They're still in on Boniek as well, which is dubious to me. They are talking him up as a leader, which he may well be, but at the same time I don't think they can pretend that this is a young team that needs a steadying veteran presence. The entire team is full of veterans. Even Memo has been around in some fashion since 2015 and the young foreigners like Maric and Vera have been professionals for the better part of a decade. I can get wanting to be generous to Boniek due to his career, but to me that calls more for along the lines of "Hey, we love you and really appreciate everything you've done for the organization. We want to give you a non-playing position and keep you here long-term with us, but we unfortunately do not see a place on the roster. No hard feelings if you want to pursue opportunities elsewhere to stay on the field, the offer stands and we will be here whenever you are ready"
No teens pushing to start or even significant minutes from the bench. Bajamich will be seen as the youth at 21 but 21 isn't all that young.
I meant that to show that the starters that got replaced aren't older than the new guys. In most cases, aside from Parker, they are older.
Just hasn't had the oomph there that Sanchez had. I was vehemently anti-Sanchez signing, but he proved me wrong. Maybe Boniek will as well. General observation though is that I want those sub minutes going to the younger guys (Junqua, Jones, Palomino, Lemoine, etc) versus being soaked up by Boniek. I still can't shake the sinking feeling that Ramos pushes Memo to the bench either in favor of a Corona and Ceren pairing either.
Without trying to sound too Westie about this, I wonder if they're going to change up the marketing since the team is looking increasingly domestic. If we think starting XI/bench then we suddenly have a very American roster: Picault, Ramirez, Lassiter, Memo, Pasher, Valentin, Corona, Parker, Nelson, Jones That's 9 guys that are probably in for starting roles or major minutes (stretch for Nelson and maybe Pasher, but the others). That's without getting into the draft picks (Bartlow surely will stick?) and the younger guys trying to push for minutes like Palomino (feel like he's 99% going on loan), Lemoine, and Junqua.
I think what you'd be picking up on is we have 1 DP under contract -- Quintero -- who has a green card and might even be the sort of cheaper DP one buys down to ordinary player status. We haven't bought new marquee names and have instead doubled down on "Bruin and Barnes" type domestics. It reminds me of 2015 before the 2016 Christmas burst that brought Elis and Quioto. That team too had a lot of castoff types and honest hustling players but was heavy MLS and over its head. 2016 they went more international but made several mistakes. 2017 ditto but batted a better average and we were finally competitive. Trading away an international slot for a year suggests we may be taking 1/2 or even the full year to do DP replacements. Maybe it's that on second rate teams if you stripped away the designated players this is what's left. Career MLS and HGP. It looks different when you run out 8 internationals or maybe even more with green cards. [This is one reason I've said if you are worried about whether MLS is good for NT development you would want reduced international slots again -- 3-5 tops -- because teams suddenly become more MLS career domestics and less imports who play for international opposition.] This is part of where I get into I feel like the roster is somewhat upgraded from the emptying-out team end of the season post Elis but if you're paying close attention is not back up to 2017-20, particularly at forward and back. And we had one playoff year in that period at that talent level.
I half wonder if the schizophrenia reflects a coach who wanted to gut the team and go young vs owners/FO/GM who are worried about the optics of risking where we finish relative to Austin in this particular year. Fafa and Urruti were the sort of players holding us down in the Dallas rivalry. A lot of the vets we got are mediocre but perhaps designed to either literally screw Austin (Corona) or be just a notch better than them this season. Cause to me the upside is in chasing Manotas/Elis types and going young but that is a slower riskier build. Slapping together some decent journeymen likely ensures we are ahead of Austin for a year. But ironically Austin would probably be building on a longer horizon and you're then locked into some of the veteran scrubs you put out there to beat them year 1. For that matter, no one has been discussing that we probably get grief from our "sustain yourself" ownership both ways, held back in prosperity, but also in a pandemic with no or subcapacity crowds, probably freaking out at the financials. We're not just cheap with crowds, we're probably doubly cheap without them. This is not a vanity project so they won't pour money in for their amusement. I kind of wondered what would happen to the ownership if fans stayed away a la the Astros. We may be seeing that anyway without the fans truly bailing. So, if their stingy golden goose isn't laying eggs, do they sell or just squeeze even tighter? Nothing says they have to have 3 DP.
