I agree with this as much as i want 3 starting caliber CBs . we would never loan Keita that’s insane playing him with Keita would be intriguing but also risky because maybe Lakas can’t also to Porters style and having 2 left footed CBs might work but it might also be a bad thing.
In today’s pass out of the back game it very much matters. It’s changes the angles when the ball is primarily on your weaker foot.
Couple of thoughts. 1. While mostly pointless draft picks can be useful if you know what to look for. A free asset turned into a million dollar sale. 2. I keep him depending on Mensah. What is the plan with him. I know most will call me crazy but I would start Lalas and Keita 3. Berhalter always has the philosophy to not stand in the way of moves players wanted. Will be curious what Bez does.
Cannot believe how many of you want to sell. Mensah isn't getting younger folks. And with injuries, 3 CB of that caliber is a blessing we shouldn't just throw away on another chance over Lalas.
If a guy can’t pass the ball out of the back with both feet, he doesn’t need to be playing on a professional soccer team. Period. This isn’t U12 we’re talking about here.
When does the CBA expire? Im completely fine with selling as long as the return is good for us. I am a little worried that something could happen where allocation money is changed drastically or eliminated even. In that case we may wish we would have just hung on to Lalas. It's not like we can just sit on him til the dust settles with the CBA though. Colorado's only going to wait so long before they need to move forward with their roster plans. It seems like they probably have plenty of cash budgeted for him as of now. I really think we need to strike while the iron is hot.
Mensah will miss games with Gahna, Keita May miss games with USA youth team . There is a real need for 3 quality CBs. Also is Keita a certain starter for 25-30 games ? I think having both is a better option. You can probably still sign him for 200k per season it’s not like Lalas will command DP salary. His transfer worth maybe worth a million but it may be far more he has a lot of potential because his size , speed and athleticism. I trust Bez either way. It’s a great problem to have. you have 68 starts at CB or more if you use a 3man back line ( prob we will never do that ) so even the #3 CB should get 20 starts which is plenty for Keita & Lalas . RCB- Mensah LCB- Lalas or Keita let the best player start You guys want Josh Williams to be the #3 CB? I hope we get more CBs but Josh is better than Crognale and at this moment if you sell Lalas your going to see a lot more Josh
What makes this weird is Lalas' funnymoney valuation. We see $1M and equate it, logically, with 1 million USD. But that's not the case. If it were, well, sorry but Lalas sure as hell doesn't justify a $1M transfer fee. One million in TAM/GAM is what we're talking about, which is kinda free money that the league divvies out each season. It's also weird, and perhaps telling, that Colorado had that much of it laying around in October. This, for a club that failed to make the playoffs and had both open designated player and international roster slots. These funds - TAM, in particular - are designed to encourage the acquisition of higher-priced talent. The Rapids FO seemed content to hoard their stash and use it to buy a defender who played college soccer at the University of Dayton and was a 2017 draft pick. Doesn't exactly reek of ambition. The expiring CBA is the wildcard here, but (1) I doubt anyone in the league is better equipped than Bez to figure out a strategy under these conditions and (2) we're certainly not the only club with allocation cash laying around. I seriously doubt any new CBA would result in a bunch of clubs with their figurative roster budget pants around their ankles because of a sudden, dramatic change in the roster budgeting structure. Anything that's agreed to that affects the way roster budgets are structured would need to be implemented over time. I guess I'll be cool with whatever we do. This won't be a decision made in isolation, and we won't know about any larger plans when the decision is announced. But, keep in mind: - we're not really sure of Lalas' roster status for the expansion draft. If he's ours, and draft eligible, it just means yet another player we'd need to protect or risk losing (for peanuts, I think $50k in allocation $$) in the draft. If we sell him - at what, honestly, feels like an inflated price - it'll be that much easier to protect other players. - Santos' play this year was both unexpected, and kinda places us in a roster and salary budget bind. A year ago, I assume few of us would have wanted him on the 2020 roster. Now he's pretty much a universal choice. But players like him and Mensah make a few hundred thousand above the max salary number, and have to be bought down, otherwise they'd count as DPs. This extra influx of allocation cash would make it very easy to do that while simultaneously making it easier to fund other DP acquisitions. In others words, these funds, plus the allocation cash we'd get for 2020 supplemented by extra "you suck" cash for missing the playoffs make it far easier to imagine signing two DPs for next season.
