'24 In-Season Catch-All Thread

But I do hope I'm wrong

 

We do have an absolutely brutal schedule to start the season as well. Based on last season standings, our first 10 games of the season we face:

@ Portland (10th)
Vs Nashville (7th)
@ FSL (5th)
@ Seattle (2nd)
Vs Houston (4th)
Vs LAFC (3rd)
@ Miami (14th, but uh, they are a different team this year)
@ San Jose (9th)
Vs Dallas (7th place)
@ Cincinnati (Supporters Shield Winners)


That's 8 playoff teams from last year, 5 of which were top 5 finishers in their respective conferences.

 

I'm placing the O/U at 4.5 points in the first four games. I think we hit under, but would love to be wrong.

 

That's the perfect O/U line because I can't decide if we get 4 or 5 points from those 4 games.

 

Per tradition, my prediction:

 

We'll be better than last year, but I'm skeptical that we're a playoff team.

That's pretty much all I have since we weren't able to watch them at all during the preseason.

 

We stink.

I like to get that out of the way early so that I can become my optimistic, glass half full (Cabernet please) the rest of the season.

 

Imagine if the Rapids put out something like this:

Laying out the roster — with option years! — so specifically and unambiguously is king behavior.

My guess is the soccer gods will smile on this and reward Atlanta with a trophy of some sort this year. pic.twitter.com/LplO64Cy4c

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) February 23, 2024

#ATLUTD announces 2024 roster ahead of season opener 🗞️ https://t.co/XNDr5vv3b3

— Atlanta United FC (@ATLUTD) February 23, 2024

Would clear up so much confusion. Meanwhile, we still have Galvan shown on our roster on the Rapids website….

 

In other breaking news:

OFFICIAL: The club has exercised their offseason buyout on defender Alex Gersbach and has waived midfielder Sidnei Tavares.

📰 » https://t.co/IMIC72EvkQ#Rapids96 pic.twitter.com/0HTmF61mRI

— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) February 23, 2024

Rapids buyout Gersbach and waive Tavares, and have moved on from two of the FO’s ‘celebrated’ moves last year.

I say ‘celebrated’ because they pat themselves on the back after making them - and they turned out to be clearly not MLS quality.

 

LOL on Gersbach and Tavares. What a disaster last season was.

 

And we still have an overpriced, international goalkeeper on the roster. And he's our backup, who's still yet to prove he's up to MLS GK par.

I have nothing against Ilic, but man, I still can't wrap my head around last years moves. Colossal train wreck.

 

In each of the last 2 seasons, I quit watching the Rapids August-ish because they were so poor. Not just not winning (I've been a Rapids fan since 1996 so I've seen losing teams) but just uninteresting and no real attacking skill. Last year I decided that I was done unless they took steps to improve the squad.

I haven't been in BigSoccer but have seen Facebook posts about incoming players and Armas. With Mihailovic (sp?), Vines, Steffen, and the kid from NYRB whose name I can't recall because I'm old I've seen enough to be somewhat interested in the start of a new season. And thank goodness Wilson, Acosta, and Nicholson are finally gone.

We've improved in several positions but not at striker and DM as others have mentioned. I have no expectation that Armas will prove to be a good choice. So.... we'll see. I expect to see lots of long balls up the wings and Sammy trying to get forward every chance he gets.

 

Imagine signing Cabral, Gersbach, Ilic, and Tavares (all of whom were 'pinned' as starting quality) in the same year and still keeping your job.

That's over $2 million in salary completely wasted on those four guys.

 

Well, that's the most specific info the club has maybe ever given out about the roster-

https://www.coloradorapids.com/news/colorado-rapids-announce-roster-compliance-breakdown

 

With Gersbach gone (deservedly so), who is our back up at left back?

 

Fun post for anyone who likes numbers....

The departures this offseason, have freed up a TON of cap space in guaranteed compensation compared against last year's books.

• William Yarbrough ($475k)
• Danny Wilson ($355k)
• Sidnei Tavares ($750k)
• Diego Rubio ($715k)
• Jack Price ($825k)
• Sam Nicholson ($360k)
• Danny Leyva ($225k)
• Andrew Gutman ($381k)
• Braian Galvan ($462k)
• Luis Diaz ($534k)
• Steven Beitashour ($173k)

That's $5,255,000 in freed up salary hits from 2023 to 2024.

Now, Kevin Cabral is going to cost us the full 1.8mil this year instead of the 900k last year, so if you factor that in, our new "available" cap space would be:

$4,355,000

It will be very interesting to see the cap numbers later this year to see how we've spent our salary cap space.

Existing players that have signed either a new contract or an extension:

• Calvin Harris - club option, picked up so presumably no increase
• Ralph Priso - club option, picked up so presumably no increase
• Sebastian Anderson - $121k last year
• Oliver Larraz - $85k last year
• Cole Bassett - contract extension, could increase over the $450k last year

Presumably, those guys don't really cost us too much more this year, so I won't factor them in below.

New additions that will have some sort of contract hit:

• Lamine Diack
• Sam Vines
• Jasper Loffelsend - was on $95k with FSL last year
• Adam Beaudry
• Djordje Mihailovic
• Zack Steffen
• Omir Fernandez - was on $174k with NYRB last year
• Nate Jones (superdraft pick)
• Kimani Stewart Baynes (superdraft pick)
• Wayne Frederick (superdraft pick)

(Worth noting that Remi Cabral, Miguel Navarro are both on loan so don't technically have cap hit as of today)

Now, I have absolutely no idea how the Rapids will be paying these new players. Rafael Navarro is on $1.4mil for example, and is on a DP contract. However, I imagine that Fernandez, Jones, Stewart Baynes, Frederick, Beaudry, and Loffelsend add up to $650k or so.

So, that would leave the FO with $3,705,000 in leftover 2023 salary hits to spread across Diack, Vines, Mihailovic, and Steffen - to just break even with 2023's salary spend.

I will definitely want to come back to this post at the end of the year to see how much cap space we actually spent. If the Rapids found a way to pay near that amount, then essentially we've treaded water for another season in terms of overall roster spend.

Sure, we've gone out and gotten "club record signings" but if that isn't raising the overall boat, then it may not be as exciting news as it could be.

Again, this may not be interesting for y'all, but for me, it definitely will be!

 

FYI the Galaxy is picking up their half of Cabral's salary through the length of his contract, not just last year

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/sources-colorado-rapids-acquire-kevin-cabral-from-la-galaxy

 

Dang, so, there's even more available cap space for the Rapids to use up before they break even with 2023.

That brings the total back up to $4,605,000 in estimated salary spend on Diack, Vines, Mihailovic, and Steffen, before breaking even.

Curious to see what their actual numbers are going to be.