Seems like the right move to me. Weaver had been underwhelming and as much as I loved Garcia for his fire, he'd become a liability up the middle on defense.
"We need to find the right combination to win," General Manager John Doyle said. "When you're not winning you have to make changes. You have evaluate players more harshly." I agree with the first part about making changes. Not sure what he means about evaluating players more harshly though. Evaluation is evaluation. It's harsh by necessity, no matter how you look at it. Someone's job is ALWAYS on the line in any personnel decision. Does he mean "I need to do a better job evaluating players"?
It's about freaking time!!! On the one hand, I feel some vindication with the trading of Garcia, on the other hand, this is a day late and a dollar short. So we dumped Somma, Weaver, and Garcia, and brought on Glen, Wondo, and ...? Who's that next player? We need another central defender ... Well, unless Roberts is going to get a sudden shot and turn out to be OK. We sure aren't counting on RyanC coming back anytime soon. Still, we could sign a central midfielder to pair with McD, and then lineup up Kelly or Pitch next to Jason in central defense and we would suddenly look like a better team. Well, it's movement in the right direction and it's change which we desperately need. Let's hope there is more help on the way. (Like Corrales and or Elliott getting traded or cut to make room for a decent attacking midfielder from Central America?) go quakes!! - Mark
Nice to see our FO doing something after this messy conumdrum that you call a season. Good to see Garcia go. He gave us a good season last year but he's getting to old. We barely get to know Weaver too. Bring in the next big signing!
You may well have it there. "No more Mr. Nice Guy," recognizing that he hasn't been sharp enough and needs to get tougher. The president of Mustang Soccer attitude must go.
Yeah, the Garcia move is a tough one, but probably the kind of move they need to make. If they are going to salvage the season, let's say get back into playoff contention as the measure of "salvaging the season", they are going to have to make some quick, decisive moves, and they are going to have to be just the right ones.
At this point, "getting back into playoff contention" is pretty much out of the question. We need to win something like 60% of our remaining games to make it. We could be mathematically in the hunt for a while longer, but making it is a pipe dream. So we need a lower bar. I'll take: "Play above .500 for the remainder of the season." (Counting from our victory over the SaltLickers.) Seen in that light, we are: 1 - 0 - 1 From here to the AllStar Break our schedule looks like this: 06/13 - Saturday - @ Seattle Sounders FC 06/20 - Saturday - Home vs. - Los Angeles Galaxy ^ July 07/03 - Friday - @ Real Salt Lake 07/11 - Saturday - Home vs. - Toronto FC 07/18 - Saturday - @ Chicago Fire 07/25 - Saturday - Home vs. - D.C. United I'm not optimistic, but then, I didn't think that Frank would start either Zaher or McD, and I didn't think there was any chance they would trade or cut Garcia. Let's hope that I continue to be wrong. go quakes!! - Mark
Not necessarily. Not easy, certainly, but not out of the question. The thing about those "win 60% of the remaining games" kinds of measurements is that they tend to get quickly thrown by the wayside after the team wins 3 in a row. If you win 3 in a row, that number might go down to 50%, and you win 2 of the next 3, and it's 40%, etc. And winning games 14-16, for example, doesn't make it any less likely (or more likely) that you'd win games after that. We could have said the same thing about last year's team, and they wound up being in playoff contention until the last game of the season. Of course they had sort of a nice confluence of good stuff happen: 3 or 4 new players who really helped the team, and a bunch of home games.