I cannot believe how many would turn down $1 million in funny money for an error prone reserve CB. Unless we just have gobs of the stuff and do not need any more, take the money. Or unless we feel Lalas is the starter. For $1 million in funny money, under the current CBA, you can *almost* buy down Santos ($335k/$288k), Mensah ($364k/$270k), & Pipa ($570k) to under DP status. Total range is: $1,128,000/$1,269,000 (base v guaranteed salaries). Of course, that is going off last year's salaries and last year's DP number. The only other guys who have base or guaranteed salaries over the DP level ($530,000) are Zardes ($1,421,667/$1,471,667), Trapp ($550k/$594k), and Mohktar ($460k/$534k). But it seems to me that for $1.2-$1.3 million in funny money, you can buy all these guys down under DP level and leave Zardes as our only DP & have 2 DP slots. That would be my goal. If we can get there without selling Abubakar, then keep him. If we cannot, then sell him. It only gets dicey if everyone save Pipa is covered without selling Lalas, or if selling him would enable us to buy down Zardes as well & open up 3 DP spots. Of course, while this works from a DP perspective, if you have 8 guys that have a 500k cap hit (Zardes, Santos, Mensah, Pipa, Trapp, Mokhtar, DP, DP), that is $4 million of your $4.2 million cap. Yes, the cap will go up some, but so will the DP number, and that would leave 12 guys to fit into whatever cap space above $4 million is available (those guys make $2.8-$3.0 mil currently). Point being, you'd need more TAM to buy some guys down significantly under $500k, even if some higher priced vets go (Guzman, Francis, Clark, Wllilliams).
IMO, we aren’t going to be needing $1m to sign multiple DP’s. Ownership just dropped an additional $30m on the stadium, can’t believe they would be cheap about the roster.
It’s not really about signing multiple DP’s, it’s about getting those guys who are just over the DP threshold, down below that line.
It's not a matter of being cheap, but staying under the salary roster budget and within the constraints of the roster rules. You need GAM and TAM to buy down salaries to under DP level. You can only have three DPs on your roster, regardless of how much ownership is willing to splash on talent. An extra $1M that can be used to buy down salaries of guys who are substantially above the max salary roster budget amount (about $530K this year); Mensah, Santos (@TrueCrew mentions Pipa, as well, but I'd argue his future is a lot more iffy than the other two players), hell, even Zardes if there's enough GAM/TAM laying around, means new ownership would then be totally freed up to spend whatever they want on multiple DPs. Ah, roster speculation. Never gets old, does it?
I’m not arguing any of that, rather the idea that we would sell a player for $1m just to make a buck is previous-owner mentality.
there is a lot of debate on where to put Santos. I think his best position on this team might be one we have only seen him at a couple times - wing back. Though this would work better under Berhalters system, I think he is a tenacious defender and can get up and down the field better than most. He could play on the right inverted if Valenzuela is healthy or on the left if he’s not. This gets Maloney off the field and lets Diaz and Mohkter (or a replacement) take the field. We’d have a huge increase in skill on the field. Given his cost, you’d have to let him push up the flank and he’d need to rack up assists and still pop in a few goals.
he is a midfielder with a high defensive work rate who may end up at outside back to extend his career but it is not a good move for us to put him there unless we have much better players starting in the attacking midfield. Currently he is our best attacking player. He certainly would be better than Maloney but the problem and reason i was wrong for thinking he should play there is because he was too valuable in the attack. Until that changes I can’t see him moving back there and especially not if Valenzuela is back and Keita can also play LB and a few others who are more than adequate on the defensive end
The roster implications are what would tip the scales either way for me on Lalas. I'm no huge fan of Santos, Mensah and Pipa. But if selling Lalas lets us keep 1 or 2 of those guys as well as sign 2 DPs, that's a great move. Similarly, if we're moving on from those guys above, can we sign some more $600k-850k guys along with some DPs because we have a windfall of cash from selling Lalas. Mensah's in central defender prime physically. He's league experienced, a known quantity and is unlikely to have a serious slip in his abilities in the next 2 years when he turns 30 and 31. I'm fine with him penciled in as our 2020 and 2021 starter at one CB spot. Not thrilled with what we're paying him, but it's better than an unknown and I don't want to have another DP level CB, it's too much of a sacrifice to have that much cost tied up there.