Roster 2023

just do your HS logic games and think about who pat has and hasn't mentioned. artur is a dedicated DM and we just got him. coco has been mentioned as a DP. HH they whether wise or not has been mentioned as a DP and as playing higher upfield this year. raines is your inexpensive prospect in training. who does that leave. our DM work has been poor. pat would be familiar -- and this does seem to be becoming team Who Do You Know. their salaries match to within about $10k.

the flaw in the analysis is that for all of pat talking about we need assists, and hemming and hawing about whether we need a 10, a MF of artur HH coco might be good for a couple goals and a couple assists a year, which just won't work. you especially then can't sign a F with 3 goals in 2 years. has to come from someplace.

i haven't really watched the crew so i have no idea on him alone. maybe he is wise standalone. the problem is the puzzle being arranged is underwhelming and looks too much like last season.

 

watching crew game from 10/1 against NYRB and they said artur is a "newly minted american citizen."

 

i do not understand tarbell whatsoever. at first i agreed with your read on where someone vaguely "like" him would be on a roster. he was austin's backup, he's played a handful of games a year since roughly 2019 (last time he was a "1" was 2018), by that logic we're signing a 2.

#2 is usually a solid veteran or an apprenticing future 1. #2 is usually hired cheap to save cap playing the odds the 1 stays healthy. if the 1 has a season ending injury there is a rule for replacing them. so you don't sign an expensive backup, you sign a cheap one, and if the primary gets a bad knock, you invoke the injury replacement atop the cheap backup.

any peeking at the specifics here prompts discomfort. with the exception of one season his GAA is generally sky high, 2 for SJ, 2 for Austin (including 1.75 last season on a playoff team), he only ever had one good year. he is also not cheap, $300k, which i am sure is why austin offloaded him. so he's neither the solid numbers vet nor some draft pick or project you think is the next tally hall. he's a fairly long career guy who averages about 2.0 GAA and costs a lot. horrible GM choice.

why he's really being signed, his one decent season, pandemic year 2020, he had a roughly 1 GAA as a backup. for the crew. it's yet another "guy pat knows." to be fair, they won the title that year, but room was the starter, and 2020 is an odd year to treat as a template.

but i half wonder. that would be very expensive for a backup. are we absolutely sure clark is coming back? and if the cap is going up, sorry, but a very very very mediocre backup is not where to dump any portion of your windfall. the whole idea is to maybe have $200-250k in the backups and spend the money on the 1 and the field players. this cost is like you don't trust clark or he's retiring. ok, trade/cut clark and go sign a half million dollar keeper. you don't sign a guy who charitably has backup numbers and is probably one foot on a banana peel to USL or scandinavia.

i mean on the FA list you have seanjohn and a couple others who would probably only be another $300-400k and would be excellent as a 1. why am i spending half that on a crappy 2.

dude's doing a horrible job.

 

i watched a half of artur against RBNY last night and my response is meh. i was impressed by cuccho, etienne, their LB, and room. artur just seemed to be jogging around in formation not doing much. he is taller and can go crash the box on deadballs or compete for headers in midfield.

tarbell and artur reek of nepotism. overall this feels like assembling a team no better than it's been.

 

i mean something slightly different.

Season-Ending Injury Replacement Player

A club may replace an injured player that is on the Season-Ending Injury List with a new replacement player in accordance with parameters below.

The club will remain responsible for the injured player's full Salary Budget Charge. Clubs may execute a trade to create Salary Budget space in order to sign such a replacement player. This is the only circumstance in which a club may trade for Salary Budget space. Clubs are only able to receive Salary Budget relief (paid out of the club's own pocket) for a season-ending injury under the following parameters:

• The injured player must be earning at least $100,000 per annum.
• The injured player must have suffered the season-ending injury prior to the close of the Primary Transfer Window and the new player must be acquired as of such date.
• The replacement player may earn up to $250,000 but not more than the player who suffered the season-ending injury.
• The replacement player’s charge will be billed back to the club.
• Clubs will only be allowed to sign one such replacement player per MLS League Season.

If the injured player occupies an international roster slot on the Senior Roster, the replacement player may also be an International Player.