Boniek has 0g 0a last season. It's like Late Ching. You seem to be talking about someone other than the guy who played last year. At that point in a player's "arc" Calen Carr becomes the superior option and that says something. For that matter unless Figueroa re-signs he's the last Honduran on the roster. If the idea was to maintain that pipeline, no one else is here and it's unclear if we're even back shopping there. So if we kept him around past his sell by to make Elis, Quioto, etc. happy.......they're gone. FWIW we finished last and the focus should be shifting towards competitiveness at all costs. A playoff team being loyal is being loyal to "something." To me our historic way of doing things is dangerous now because those older teams were doing so from a different competitive level. You can weigh whether a higher risk of finishing second is worth giving Ching another year when you're making finals and have a couple trophies banked. We suck, fans are leaving, and making a few fans happy with fan favorites will cost them more casual fans sick of losing, and ensure the team stays more like where it is.
Sanchez's last two years in the league before us he had 4g 5a as a regular and then 6g playing half the games. He then was a productive supersub for us. To me it's like the people defending Berhalter subbing on Roldan. You had a theory he could be the 6th man type. 15 caps later he has like no goals or assists in that role. Accept reality. I want my supersub to be producing in that or a similar role now. The only game changer we have off the bench is Ramirez and that's because he's been unfairly benched. Otherwise we seemed to adopt a "next man up" approach going down the depth chart without regard to tactical qualities or whether they produce.
I don't know how much of the roster we're stuck with. A lot of it seems like it will blow-up at the end of 2021, which causes its own issues, but also offers a lot of flexibility moving forward. Memo, Bajamich, Lassiter, Valentin and Corona seem like the only guys we're actually locked in on for past 2021. Assuming club options are one year then the following are out of contract at year-end: Ceren, Fuenmayor, Junqua, Lemoine, Lundkvist, McCue, Nelson, Palomino, Vera. Following are probably able to be optioned at year-end: Pasher (shocked if he isn't a one year deal), Castilla, Hoffman, Maric, Jones, Figueroa (again shocked if he isn't on a one year deal) Following I think are out of contract after this year: Urruti, Ramirez, Picault, Parker, Bizama,
With the rebrand, competitiveness is married to it. Or if our FO is wise, now the rebrand is past, focusing on the run of play down on the field must be their primary objective moving forward. No more gimmicks, new sales pitches, philanthropic outreaches to Yates or talk of 369 deals, I don't want to hear from our FO and specifically from Jordan and Ramos anything other than the football quality down on the field. Our FO can bring back our Dynamo Girls however! HA!
Varus, the problem is that in theory several of those names were 2020 options/expirations, that become 2021 options/expirations, that could become......how many times were Ching or Beasley or now Figueroa brought back? Is there a reason we are kicking underperforming chunks of the team down the road another year while Struna gets traded and others canned? When we already sit in last? It's not like you're preserving a 6th place conference playoff slot. You fill the filler spots with kids who don't have contract guarantees. As you rebuild, you lock in the young performers and add the veteran core. Personally I would make the cap structure hole now and then fill from today. Part of the risk of this strategy would be someone is available in the summer but you extended a few players and there isn't room. We have had it before where we want to sign someone and we don't have the international slots or the cap space or whatnot. If you cut or trade all but about 5 people I don't think that can happen. A lot of this comes from the false premise of being unable to do a 1 year demolition job, saying that as you extend or option several people. Like I said, at least some of this feels like an unwillingness to do a Full Astro, for either general ticket sales or Austin FC purposes. They would rather sell some tickets and finish just ahead of Austin than do a more thorough rapid rebuild. If you gut the team you risk Austin finishes ahead as expansion. You risk fans stay away. Well, we already finished last in conference, were barely attended in a pandemic, may have capacity capped, and will be in danger from Austin anyway. As I was saying earlier if they used their brains at all a pandemic would have been the ideal time to be demolishing. No one is attending anyway. Extending the process on into the years when fans could return is kind of stupid, even from their cynical finance obsessed standpoint. Even a cynical team should want an attempted 2017 gathered right when the fans can come back. And I think at least some of the Austin fear is not just that a gutted team loses, but that if you take this team down to the frame at the same time they come in, the teams almost sync up in terms of roster content, the need to build, and the relative finish then reflects upon management. Maybe Austin puts in question our way of running things. For example, maybe Austin shows you don't have to wait months or years to replace marquee players. etc. etc. I think at least part of our problem is Jordan self-defense. If he demolishes the team rapidly then this admits how badly he put it together. So, last place in conference aside -- you know, objectively where this stands -- we have to subjectively pretend he's done ok and we can cope with some of his filler. Each year we then admit more of the filler isn't up to spec. You make a 5 year rebuild out of a one year sledgehammer swingfest, so the GM who wants to stay employed doesn't have to admit how badly this is stocked -- even as we sit bottom of the conference table which obviously suggests otherwise. We act like an incrementalist midtable team when we so obviously are trash. What about this team suggests we're a couple people away? Admit what it is, clean house, rip the roster bandaid off.
