Roster 2023

i try to sort out where the "double down" mentality comes from. one of my pet theories is we borrow acquisition costs and pay them over time which beyond mere sentimentality gives an incentive to resist making a tough decision. "you're asking me to get rid of him? i still owe bank y $z for player x." it explains our tendency to engage in what looks like the sunk costs fallacy. that having paid a loan fee for coco and watched him play ok a year, why not just buy. objectively we should know better except it's embarrassing and financially dumb to still be carrying debt on a player so bad they have already been cashiered.

this is also part of where my OPM worry comes in. mark cuban may be egotistical but he wants to win and i am sure some of the money being spent is his money. if a mistake is made his priority is winning even at financial cost. if your owner is cheap or not spending their own money -- if the team is run off OPM -- then you don't have endless resources or financial streams to tap to fix mistakes. you may tend to carry them to term. you may see them as the least expensive route forward. until we have the next sponsor deal to spend, whenever that is. and we may have borrowed the money for transfers. and still be paying. if we have money borrowed and invested in coco there are perverse incentives to keep him here and not to call it quits and save further expense. sunk costs fallacy 101. but only in a narrow view where we ignore sports or whether people want to buy tickets to watch a loser.

i say this but it doesn't explain HH. fans keep acting like we are "stuck" with HH. i agree he is an unlikely trade bait. but i am sure he has at least nominal if not significant transfer value back to mexico, sucking or not. he is a huge name there. i am sure there is a sucker. and unlike coco, what is it we are "stuck" with? he was a free transfer. there is no purchase cost. there is no loan to buy. we couldn't have borrowed money for his acquisition because it was free. what we accepted was a big salary. that salary is a future expense. if he is sold today we don't owe it tomorrow. the purchaser does. we walk away clean.

if the soccer side has to explain it to the business side, we have the opportunity to get a better player in, which could make the team more competitive and sell more tickets, and due to the free transfer acquisition any sale onwards is financial gravy and net positive. plus we save a prorated chunk of $4-5m salary depending when he is replaced and what they make.

i am also befuddled that there is no grousing about resources. they talked big about that. we haven't done sh*t since HH was pre-signed. i think HH was the fubo money. everything since is small fry. now we're back to passive and small deals.

last, the fans getting excited about a couple players now need to realize the impact of prior time periods. eg how HH coco steres -- last summer through early november -- cripples this team in juxtaposition to when they do get a few right. there was a similar situation last year where sebas was decent but one of the last pieces atop a bunch of holdover junk through january. you're allowed some mistakes but i feel like there's a pattern of lousy pre-coach-hire decisions every year the next guy has to carry. it has to stop. i'm not comfortable with "but these are jordan's people" type excuses because they are passive, but there then can't be "pat's people" mistakes just the same. it's like this team goes on autopilot for time periods.

 

worth noting in asher's official world bassi isn't signed yet. the dynofan rumorverse has mentally banked that one but it's actually not official. so you're getting that train set you already stumbled over in your parents' closet before xmas. ok, to give the short short version of my recent missives, "what else?" if you start out a "2" then trim down to a "1" at the start of the offseason some of this effort is just to get back to "2" or "3" and we're nowhere near "10." remembering we ditched fafa and DQ and thus had to sign a wing and playmaker to try to net back out even on those 15G and 8A. the game then is to dwarf the losses and not equate or slightly exceed them. so keep working asher. for all the applause on franco and bassi there are single players in this league who would outproduce both the guys we lost together. at which point the second or third adds are gravy. that's where i would like to go......

sounds like lainez wants too much for them but i guess we'll passively, optimistically carry HH's massive bimonthly bank robbery without blinking. we talked about resources, no? this is my point about admitting mistakes and if need be expending money to correct them.

failing that, if you don't believe we're expanding the pie and yet support giving endless optimistic second and third chances to underperformers, it's a finite pie and what HH and coco are consuming can't also be eaten by lainez. that can be the unstated part of "we were unwilling to pay lainez's asking price." is our offer was based on what's left after HH wolfs down $4-5m of the payroll budget annually to do jack sh*t. continuity is not costless. it can cost a lot to keep the same rotten team actually. your security blanket can be worse a risk than just hitting the market, and more certain in that risk.