-----
if my starting keeper tears an ACL early in the season i would rather go sign a new 1 as a replacement than run a poor second out there for a season. i would only dump money into the backups at the position if i anticipated needing to rotate or use my 2nd on a contender, and i am past the permitted timeframe to replace. if i have an injury rash and am not contending why am i trying to prop up my table slot? test out valdez/HD2 keeping.

i personally think the bright idea is grow your own deric but he was really a klein HS/texans kid we dibsed. but you want low cost high upside. failing that if you're gonna pay get quality not hope.

i get people may see it as a hedge but bad teams don't need hedging, they need the guts to make a change. if you're not sure clark is good or healthy enough, make a deal then sign a legit 1. like i said, this is a good FA class for a starter.

i kind of doubt a guy being signed from austin is taking a paycut to play here. i remember similar arguments on steres and clark. steres played here for $75k more than his prior $375k at LA (=$450k). clark more than doubled his portland $250k to get $560k here. and those are pat not jordan. i bet he's same or on a raise.

 

https://www.transfermarkt.us/josh-cohen/profil/spieler/398015

when the NT hit that point arund the summer where horvath gave up the howlerr and we had a bunch of backup keepers not playing -- before all the c'ship loans to luton and such -- i started doing some digging on what was out there as other keeper options. i found this guy.

i think berhalter passed because he got killed in the UCL -- i think behind the number crunching is a club snob -- but it was maccabi haifa in a group with juve, PSG, and benfica. through game 4 he had a win against juve and was allowing 2 GAA completely overmatched. the last 2 games got ugly but that to me is when european teams run out their better guys.

but his league numbers every place he goes are around a GAA of 1. i think if he cares about USMNT any more he'd be eager for a platform where the coaches would notice his play.

 

i like thor and raines, and sebas is above average and might be good if he was surrounded "just so" with sharply chosen service players. but a lot of what he signs is overpriced recycled junk or useless kids on loan. so that's 3 out of several. to me tarbell and the forward are borderline to even be in MLS, and my sense is artur is maybe a tiny fraction better than vera. this forward kid is not what sebas needs.

i don't see the quality and traction like this is getting any better. you sign USL+ types and hold on the DPs you are going to stay exactly where you are. this is not even AJ, Leonardo, Beasley, much less the forwards who were actually good. and that was a mid seed type team. are we trying to win or what.

columbus has several decent FA (etienne, the LB pedro) and this is the one we sign? if you're not happy at keeper, you sign tarbell? i didn't even mention him FA because to me he's like replacement level. you go draft some kid first round he's probably the same level and not $300k.

 

the flip side of conveying to everyone concerned that your are The Big Boss Running This Sh*t is they are going to look to you first for accountability. i realize we just fired nagamura instead but having it be one firing and not two was FO choice not fan choice, and nagamura blew a ton of leads. there is a general fan consensus the team isn't competitive, not just that nagamura blew it. personally i am not yet sold pat's any better than jordan, so far.

in terms of the specific reaction, GIGO. i get isolated sometimes on this page but the general fan vibe is probably closer to where i sit. which in personnel terms is going to be how are the DPs and coco untouchable, and we gotta do better than this in terms of the adds. i realize we have a fair amount of cap and 7 or so slots left but that's going to be supporting type players on a budget not stars on a blank check. the remaining cap for all 7 would be.a fraction of what HH alone costs.

fans might disagree on how much of the core needs to go -- and exactly who -- but that HH is coming back is going to make people angry. at minimum. and i think most smart fans would say at least 1-2 more core players need to go from among coco hadebe sebas. personally i don't think we have a single core player who plays at a true DP standard. which is a big part of why we are where we are. we have 1 absolute dud and some marginal DP quality. such that we're not going to win but silly folks can debate how big a haircut we need to try to win. to me if you even have to ask that question you have the wrong DPs. you go sign new DPs until people expect to win. you don't run a lab test on another couple seasons of incremental variable tests. the idea is to be raving about your awesome DPs not having academic debates about what is sufficient to not get fired in those slots.

personally i think most of the fans intuitively get most of the core if not all needs to go, when you do this bad. that he seems reticent to go there suggests to the knowledgeable fan we're either incompetent or not trying very hard.

if the astros ever miss the playoffs they will not parse among struggling hitters and pitchers. they will cut and trade them all then go sign or bring up from the farm new people they think are playoff worthy. you don't win by trying to make the right close decisions among the mediocre. you win by getting better players in where the mediocre aren't even on the field much anymore.

