It would have been a nice consolation prize, this sad year, to have taken the US Open Cup...... Any news on Ralston?
Mariner says that the word from the hospital is they're pretty sure Ralston's leg was broken, sounds like he's done for the year.
Awful news about Ralston. First because Steve doesn't deserve something like that. But secondly, because that pretty much spells the end of the season for the Revs as serious title contenders. If you haven't noticed, if the offense isn't generated through Ralston of late, then it usually isn't generated. Who on the roster right now do you have faith in to create scoring opportunities? Shalrie? Not really a creator. Taylor? Not really a creator, either. Castro? Nyassi? Mansally? Khano? Please. On the bright side, maybe this will finally be the off-season where the organization realizes that they have serious issues that they need serious answers. ...who am I kidding? There is no bright side.
That is what happened last time. Although It could be the try to keep Badilla on the field by either going to a 4-4-2 or having him push Shalrie forward, as they did last night. Only time will tell.
We were resting players for now! Ack. Horrible game at the Other Baseball Ground. No flow, no one taking the iniative. Just awful. Rally going down just kind of puts a giant puncuation mark on the entire thing.
Garbage...again. You are how you play, and we've been garbage for 2 months or so. Outshot, against a supposedly inferior department...again. Also, Felix Brillant was better than Wells Thompson. Although right now, Brillant's current club, the Impact, may be better than the Revs at this point.
We're an average team. Plain and simple. I'm sure the open roster spot we had wouldn't have helped though if we'd filled it. Chemistry issues and all that. We're officially in third place now in the east.
Agreed on all counts. It's downright shameful that we have open roster spots and used salary cap room considering our heavy schedule, the roster freeze and the possibility of national team call-ups, nevermind injuries, of which two are of the season-ending varieties. Claiming you have depth doesn't hold a lot of water when you're dealing with a kiddie pool (pun intended).
I'm sure we'll hear about how "You can't plan for injuries" or other such nonsense. I mean after all, who would ever think players might get hurt?
Filling the spot of Cristman obviously should've been done and could've been done. But the recent season ending injuries of Warren and Ralston, leaving two more open roster spots are very unfortunate but it's not like the Revs could've brought in anyone to plan for that. I completely agree with you that there was no reason to let the window close without replacing Cristman on the roster, though.
I agree with the first part, ignoring your sarcasm. That extra roster spot, which I think of as the "Cristman replacement" spot would have been filled by a forward because that's what the team needed at the time and that's what everyone on here agreed we needed. I don't remember any mention of bringing in a replacement for Ralston although we did observe that the Revs had no one to replace him. Right now the extra forward wouldn't help too much fill the gap where Ralston plays. So you're right. Exactly right. They only had one open spot going into the roster freeze date so it is ridiculous to blame them for having more than one open spot now. Warren and Ralston were hurt after they could be replaced. Think about it. It's not too hard to understand.
Neither's this. If they'd filled the spot, as they damn well should have, they'd be 2 people under the roster. Now they're three. I'm assuming that's pretty easy to understand as well? No, they couldn't have known Ralston or Warren would be done for the season. But it seems to be a safe assumption that in this physical sport, as in any other, there's a chance that an injury will take place. Why not head that off?
Monty, no one is arguing against the one open spot vacated by Cristman. I think there's a concensus about the failure to fill that spot. All Mark and I are trying to say is it isn't a good argument to view the two recent spots in the same light and hold three fingers up as some sort of major failure. Of course having three players unavailable down the stretch sucks, but only one was preventable. Sometimes shit happens and no one is to blame. Losing Warren and Ralston now is just tough shit. I wish there was one more guy there as well, but to be fair, based on the player acquisition history of this management team, I'm not really sure that one more person would've been the ultimate game changer this team needs. That's no excuse to not get anyone at all. I think we're just using that spot as the catch-all for current problems when any of the other 15 guys on the senior roster and 10 guys on the DV roster could just start playing like they give a shit and we probably wouldn't even notice one missing player.
Or they could have managed to get some upgrades on the current roster members well before the freeze. With the cap space available do you believe there is no one better out there anywhere than Wells Thompson?????
You explained that pretty well thanks. People can say what they want about leaving the roster spot open after the roster freeze date that was left by Cristman (and they do!). But to think having 3 roster spots open is the Revs fault doesn't make sense.
Of course I do, but now you're talking about something completely different and something that is much more complicated. I don't think playing musical chairs during the season is a good idea. I use Toronto and DC this season as examples. Filling empty roster spots is one thing, but trying to work multiple deals to move players in and out is something completely different. Yes, it can work, but I think more often than not, it just disrupts the team. No, I don't have any hard figures to back me up.
One of the open spots is the REvs fault, totally agree..... Having not upgraded Wells, Khano, Heaps, Albright, Flood and Phelan is also the Revs fault
And all I'm saying is that the one that was preventable should have been prevented. That's why I said I know that . So how can it be said that we're not good at something, and also said that no one can be blamed?
Come on Monty, you know those are two completely different circumstances, but I'll spell it out. No one is to blame for the season ending injuries and the subsequent two open roster spots. On a completely different note, the recent acquisition history for the current Revs FO is not exactly a glowing resume of success. There have been some good signings (Albright, Mansally, Nyassi) and some bad ones (Fernandez, maybe Castro), some question marks (Badilla, Manzo) and some that never were (Schelotto). Someone is to blame for that, whether its Nicol, Mariner, Burns, Gulati, or somebody else.