Looks like Dorn and Wagner were the ones cut. My inference from this is that Sawyers has a lot of confidence in Barr as a player who can step in and contribute right away. Until the 16-player roster is listed explicitly, it's hard to know who the 16 protected players are. It's pretty clear that the following 12 are protected: Alagich, Beene, Bryan, Chastain, Clemens, French, Katia, Lindsey, Pretinha, Sanchez, Sissi, Venturini but the next four are less clear. Clark and Nanez would be good guesses. Probably Greathouse. And I'll say Hendershot as the sixteenth, though I personally would have much rather kept Dorn or Wagner than her.
Ann Cook was waived by the Freedom. I'd like to start a re-draft Cookie movement. I think she was totally solid for Washington, and I think she'd do better coming off the bench for us than Dorn or Wagner did last season.
Yeah, Cook's a better player than Dorn or Wagner. And, IMHO she's also better than at least two or three of our current 16. My one question is how desperate she is to stay in the league. Maybe she doesn't want to have to move all the way across the country yet again. I wouldn't blame her if she just said to heck with it and decided to get on with her life. However, if it turns out she really is phyched to play pro soccer, I'd certainly love to have her back on the Rays.
I wanted to start a new thread just for the newly announced waiver list. My thoughts.... Maybe the girls on the waiver list should just form their own team! The more teams, the better and I am sure they would put up a good fight even though they are just the "waivers"! P.S. - TC and CC - Can we move the last few posts from the other 2003 draft thread to this one??
CyberRays exercise options on maximum 16 players http://www.sjcyberrays.com/news/rel_20030221.html Here are the 16: Dianne Alagich LaKeysia Beene Thori Bryan Brandi Chastain Kim Clark Mandy Clemens Michelle French Dawn Greathouse Maren Hendershot Katia Kelly Lindsey Lisa Nañez Pretinha Keri Sanchez Sissi Tisha Venturini-Hoch My first thought was to get Cook again, but we might not need her. We have a good amount of quality mids, including some newcomers. It wouldn't be a bad idea to invite her and a few others from the waiver list to try out. I guess nothing too dramatic happened at the tryout last weekend, nothing was ever mentioned and those names aren't around. Horvath and Quiñones are nowhere to be found on the roster under The Team on the website. Are they still our reserves or what? We're still allowed 2, and we're allowed 2 developmental players as well this year. Any ideas on that?
Re: CyberRays exercise options on maximum 16 players It's sort of silly to speculate at this point since we'll have some answers tomorrow and others when preseason training starts next week, but what the heck. I'd guess there is a good chance that the waived players will be invited into camp, since that has a 28 player limit. Of course, the waived players might be picked up elsewhere or invited into another team's camp and choose to go there. For example, I wonder if Tom Sermanni might invite Cary Dorn to try out for the Power, since he knows her strengths and NY is closer to her home base. While we do have 'quality mids', as TishaVench15 says, we're also vulnerable there. Does anyone know if Sissi's shoulder is fully recovered? I also imagine we'll lose Pretinha (and Katia) at some point to Brazilian NT callups. I'd like to see another solid MF on the roster for insurance, which is why I suggested Ann Cook be given another look. Another possibility is Justi Baumgardt, who seemed to do pretty well for the Power in the attacking mid role at the end of last season. She played with Frenchie at Portland and I bet would be happy to be back on the west coast. Allie Kemp's another option, can play forward or midfield and is really speedy. Of course, if the CyberRays pick anyone off of waivers someone else will have to be cut from the roster, presumably to be added to the reserve squad. I'm assuming the reserves and 'developmental' players will be identified when the final 16+2+2 rosters are set. As for Ronnie Fair, she's good, but do we need another defender? I think she's more likely to stay in NY as a reserve, or to be picked up by San Diego. And I guess it's still possible we'll see some trades once the coaches have a chance to see how their training camp squads are meshing. In related matters, there's a good Betsy Barr article at www.wusa.com
Kemp was the name on the waiver list that stood out to me. I think it'd be smart to invite her to try-out w/ the team. At least give her a shot, what could it hurt?
haha nsa- cause you've known me for too long =Þ Actually.. some people don't know she played Defensive Mid @ Stanford.. did a great job. =Þ
I am really surprised NO ONE was picked in the waiver draft! I guess all the teams are going to go the try-out route see if they want to pick up a different player? There was definitely some quality available in that group that was waived. (Maybe they really should form their own team and have exhibitions against the other WUSA teams!) For the 'Rays, I didn't see anyone on that list that we really need, but it would have been fun if we'd picked Cookie back up. With limited roster size, however, I understand we can't just pick up a player (even as a reserve) for primarily sentimental reasons, and we don't have a real need for Cookie's set of soccer skills right now. RB1's concerns about the midfield are valid if Brazil does indeed call up players during the WUSA season. What IS the current status of the Brazilian NT, anyway? Last I heard--and granted this was a while ago--they had no funding to even hold NT camps and the all the players were practicing individually or playing on club teams. I'd hope, for that team's sake, that during a WC year things would be different, but I don't know. However, if we do have a game or two without the Brazilians, while it will certainly hurt us (simply, Sissi cannot be replaced--by anyone--and when a team loses 3 people who are the major cogs in the offense it's going to be disruptive no matter how awesome the replacements are), we can shift some people around and still have a very good midfield and offense. Start Clark and Sanchez, Di (if she's sitting) or Nañez, move Frenchie to mid and use Brandi or Sanchez as the other middie... We don't really need anyone who's not already on the roster, and I don't know that anyone out there would necessarily be a better option than what we already have. But what do I know?!?! We'll see who gets invited to camp!