 

Is there anything to the Lainez rumors or is it just made up fake news? I can adequately read Spanish but half the time those rumors in Spanish are completely fabricated

 

A DP on a loan is certainly a bold strategy Cotton

 

first off, you should know better, since we used to be incredibly cheap/lazy wasn't about everyone "expensive" we used to bring in, usually a "loan DP?" i mean not actually expensive, but expensive for us. used to be like they wouldn't even be that high of salary and it would be almost like DP for the loan fees or purchase cost or something. not sure if landin was but cubo and elis i thought both were loan DPs. and they were loan to buy.

second, before changing his mind pat was about to have coco a DP 1/2 year removed from being loan to buy. coco made $400s last season. so was that again about trying to shield acquisition costs?

 

to be real, we need some sure things, and to pay the going rate to get them here. that's what i heard when they said "resources." i have concerns about lainez's club numbers and doubt he's a sure thing. i have a similar beef on many of the confirmed noobs. we need 10-15 G or 10-15 A people for this to move forward.

i was mentioning lainez more because he was about the only remaining rumor. my deal is like if we want to compete for playoffs this season, bassi better not be it. it's more frustration that even a second or third tier acquisition seems to prompt hand wringing about affordability. that is not "resources," and plus, as either roster rules or actual bank checks, people don't seem to put 2+2 together as 4 that when we choose to keep HH and some of the other frustrating players, and he in particular makes a ton of money, that this consumes a huge chunk of the finite budget, as well as international and cap rules slots, at the expense of trying anything else expensive.

that it's both incrementalism on the field and then "finite resources" on the business side. in that context the way to have money to do deals is to actually move people and either fundraise from their exit or at least clear roster tools and obligations going forward.

in short, that if you're going to lecture me, you need to decide whether you (a) run back off bad acquisitions to preserve what little resources we do have or (b) admit that HH sticking around is at the expense of other opportunities like this. it's kind of frustrating to me we can't even pursue halff-a$$ because we've spent it all. i wish it was gold plated. i am cranky cuz it's dude we can't even do this half baked on loan. which means any better idea i have has no more legs than that. and as i have said ad nauseum past few days, this isn't enough. and i don't get just going into a season on purpose knowing that. just my vibe is kinnear would have HH and coco gone and be redoing the MF. even if we didn't have the replacement sorted the spots would be open.

 

I dunno if I would say we are topping out with 10th place. Any serious analysis can't just look at goals assist both ways and make a conclusion. Soccer is far more nuanced then that.

I'm not ready to make a guess quite yet but I'll say I'm not entirely pessimistic on this roster. I stand by my personal goal for this season: playoffs. Is it possible with this roster (more or less as is)? Maybe. Which is itself and improvement over the past...5 years(?) now.

 

actually, yes, you can just use goals and assists this way. look around the world and most teams in tables will follow a pattern. teams with significant positive GD will usually be the top several teams, with an oddball or two around midtable. teams with even GD will be about midtable, some perhaps higher, some perhaps lower. teams with negative GD will be bottom of the table with a lucky one or two near the cut line.

it's akin to payrolls and MLS. there will be some cheap teams high and some expensive teams low every year but given the general pattern it's kind of silly to suggest payroll doesn't hint at your future. you might be the exception but pretending like there is no rule is obnoxious. i have the same advice for us as the texans, who seem to similarly think they have to do the clever "stingley" instead of the obvious "sauce," every time. or sign someone with an ACL or cancer on some sort of strange upside theory when normal operating procedure is sign the best playing healthy guy from college. if you suck being clever quit being clever.

so, yes, i cannot absolutely predict what happens. i think if you build up enough goals in the team, and get solid enough a defense, yeah, anything can happen. i don't buy we're anywhere close to that. we have half the old defense, same keeper, 2/3 of the same mids who couldn't protect the backs before in transition. 2 backs will help, but this is starting out from 56 GA -- abysmal. if a lot of this is riding on defense, i think we might be average at best. the offense, in turn, i am skeptical we have much more ammo than last year. or service for sebas. so, mediocre defense, sputtering offense. you mocked doing this as just GF and GA and G and A but does it sound much better as qualitative? the qualitative informs my quantitative diagnosis. it's not fixed enough. not as a lineup much less having people off the bench where the games end better than recent seasons, where the starters might fight but the subs rolled over.

i think the first parts where i chafe are steres, coco, and HH. i don't buy they are cogs in some reconfigured monster defense. if we are making offense priority 2 -- fine -- the defense needs to be airtight. nope. don't buy it. too many holdovers. i am like can we sell these guys, or stop keeping them, for a reason. i think ditching dorsey and adam will fix part of the problem but if steres or bartlow plays, only so much. i also think some of how a team plays is does the MF ball win so much the other team has to work to reach the backs. artur may be an upgrade on vera -- we'll see -- but HH and coco sucked at defense. so other teams tend to reach the defense and any cracks are exposed.

