Are we ready?

The team is down in Charleston, with just a little over two weeks until the start of the season, and with very few questions left to answer. We've got our MIDUN. The developmental roster is set, with Milos Kocic (the new Shawn Crowe or the new Troy Perkins?), Brandon Barklage (the new Dan Stratford or Ryan Cordeiro?), and Ryan Miller (the new Ryan Miller?) signing. The senior roster is just one step away from being set, with Anthony Peters beating out Kyle Veris for a reserve central defensive role.

But did he also beat out Domenic Mediate? Conventional wisdom says yes, but I don't think this is settled yet. Afterall, why invite Dom down to Charleston if we don't have any slots left? 23 out of 24 contracts have been finalized, yet we've got 26 players down in sunny SC competing for the final spot. And while it might be fun to debate the virtues of USL1 standout Nic Platter and the 32 minutes of experience of James Thorpe, don't count out the Dom! Although the acquisition of Jakovic frees up Devon McTavish to be our number 1 flexible role player (a spot that Mediate might have filled if McTavish was stuck at CB all year), I wouldn't mind adding Mediate into the midfield, where we've only got 7 players currently.

The question for me comes down to Kocic. His settling for a developmental contract is troubling. If he were good enough to demand a senior contract, he would. So is he good enough to be Crayton's only backup before we have to turn to the MLS keeper pool? And maybe more importantly, is the club committed to Louis Crayton being our long-term goalkeeper when his contract is up this summer? If the answer to either one of these questions is no, then unfortunately Mediate may have to be sacrificed in order to shore up that role with either Platter or Thorpe.

Analysis of the Gomez trade

It's so rare to have a trade that affects every single facet of the team: from goalkeeper to the attack to the draft. And you just get the feeling that this is one of those moments that we'll look back on and say whether it made or broke the season.

When Colorado and DC made a trade last offseason, you can't really say that either team won on that deal, because both missed the playoffs. Resetting back to 2007, and with all money and roster implications aside, the trades boil down to DC getting Chris Pontius and Mike Graczyk, and Colorado getting Ivan Guerrero and a 2009 2nd round draft pick. That in itself would not be a terrible trade when you consider Pontius's star potential. But when you look at how desperate the Rapids should be to get rid of Gomez, it sure looks like United gave up too much. But in the end, these back-and-forth trades may have played an instrumental role in keeping Emilio with the team.

Let's look now about how this affects the different parts of our team:

Goalkeeper: The most puzzling part of this whole situation is the involvement of Mike Graczyk. On the surface, it appears that he would be here to compete with James Thorpe for the third goalkeeper spot. But that's a position that so rarely sees any playing time, it shouldn't matter much to us, right? I have a bad feeling that there's more to this. The Graczyk vs. Thorpe competition becomes much more meaningful if the club knows something we don't. This makes me worry about that either Kocic or Crayton might not be in the team's plans through the entire 2009 season. Don't forget also that we've already cut our fourth-string goalkeeper Quavas Kirk!

Defense: Prior to this weekend, I was pretty content with our defensive situation for the first time in over a year. We actually had some depth! Our starting lineup could look like Namoff-Roger-Janicki-Burch one day, and Namoff-McTavish-Burch-Guerrero the next. But with the failure to sign Roger and the dealing of Guerrero, our only decent starting lineup is Namoff-McTavish-Janicki-Burch. And our only depth consists of two not-yet-ready-for-primetime left backs (Wallace, Zaher) and one utility guy (Mediate) who can play either centrally or on the right.

Midfield: I was just getting used to the idea of our potential starting lineup including a defensive midfielder (Simms) and a holding midfielder (Jacobson), which would allow our two wingers (Fred, Quaranta) to have a bit more freedom getting forward. But with a defensive midfielder and attacking midfielder (Gomez) instead, the wingers have more defensive responsibilities, which Fred and Quaranta aren't the best suited to handle. This would be ok if we could occassionally start some wingers that can play both sides of the ball, but we've gone and traded away Guerrero, and McTavish and Burch will be needed in defense full time.

Offense: Simply put, Gomez should score more goals than Gallardo, and is better for our team than Gallardo. Assuming Gomez is closer to his 2007 level than his 2008 level. His return should also put Emilio back in the chase for the Golden Boot. I would expect to see Moreno's production drop off a bit, but let's also not forget that it was this formation that earned Ben Olsen 7 goals and 7 assists in 2007.

Substitutes: Between Gomez, Moreno, and Olsen, United now has 3 potential starters who won't be able to play much more than 60 minutes a game. That really hampers our substitute situation. I've got much more to say about these three veterans and analysis of our offseason. Stay tuned for more later tonight or tomorrow.

Roster reset

What better way to end 2008 than to post one of my patented roster resets. Things have changed dramatically around here with the new roster rules for 2009, but I think it's important to take a look at where United stands at the moment, if only just to highlight how many question marks there are going into next season. Since the MLS hasn't yet posted the official roster regulations for 2009, we're going to operate under the temporary assumptions that teams will still have 8 international player slots, and that 25 will still be the cutoff age for the Developmental roster.

Here's what we think we know:

Senior roster (now 20 slots): 1 Emilio, 2 Moreno, 3 Gallardo, 4 Fred, 5 Quaranta, 6 Khumalo, 7 Guerrero, 8 Simms, 9 Vide, 10 Burch, 11 McTavish, 12 Janicki, 13 Crayton, 14 Wells. 6 slots remaining.

Developmental roster (now 4 slots): 1 Cordeiro, 2 Thompson, 3 Carroll, 4 Zaher, 5 Thorpe. 1 player over the limit - No room for draft picks.

International players (assumed 8 slots): 1 Emilio, 2 Gallardo, 3 Fred, 4 Guerrero, 5 Crayton. 3 slots remaining.

It's hard to do this kind of analysis at this point in the year, because I've made a lot of assumptions in the info above. Joe Vide was relegated to the Developmental roster for some strange reason last year, but he seems to be a likely candidate to move up to the Senior roster in 2009. The same should be true for at least two of Cordeiro, Thompson, Carroll, and Zaher, to make room for our 2009 draft picks. James Thorpe is the only guy who I think should definitely stay on the D-roster. Ryan Miller and Ibrahim Koroma might be the most likely casualties of the reduction to the Developmental roster. Also, it's hard to say whether or not Khumalo is here on a green card and therefore exempt from international player status (similar to Moreno), but I'm assuming he's got a green card since he went to college in the US and has been playing here ever since.

So where does that leave us? What jumps out at me the most is that we've got 3 available international player slots. That's bound to get Kasper and Payne pretty excited. One of those slots could get used up pretty quick if Peralta chooses to re-sign (which I think he will), but we've certainly got the roster space and salary cap available for Kasper and Payne to do their usual and take a gamble on some other foreign players too. We certainly hope they do a better job at talent evaluation than last year. Because there's much less room for error this year with the smaller rosters.

Just because you see 6 available senior roster slots available, doesn't mean that we've got room to spare for unproven South Americans. Keep in mind that we've also got the question marks of Bryan Namoff and Quavas Kirk, who are out of contract, and Ben Olsen and Dominic Mediate, who may or may not return from injuries. If, conservatively speaking, 2 out of those 4 guys return, and Peralta returns, and say Cordeiro, Thompson, and Pat Carroll are promoted, our 6 available senior roster slots has suddenly diminished to 1.

This offseason is starting to look a bit bleak.

With 2008 being a year that most United fans would like to forget, this will probably be my final post of the year. Next time we'll look forward to 2009 and focus on what the team needs to do to improve its chances in the new year.