'24 In-Season Catch-All Thread

I don't know, eating that cap hit for 18 months hurts. Even if we don't get another DP, getting a full cap hit off the books to sign a $700K player in his place is helpful.

 

Not only that, but you’re also completely wasting an extremely important DP tag on a guy that has 9g/9a in 5409 MLS minutes.

Even crazier, in his time with the Rapids he’s amassed 14 yellow cards, compared to 3g/4a. I’m not the best mathematician in the world, but that’s a 2 : 1 ratio of yellow cards to goal contributions.

All at a salary of $1.8mil, an international slot, and a DP tag. Eating the buyout - while embarrassing for the FO - is almost a necessity at this point. Either this summer or the end of the year at the latest if KSE holds the buyout against you.

We rolled the dice with Kevin and came up broke.

 

I owe my MLS career to Pablo Mastroeni. He was thrown into an impossible situation in Colorado with a President/GM that wouldn’t provide him with resources to succeed. He wasn’t “their guy”

He was fired after being 1 game from MLS Cup and 2 pts from supporters shield.

— Jared Watts (@JaredWatts02) May 15, 2024

 

He's overstating Pablo's ability as a coach. Not sure I buy the not "their guy" argument since they hung onto him for a long time when they had more than enough excuse to fire him even before 2016 going off results alone. However, he's not wrong in that the people Pablo worked for were/are basically useless, which has been the biggest thing preventing the club from achieving any kind of genuine success since Gary Smith left.

 

MLS salaries just released. The top 10 Rapids salaries, in order:

Cabral
Mihailovic
Maxso
Navarro
***$1 million line***
Steffen
Bassett/Vines (same salary)
Diack(!)
Abubakar(!)
Fernandez

 

If you factor in guaranteed comp, the list shuffles a bit. I'm not exactly sure how guaranteed factors into annual salary cap hit as the MLSPA states that it

So, it would seem like the guaranteed comp would be the final cap hit at the end of the year, but I can't be certain as I don't have access to the final submitted books.

If you look at guaranteed numbers:

1. Cabral - $1,950,000
2. Mihailovic - $1,675,000
3. Navarro - $1,452,708
4. Maxsø - $1,342,500
   
5. Steffen - $900,000
6. Diack - $864,150
7. Vines - $862,500
8. Bassett - $850,000
9. Abubakar - $702,125
10. Fernandez - $636,875
11. Ronan - $522,400

(I added Ronan on here, because I can't imagine Diack stays on this summer)

What's also crazy to me is that I believe we are still paying Sidnei Tavares salary (base of $525,000, guaranteed of $750,600) as he hasn't been picked up by any other team yet. If my understanding is correct, waiving him doesn't take the contract off the books until he re-signs with another team this year.

If that's the case, we are paying $1,614,750 in combined guaranteed money to a guy that doesn't wear the jersey, and a guy who can't even make the gameday roster these last two matches.

 

First, I need to say that I am EXTREMELY proud of the burgundy boys this season, and that we have definitely been hitting above everyone's expectations. We're on 1.62 PPG (tied for 6th in the league), 21 goals scored (we scored 26 all of last year), and a 3-2-2 record on the road (2-11-4 last year).

But - and it's a very large, bootylicious but - our roster build has some very serious problems.

This season, if you add up just Cabral and Diack you've got $2,814,150 tied up for a combined 1g/3a and 2 yellow cards. For comparison sake, you could have Chicho Arango (2mil) and Nico Lodeiro (800k) for that combined salary hit.

Or for a like for like positional comparison, you could have Darlington Nagbe (1.5mil) and Lewis Morgan (1.4mil) for roughly the same salary hit.

Nagbe is arguably one of the best holding midfielders in the league, and leads the league in passing accuracy for players who have more than 35 combined minutes this season (Nagbe is at 847 minutes at 95.9% passing accuracy), and has only recorded 1 yellow card. Lewis Morgan is a dynamic winger for NYRB and has 9g/3a on the season.

Imagine having both of those guys on the roster instead of Cabral and Diack.

Tack on Tavares' contract (again, I could be wrong on if we still pay him, but I'm pretty certain we do)- that's $3,564,150 in wasted cap space.

That extra $750k from Tavares could pay the salary of say Leo Campana ($722k guaranteed comp this year).

Instead of Cabral, Diack, and Tavares - we could have Nagbe, Morgan, and Campana for basically the same cap + TAM hit.

Oof. Oof. And more oof. And that's not even picking on Mihailovic yet.

We're wasting good money after naught here.

I'm happy we're doing as well as we are - but it's extremely frustrating to see numbers like this just going down the drain.