And that is the generic, generalized version. In terms of specifics, if brought back, Figueroa may be back despite two years in a row of a few good early season games followed by late season complete collapse. As in, he's not a reliable one year patch. We objectively know he doesn't "maintain" and last the year. Ceren? Fuenmayor? Lundkvist? Vera? Lassiter? All have had somewhere between a year and several years to show they belong here. Most of them have fundamental flaws of foot speed, defense, etc. I get saying, OK, Junqua can come back as a hustle bench guy. I don't get the rest other than the stubborn refusal to let the card house completely collapse in Austin's expansion year. And having just finished last in conference behind this unit, and making tepid late career adds, I would not feel secure we will stay ahead of an expansion team with the status quo. Was that the lesson of 2020? Nope. Why believe it now? It also, and this has been discussed from the "youth movement" cliche standpoint, wanders into the questionable sense of continuing to bring in players around 30 to try to bolster a struggling veteran team. Our recent history suggests that model is not competitive and even if it was we should have just learned from 2017 that the competitive window of such a team is a year or two before it becomes old and awful again. The expiration date of such a team is so close, what's the point? This team needs to shift to a 5 year horizon model which means players who could possibly be here playing prime age soccer in another 5 years. Anything else sets you up for the scenario where you get a couple DP in only for Quintero to fall apart. Which at 33 is a basic risk of that road. Even if they cynically goosed us ahead of Austin for a year, what about year 2? Year 3? Dallas doesn't destroy us on payroll. They have a long term plan for how the team gets built.***. What's to stop Austin from doing the same thing over time? We win year 1 by cynically propping it up. But after...... ***Worse, with the Figueroa/ Urruti/ Fafa signings we're kind of becoming their dumping ground. They grab them for young and prime age years and we then over optimistically snag them age 30 deluding ourselves it's the same thing, a short cut when in reality we're getting the inferior back end of their careers. Even worse, we should know better from Manotas and Elis where our bread should be buttered. If not a McKennie/ Richards producing academy, at least an ability to get about 3 good years out of flipping young Americas talents. We should even have a track record built there -- the players did get sold -- we just blew the timing and pricing.
I also think a fallacy is at work re how the veteran unit that shows up here from SJ was actually assembled ROBINSON DRAFT COCHRANE DRAFT WONDO DRAFT CHABALA DRAFT IANNI DRAFT BARRETT DRAFT (THEN FREE TRANSFER BACK) MULLAN TRADE AGE 25 DAVIS TRADE AGE 24 CLARK TRADE AGE 22 MORENO TRADE AGE 26 SERIOUX TRADE AGE 27 DERO SIGNED FROM MINORS AGE 23 CHING SIGNED FROM MINORS AGE 25 ONSTAD SIGNED FROM MINORS AGE 35 HOLDEN FREE TRANSFER AGE 21 WAIBEL WAIVER DRAFT AGE 28 DALGLISH TRANSFER AGE 29 I think there is a naive idea we assembled a veteran team here. But how did SJ get them? Actually, often enough, SJ picked them in the draft, signed them from the minors, or traded for them as overlooked young players. You can see how most of the key players were acquired in their early 20s. Fair amount of risk taken on young player upside. There are 4 older acquisitions and about half of those ended up basically being one year rental flashes in the pan. For reasons inexplicable to me we have shifted to the end career acquisition of name brands as opposed to the Holden/ Cameron/ Davis/ Clark/ Elis/ Manotas model.
Objectively I wonder whether the fact MLS has in the intervening 15 years become a transfer-selling league -- including kids off their benches -- affects our ability to do the equivalent of trading for a young Rico Clark, a pipeline US youth international who is on the margins at some other team as a starter/bench player, that we think they've underrated. Then Metros would see the value in trade. Rico isn't turning out as they'd hoped. Now even a surplus player might have transfer value. Which might affect the calculus on do I trade him to Houston, methinks. I mean, there are still tons of James Sands-type players in this league lost in numbers games. Pipeline kids that some even think should be senior NT options, but who can't even be guaranteed to start regularly where they play. I can see where a team composed that way might be more competitive. More Sands less Ceren. I think our academy sucks, and that's been discussed to death, but I see part of what is missing as well as the "Hoffmann" USYNT types and young MLS trade type acquisitions. Ever since Jordan with his Old Man Serie A Montreal teams came here, we've pivoted heavily to late 20s early 30s name brands starting to fall apart verified by their statistics. Which to me might make sense as how to "finish" an otherwise youthful roster but instead becomes the majority of the team. Soccer is a running sport and you are as a matter of process building around surplus older players. To me this is what happens when it becomes a team of Dalglishes and Mulrooneys without doing the hard work to find the Dero/ Holden/ Cameron/ Davis/ Clark sorts for the core first. There's filling a hole that way and there's building a roster that way.