to me the two analyses are interchangeable. you can look at it like this as players, or you can say that cumulatively night after night over a season this comes out as roughly x GA, that teams with that numerology plus a weak offense usually have a certain chance of doing anything. the higher the GA total, the more likely you are to give up that late spine-breaker on a given night. what i see so far is not much offense, and an ok defense, which will still net out negative. which, history says, maybe one team with that makeup makes the playoffs every couple years.

i think some of you are in dream land. this is objectively how the roster looks to me. i am not alone. MLS.com's power rankings for the west today have houston 13/14 ahead of only StL, and even then says, "There's a good chance that they could beat Houston right now even with an unfinished roster." now, the analysis is sufficiently out of date the writer has vera still on the team, but i agree with everyone else this ceilings out at 10th. at some point it will dawn on people that a tear down defense needs to be completely demolished, and that if the offense suffers from being a bunch of 5-10 goal tepid types you need 10-15 goal types to change your trajectory. this has been good for 2 time periods: "dero" and "elis." right now this is kind of stuck at the point where people used to want to tell you they thought maybe "bruin" was good enough to build around, despite all evidence (including table slot and key numbers) to the contrary.

to be real, the only player i am concerned am i being too harsh on is bassi. i think the wingbacks are solid but not exceptional. i think artur is ok and active -- kind of more solid and meh -- but i thought morris was their bad a$$ DM. i am skeptical on franco. then bassi hasn't played above a second division. he looks entertaining. but his numbers don't scream he's the next elis/manotas or brad davis. i get people are thirsty but surely they've sipped on a few years of "change" like this where maybe one guy is good but the overall standard just isn't there to compete.

others may point out we have no DPs left, etc., but to me in the transfer era that is a choice. you have bet on HH, coco, sebas, and hadebe. if you were both dissatisfied and active we could begin fixing that where we then have a DP or two to change things. as it is we seem to want to double down on a next to last core which is like when you play angry birds and you set the angle for the next effort. i'm not the one saying aim this low.

 

jonathan gomez, who is from texas but at real sociedad (though really their B team), is sufficiently unbusy and unwanted his club released him for USMNT january camp. hint hint

ditto hoppe at boro.

sabbi and rogers will also come but i think scandi remains on winter break.

 

https://sbisoccer.com/2023/01/jonathan-amon-leaves-danish-club-fc-nordsjaelland

 

In my mind there is enough change that I don't think anyone knows how this team will do. While I don't see the moves as ones that would clearly make the Dynamo a contender, there is enough unknown quantities coming in such that this is a fresh start. Anything is possible, and I can't comprehend how anyone determines otherwise. No one on this board knows jack about most of the new players. Are we all conditioned to be pessimistic? Sure. But time to let that go and take the journey. No reason to lose before the first whistle.

 

I mean, did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?

 

I'd bet money @*rey* and @DynamoManiac could talk an hour about the updated roster and provide solid insight. Someone should put together a podcast and have them be the analysts. Anyone ever think of doing that?

 

What did I miss? How did STL miss out on the asset that was the top spot on the allocation order?

 

The top spot of the order is the asset. Can be used, can be traded, etc. St. Louis has it but it's being 86'd their first year in before they could ever do anything with it, hence the compensation.

 

I said from the very start that we needed upgrades in 6-8 of the starting positions. I never imagined that Pat and Asher could pull it off in 1 transfer window.

I agree with Don Juego. I think anyone who makes any sort of predictions at this point of full of poop BUT all the turnover has me tingly for 2023.

 

Oh, got it. Thanks. Silly that it meant exactly what the english words said it meant. However, I assumed "asset" meant an actual asset. I'm not picking at their wording -- I should have understood it.

When I first read it I thought something happened like Pulisic announcing he wanted to move to MLS but was then abducted by aliens so St. Louis can't have him.

 

I would assume some of the new guys will not meet expectations. Because their human and not FIFA computer game characters. That doesn't mean it has to happen. It just means I won't call for Pat Mendelson's head if it does happen. Now, should most of the new acquisitions not perform at an MLS average or better level, and its not because of random bad luck like injuries -- then I don't think you can give Asher Onstad any more time.