 

We still pay Tavares but the point of the buyout is that he's no longer counted against our cap hit. And to be more accurate, since he wasn't a DP, MLS still pays Tavares.

 

Wasn't the buyout of Gersbach not Tavares?

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/colorado-rapids-part-ways-with-alex-gersbach-sidnei-tavares#:~:text=The Colorado Rapids have exercised,Tavares, the club announced Friday.

So I would think Gersbach doesn't hit our cap - but Tavares would? Especially since he shows up still on the MLPSA Salary Guide

 

My mistake, I forgot it was Gersbach we bought out. Then it would probably be a matter of how loans are handled in MLS. Tavares is still under contract with his team, but did the loan include the right to terminate early or not?

Just because he's still on the list doesn't mean he's hitting the cap. Altidore and Bradley are both still listed too.

 

From Burgundy Wave:

https://burgundywave.com/2024/05/16/2024-colorado-rapids-player-salaries/

 

No callup for Steffen or Mihailovic this camp.

The roster to start a busy summer stateside, presented by @MarriottBonvoy 🇺🇸

Full Details » https://t.co/TAXXFuabQl pic.twitter.com/QCPsfP7chz

— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) May 20, 2024

Bummer for them, but I don’t think either have shown enough to justify a callup unfortunately.

That said, it’s also nice to not have to worry about losing key players in the summer when the busy schedule hits - and our depth isn’t the greatest right now in terms of on field impact.

 

Centennial 38 has put together a chance to see our local USL-2 and USLW teams on a weekend the Rapids are on the road. On Sunday June 2nd Colorado ALBION SC (Boulder) is hosting Flatirons FC (Arvada) for a doubleheader at Peak to Peak Charter School Stadium in Lafayette. Colorado ALBOIN is also working with The Post to get us some pregame discounts. The USLW match kicks off at 4:30 with the USL-2 match following at 7:30 and both games are covered by one ticket, for only $8 for Centennial 38 members. Come join us for a nice night out supporting local soccer!

Ticket link: https://app.soccerstub.com/events/22388
Promo Code for 33% off ($8 instead of $12): CENT38

 

So, Inter Miami are down an important CB for an ACL surgery now.

Injury Update x @BaptistHealthSF 🩺

Nicolás Freire suffered an injury to his right Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) in the second half of Saturday’s win over D.C. United.

Details: https://t.co/v7IrWeAj3c pic.twitter.com/QfKODJCvkt

— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) May 20, 2024

They also need to free up the DP tag held up by Leo Campana for any big moves they want to make this summer.

Is there a world where we could possibly trade Abubakar + International Slot (and maybe additional GAM/TAM, if necessary) to Miami for Campana?

Miami gets immediate starting help at CB, obtains a much needed international slot, and frees up a DP slot for their summer.

Abubakar gets a fresh lease on life now that he’s below Bombito and Maxsø, and goes to a title contender.

Rapids get a DP level striker, with lots of in league experience AND success - who’s young, low salary (20k more than Abubakar’s current salary), and hungry to be “The guy.”

Everybody wins.

Plus it takes all the pressure off of negotiations with Palmeiras for Navarro. I’m sure Palmeiras will leverage the fact that our depth at striker is Yapi, which means they can ask for more money because we’re in more need to buy than they are to sell. While Navarro is clearly not in their plans, his 8 goals also make him a hotter commodity for loan/purchase bidders around the world.

I realize I’ve been pushing for Campana a lot on here before, but the man is a legit goal threat, young, and ready to rock. This may just be a great timing opportunity for us here.

 

They may ask for one of our starting CB's in a scenario like that.

 

Between the Rapids car wreck this weekend, Avs game 6 playoff loss after the Nichushkin drama and Nuggets giveaway game 7 loss. The mood has to be sour at KSE.

 

Don't forget Arsenal finishing 2nd to City again

 

Oh, like any of the higher-ups actually give a shit about how the teams do.

 

Games we had leads and didn't win: 10 points lost (Nashville, Miami, San Jose, FSL)
Games we trailed and didn't lose: 8 points gained (FSL, Seattle, LAFC, Miami)

And that doesn't count throwing away a point against Houston at home since that was 0-0 and then we lost 0-1.

In 2023 we gained 8 points from a losing position and lost 15 points from a winning position.

 

Tom Bogart (Tommy Scoops) of the Athletic dropped this tidbit in his just-posted Power rankings video. The Rapids are trying to structure the Navarro deal in a way that he would qualify as a max-TAM player and not a DP. If they can pull that off that would be a feather in the cap of the FO.