right winger Assets: Lots of early draft picks NE: Needs: A-mid, dump salary Assets: Lots of quality that doesn't play well together Colorado: Needs: a-mid? Assets: ?? LA/SJ/Dallas Needs: None Assets: Lots KC: Needs: A-Mid Assets: ?? Chicago: Needs: Healthy players, Dump Salary Assets: Logjam at striker Here are my offseason moves: LA, San Jose and Dallas I would leave alone, as they are solid as is and look to return most of their key guys, and, especially in Dallas' situation, have a number of highly rated prospects waiting already. DC needs a D-Mid, an A-Mid a Striker and depth. With the likely departure of Etcheverry and Amman, as well as possibly Moreno, DCU will have lots of Cap room to play with. First move I make is: DC trades the number 1 overall draft choice and Justin Mapp to Columbus for John Harkes and Jeff Cunningham. The Reason: Hudson won't use Mapp (just ask Kyle Beckerman) and he likely won't draft well anyway. Columbus can get much more milage out of both the prospect (to fill a weakness on the left side) and the draft pick. DC gets a durable (ie: someone who won't miss more games than he plays) impact striker in Cunningham. They also take on John Harkes, which helps the Crew with their Salary cap issue but also helps DCU fill a leadership void. Harkes gets to return home and finish his MLS career where he started it, and he still has enough gas in the tank to be a more complete D-Mid than Richie Williams. This trade takes care of key holes for DCU AND Columbus. That trade took care of all but one issue for DC, and that issue is A-Mid. With Etcheverry gone, Hudson will need someone to step in and take over a team offensively. He needs someone familiar with both his style and the league. This need leads to trade number 2: DC Trades their 3rd round draft pick and midfielder Chino Alegria to New England in exchange for Alex Pineda Chacon and Defender/Midfielder Brian Kamler. The Reason: DCU should be able to afford this move in addition to the previous one after losing the salaries of Alegria, Moreno, Etcheverry and Lassiter. This move fills their last two needs: An A-Mid familiar with the league and Hudson's style. Chacon should thrive in DC. His style of play will fit much better feeding the ball to Cunningham and Quaranta than it does with Twellman and Wolde Harris. Kamler provides defensive depth, since DC had no backup defenders, and Kamler will be happier back with United, who he never wanted to leave to begin with. NE makes out by getting rid of some salary to give them some breathing room, and also picking up a good cheap midfield utility player in Alegria. Nicol also picks up a 3rd rounder, where they might be able to replace one of their current pitiful crop of developmental players. Another win/win trade that benefits both teams and fills needs on both sides. With that trade, DC is done wheeling and dealing, but NE and Columbus are definitely not. Columbus still could use a good veteran central defender to settle down their young, sometimes suspect defense. NE still needs that attacking midfielder. Thus those two needs combine to form this trade: NE Revs trade Carlos Llamosa to Columbus in exchange for John Wilmar Perez The Reason: Columbus has a great young attacking player for the 10 spot, and JWP seems to have fallen out of favor in Columbus anyway. Llamosa fits their needs perfectly, and parts of the Columbus backline already have experience playing with him. With the arrival of Kante in NE, Llamosa becomes expendable. It's a classic situation where both teams deal from strength to fill a weakness. That closes down the trading for NE and Columbus. That means that LA, Dallas, SJ, DC, NE and Columbus are all done trading. I can't think of any trades between the remaining clubs (Chicago, Metro, KC, Colorado) that fill the needs of these clubs while remaining realistic. It's probably safe to assume that Chicago will attempt to trade one of their high priced strikers, Wolff (more likely) or Razov. The Metros will probably try and pick someone up using their draft picks as trade bait (two 1st rounders and two 2nd rounders)and they also have alot of cap space to play with, considering the pending retirement of Ramos and the likely retirement of Balboa. KC and Colorado, I have no idea. I'd be interested to hear what others would suggest in the way of trades, or just what you thought of my ideas. Fire away JMac
The Fire needs as many players as possible! Just as long as they're good of course. But really, I think a forward (maybe left) is mainly what we need. But any other good trades are fine.
Colorado needs a forward, having only two true forwards in Spencer and Carrieri, and Spencer is fighting injuries. They could also use an outside defender. Assets, well none really, we might have an extra attacking midfielder to spare (Chung, Henderson, Valderrama, Kingsley)
I can see the Rewvolution trading chacon in the offseason for someone on DC, possibly convey, Mapp or Quarenta. We shall see
Two questions: 1st, does Colorado own the rights to Kingsley or is he in a "Bonseu" situation where he was called up from the A-League and will have to be drafted next year? 2nd, No way will NE get anything as good as Quaranta or Convey for APC. Chacon is rarely used in NE and when he is, it's in the wrong way. NE will need to dump salary, and Chacon is a max salary player on the bench. If you look at the last few teams that needed to dump some salary, they didn't get much in return (Balboa for a 3rd rounder. Bonseu for a 3rd rounder. And those two players were at least starters on their cap-strapped former teams). JMac
As I understand it (which really means nothing when it comes to MLS) is that Kingsley was made a permanent callup for this season for the very reason that the Rapids don't want to lose him next season. If he were only a temporary callup, he would go into the draft next season. Of course, this is second hand info, so take it for what it's worth.
Well, there has never been such a thing as a permanent callup (not to say the league won't create one), but they may have used a discovery pick to make the signing permanent. I know they used one in the preseason on Amokachi, did the Rapids use their 2nd discovery pick? JMac
Well, Kingsley was called up from the Seattle Sounders. Checking the Sounders website, Kingsley appears to still be listed on the Sounders roster. However, the roster page hasn't been updated since April. Checking Seattle Pitch, a fan page which is quite often a better source than the Sounders website, Kingsley is again still part of the roster. (Notice that Seattle Pitch's roster page lists Craig Waibel on the roster, on loan from LA...so the info's relatively current.) The last mention of Kingsley in the "Latest News" on the front page of Seattle Pitch is on June 21, mentioning that he was called up to train with the Colorado Rapids. As far as I can tell, it looks from our end like he's still our player and would come back to us at the end of the call-up.
Dear lordie, and I thought having a B-Day three days after September 11th was bad. I can't imagine what'd be like to have the entire nation in a day of mourning on your birthday... Ok, and back on topic...can anybody tell us how the Kingsley situation looks from the Rapids' end? Perhaps one of the 8 Rapids fans could shed some light on this situation for us...