News: 2022/2023 Off-Season Catch-All Thread

Keep:

Because they're good enough to start or at least battle for starting spots: Rubio, Zardes, Lewis, Price, Acosta, Rosenberry, Abubakar, Yarbrough, Galvan

Because of potential: Yapi, Toure, Larraz, Keita, Edwards, Anderson, Priso, Rodriguez. Not all of these guys will make it, and maybe none of them will, but I think they deserve a chance.

Needs:

2 more winger/attacker types
Central midfielders who contribute to the attack (other than free kicks)
Center backs
Striker if they decide not to keep Zardes
Left back (would rather see Galvan farther forward)
And, in general, players that can keep possession and move the ball into the attack, instead of long floating balls to the wings all the time.

 

Keep:
Yarbrough, Rosenberry, Abubakar, Price, Priso, Galvan, Rubio, Lewis, Larraz, Toure, Yapi, Edwards, Markanich, Beitashour (if he doesn't retire), Keita, Anderson, Rodriguez, Mayaka, and Max (because there's no way we're getting our investment back in him this offseason)

Dump:
Zardes (because if we re-sign him we have to pay Columbus $750K in GAM on top of his salary), Nicholson, Gutierrez, Barrios, Acosta, Irwin, Vallecilla (if anyone will take him)

Question marks:
Esteves - No way should we pay $1M for 50% of his rights, but if we can get that price down significantly or extend his loan again we could give him some more time
Wilson - I don't want him starting, but he could be a backup CB and/or the 5th defender you throw on to clog up the middle defending a lead late
Warner - He is what he is, but he's cheap

 

Based on what I'm seeing in the Netherlands, I predict that this role will be filled in 2023 by one Cole Bassett.

 

Reading the above posts, I am a bit surprised to see that there's not desire to have Gutiérrez return. Why is that? He's developed into a solid facilitator for the Rapids' attack and is a savvy veteran.

Also, Max looks to have improved from where he was just a few months ago. He isn't trying to take on defenders 1 v 1 with stepovers, he's moving the ball quickly and he tracks back to defend.

Both Gutiérrez and Max look like they can be solid, positive contributors in 2023.

Key to my thoughts about the 2023 roster are the roles that will players returning from injury will have. This is assuming that they will all be at or close to 100% fit by early March. Top two on this list are Galván and Toure. Galván was slotted to play a major role this season. The question is what role exactly and what will that role be next season? Pádraig seemed to indicate he would play more in the middle of the field than in previous seasons. But with Rubio taking charge as a CAM/10 does that mean Galván plays out wide again?

Toure looked about ready to either start or get serious minutes on the wing when he got injured in August. With an ACL and meniscus it might be that he isn't ready to go when the season begins in February.

It certainly seems that it would be in the best interest of the Rapids and Bassett for him to return from loan in January. No sense in playing elsewhere if he can't get regular minutes on the pitch. If he does return, what is his best position/role with the Rapids? As a box to box #8 type I would guess, especially if Price is healthy and back to his role.

Should Bassett return to the Rapids, or even if he doesn't, what lies ahead for both Priso and Larraz? Priso never seemed to gain Fraser's favor and Larraz was injured the entire season. Are either one of them going to be integral to the first team in 2023? Or will they be "relegated" to playing with the Rapids 2 side?

 

Because he's a 32 year old player here on a short-term loan with a notable injury history in this league. If we could get him on a free that would be one thing, but I don't think investing in him in a transfer from his Chilean side is the best use of our resources.

 

With regards to Max, I honestly think it's fair to give the kid another shot here.

Early season did he try to beat too many 1v2s with fancy flicks and stepovers? Yes, he certainly did. But so did a certain Braian Galvan. Galvan's difference was he would often do so in an attacking winger position, Max would do so in the middle. I FULLY believe the plan was to have Max follow Galvan's integration - Galvan only played 9 games his first year here, only 2 of those being starts, and logged 244min.

Max has 27apps/9 starts, and 894 minutes. That's nearly an identical number of mins logged per game (27min per game for Galvan, 33min for Max) but Max had 3x the number of appearances. I could be out to lunch here, but I don't think the plan was to have Max a penned in, play nearly every game of the season guy right away. All the reports on his signing were his talent potential and how we could grow him - just like the reports about Galvan.

Yes, Max put up disappointing numbers, but if we're being real here, everyone on the Rapids aside from Rubio put up disappointing numbers. What Max has shown the last 5 -7 games of this season is that he's talented, and more importantly, he can learn to adapt his playstyle to the system. When he first came, he tried to play hero ball and play things his way. Now that he's had time here, he's shown that he can learn and adjust, I think that shows that he's growing and has plenty more to show us.