To me any resume reading idiot can sign Beasley to fill a hole. It takes some actual soccer scouting savvy to sort out the value of Rico Clark or Stuart Holden. There are no guarantees, Kinnear made plenty of mistakes, but he also batted a higher average and usually sent away his mistakes within 6 months -- one year. 3/4 of these option discussions would simply be gone. We weren't optimistic, we weren't trying to prop something up, you either fit the bill now or not. Worse, I think half the reason some fans here are scared of the wrecking ball is the replacement could be worse, which is a debate about the GM rather than personnel. A team last place in conference should be freely swinging the wrecking ball. Half the reason this is last place is Ceren or Lundkvist or Fuenmayor are here 3, 4 years before the pink slip arrives. People do understand that's a third, approaching a half, of a player career dragging Lundkvist behind you. This needs to become less sentimental or hopeful and more performance now.
I don't think that people (here at least) are scared of taking a wrecking ball to the roster. Most everyone I've seen has argued in favor of it and I've agreed how misleading Ramos is about not turning over the team. The thing is that Jordan/Ramos and the FO are not being briefed to put a 5-year plan into action. Based on signings, their directive is to sign a team as cheaply as possible (only league money) and that won't completely embarrass itself out there. Seems like an additional bonus based on who they acquire is getting a bunch of guys who are gone by 2022. There is no long-term plan for success here. I'd argue because ownership doesn't intend to be here in five years and that they just want to limp through 2021 with a minimal an amount of expenditure as possible. Hopefully we get lucky and they cash out and we get someone in to turn this around or I think we are stuck with multiple years of this. There's the rub. No one involved here really wants long-term success. Ownership wants to limit expenditure and get out, Jordan probably desperately wants some success that he can try and parlay into something when he is sacked, Ramos pretty desperately needs something in the next year or two before he is sacked. Maybe if you had involved ownership who thinks about how can we build a team that can be consistently competitive you would see some of this stuff. If everyone from the GM to the coach to the academy director was given the brief that we want to be competing for a Cup in 2025 and all moves are in support of that objective, then they'd be doing things differently. I guarantee you they aren't in that mindset though.
Kyle Morton has signed with #HoldItDown, sources tell The Athletic. The goalkeeper was a key part of Saint Louis FC’s late season resurgence, including keeping a clean sheet on the road in a playoff win at Hartford. He’ll join former #USL rival Tyler Pasher in Houston.— Jeff Rueter (@jeffrueter) January 26, 2021
The thing is, even if there is a “5 year plan” Ramos and Jordan, as things presently stand, aren’t even going to be parts of the later years as both of their contracts expire at the end of 2021. It would suggest there’s no long term plan other than sign guys that Ramos likes and hope for some academy positives.
I don't think hope for Academy positives even enters into it. I'm not being jaded when I say that they will ship almost every academy prospect out on loan. Memo will stick and maybe Lemoine will, but that's it. McCue, Palomino, Rios and Castilla are all going to be loaned out. I would bet that none of them see a single minute in a Dynamo jersey this year.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2021/01/27/houston-dynamo-sign-goalkeeper-kyle-morton I'm thinking we're mostly set now. 28 players under contract. Figueroa and Boniek are both rumored which would gets us to 30. Forwards (8) - Bajamich, Lassiter, Lemoine, Pasher, QUintero, Ramirez, Rios, Urruti Midfielders (8) - Castilla, Ceren, Corona, Jones, Palomino, Picault, Rodriguez, Vera Defenders (9) - Bartlow, Bizama, Funemayor, Hoffman, Junqua, Lundkvist, McCue, Valentin, Parker GK (3) Maric, Morton, Nelson
i'd be curious if the game is that with more MLS franchises that you now have to preemptively sign the minor leaguers you get interested in, as opposed to invite them to camp and see what happens. too many other MLS or USL options and too much financial risk if they don't get the roster spot. cause back in the day i think some of these you'd draft and you'd invite and the back end of the roster would be sorted in camp. that only a draft stud would already be under contract sight unseen.