 

there is a rational JC and an emotional JC. i am sure there is some degree of this with everyone on here. i annoy people with rational JC posting but it's just what i believe. but there has to be some degree of emotional JC to keep bothering. he doesn't post but he's the one who bothers to watch at this point. maybe tonight something worth watching. maybe i could possibly be wrong on that signing. doubt it, but who knows.

the emotional side is a decent chunk of what keeps people watching and buying tickets. if you suck constantly then optimist JC gets stomped out and quits. optimist JC is all that keeps this interest going at this point, literal rational posts aside. like i have emotional investment in this, it once was good, but i don't even believe most years we have any chance.

i see a tension in this Apple Year. you will now have to pay for the privilege of watching this sh*t. emotional JC is struggling to see this as worth that. but depending how much they spend it might actually cushion their ability to survive without anyone showing up or caring. so does it matter what i or anyone thinks.

 

for a team talking like itt wants to walk down the road to cap flexibility we sure seem to be loading up the roster with expensive mediocre veterans plus carrying half a parker though expiration. team that wanted cap freedom would sign a few HD2 on their dream shot for a year. goes well, new player. goes bad, cap freedom. you spend a half million on steres or tarbell and you don't have quality or freedom.

 

Onstad and Olsen are trying to construct a 50 point roster that will qualify for the playoffs. Full stop. Can talk about youth, ambition, etc. but they are looking for the most efficient (not pretty) way to 50 points based on their knowledge of MLS and what is needed to get there. You can question that wisdom but I think 2023 is about job retention and survival.

 

Micael que pertence ao #Galo está emprestado ao Houston Dynamo 🇺🇲
O zagueiro jogou apenas 1 jogo na MLS profissional, mas está bem na equipe B que disputa a MLS NEXT PRO, que é uma liga de desenvolvimento para jovens jogadores:

⚔️17 jogos
⚽1 gol
🟨4 amarelos
⏱️84% como titular pic.twitter.com/ZpFhH01U5c

— Wadson Fernandes (@WadsonAraujo89) November 29, 2022

seems to say Micael is in the program on loan

 

here's the deal, even if you aren't with me on the youth movement, the modern day cap equivalent of holden and cameron playing for $60k/season, or Deric for similar, creates the combination of quality AND cap room that gets you where they want to go. we are forgetting a lot of cap 101 lessons. sign GA (finally did that) who don't count. sign HGP who can play. or we can sign sub quality players for a half million which is the precise opposite end of the value equation. overpay and don't get sh*t for it. they may very well have your theory but signing scrub veterans for $500k pretty much ensures you will be watching in october. the age/HGP beef i have been making for years speaks to this. they would rather have some overpaid 30 year old playing his last year than some future star playing for peanuts one of his first. and if they were smart enough to slap together enough vets at cost to do this we'd already be there.

like i said, for all the self serving bs last season they had more freedom to actually change this team, t. hey had DPs and spent probably $15-20m including fees and salaries. this year is 10 supporting cast on a $3m budget. that isn't much money and if you wanted it to "last" you'd sign some good inexpensive HGP as filler to let you accumulate some cap to spend. we instead, how about a half million steres, another half million artur, p*ss it all away. which is why this is where it is. several ok players do not impact as much as a couple good ones. several ok players is your ticket to the cellar.

 

to give an example, you have raines for peanuts already behind HH and coco but we go get artur. if the CM is no good sell or trade the core guys. it's idiotic and cap-virtue-defeating to stick cheap good talent behind expensive prime age mediocrity.

i get your theory, and a lot of the old dynamo used to be veteran players. but they'd have 1-3 cheap or GA kids mixed in, and the other subtlety is they refused to overpay veterans. when veterans got greedy they got gone.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Flach

was reading a list of potential 2026 USMNT candidates. note the birthplace and the favorite NFL team. how is he not here? like we used to get this one right on the stu holdens of the world.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_Morris

this was the Crew DM i was actually impressed with watching their tape.