He showed great promise in the CCL, fell off a cliff, and then - if we're being honest - worked really hard to climb out of it and had some really great showings as of late. Replaceable? Hard to say when no one else in the midfield did anything productive this last season.....

Also, regarding Max, I'll leave you the following two items:

Don't know if anyone read this article: https://www.coloradorapids.com/news...language-barriers-with-help-from-unexpected-r

But it certainly seems like Max's difficulties most likely stemmed from an inability to communicate with other players and - arguably more importantly - staff. Which, when integrating into a new team can cause serious problems. Especially when you consider the fact the most important part of integrating into a new team (preseason, and early season) was spent without proper translation.

Imagine yourself at 21 years old, moving across the world for the first time and trying to integrate into a team that A) plays a different style than you're used to and B) you don't have the ability to communicate with your teammates and staff. And then C) you're thrown into the fire because of injuries up and down the roster. We asked Max to be a ball holding midfielder who distributes and sets the tempo of the attack - and a ball holding midfielder is not in Max's natural strengths.

I think it's easy to forget that these players are also humans and real life challenges can bleed into their performance....just like any other job in the world.

It's also worth noting that a certain Cole Bassett has seen as much overseas success as Max has since joining the Rapids.


The 2nd thing I'll bring up is one Brenner Souza da Silva (no relation) of FC Cincinnati... Brenner joined Cincy at 21 years old, traveling across the world to a new environment at a $13mil price tag. He went on to play and start in 33 games, logged 2799 minutes, and put up a MASSIVELY underwhelming 8g/2a. He was constantly dragged in MLS media as being a potential big time bust.

This year? 29apps/22 starts - 18g/6a.

I say give Max another shot.

(ok I'm ready for the tomatoes to be thrown at me!)

 

Diego Rubio named to PFF’s team of the season:

Our MLS Team of the Season based on PFF grades and metrics ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/HPP2sZ8tii

— PFF FC (@PFF_FC) October 14, 2022

Well deserved too!

 

2022 Colorado Rapids Season Review: Rubio's career year, strengths, weaknesses, and what needs to change in 2023 #Rapids96 | #MLS https://t.co/nTP25joZhU pic.twitter.com/5NL8Kozi51

— Matt Pollard (@LWOSMattPollard) October 13, 2022

 

Ex-Rapids managers went 0-3 in the playoffs this weekend (Smith, Mastroeni, Pareja)

 

So the new salary info is out from the union:

Priso: $89K
Gutierrez (on loan): $570K

and

wait for it

Nicholson: $335K

W.T.F.

 

In case anyone is wondering, Nicholson's contract is essentially identical to what he was getting paid when he left the team in 2020. So overall slightly less when you consider inflation and the increased salary cap over the last two years, but still.

 

So, did we get Priso because we really think he'll be something (although Fraser hardly played him) or because he was really cheap?

Nicholson deal

 

Time to face the music on my preseason predictions:

http://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2022/10/time-to-face-music.html

 

in all honesty it would be easier to pick a stock to double or CO home prices than the year to year "quality" of the Rapids.

 

What is the deadline for announcing end-of-season roster moves? I saw a lot of teams that were eliminated from the playoffs already did it, but I guess maybe it's not until after MLS Cup?

 

IIRC its the week before MLS Cup for the non-MLS Cup teams. The Monday after MLS Cup the short trade window opens for moves to be made before the St. Louis expansion draft the Friday after MLS Cup. The next couple weeks after that is free agency and the re-entry drafts, all finishing before Thanksgiving. Then the Superdraft is Dec. 21st.

 

Where do we go from here?
https://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2022/10/where-do-we-go-from-here.html

 

Mostly agree with your thinking here. About the only player I really think differently on is Wilson, who I don't want to see in a Rapids jersey anymore. We're terribly weak at CB - we have to hope Keita is really solid and that he and Lalas pair well, and we have nothing behind them but untested kids. While I'm optimistic about Edwards being a solid MLS-level CB in the future, he hasn't done it yet.

 

Hard not to conclude that some major reinforcement is needed this off-season. If we get the same ol' "We're looking at bringing in several players in the summer" line, well, I'll write a strongly worded letter or something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'd say I'd stop going to the games but as a Rapids fan in absentia I don't have that lever to pull.

 

Make sure to preface it with a telegram so they are prepared.