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.

Reporting for duty

After a long boring winter solace with no new news of player acquisitions, we finally come upon the start of Training Camp 2009. We've got some fresh new faces, and some surprising absences. As Goff and BTB are reporting, the only new addition besides our draft picks is Kyle Veris, a 6'-3" defender who rode the bench in the Norwegian first division in 2008, last seen playing for that defensive juggernaut LA in 2007. Of our 5 draft picks, only defender Rodney Wallace, forward Chris Pontius, goalkeeper Milos Kocic, and midfielder Brandon Barklage are in camp, with defender Lyle Adams pursuing opportunities in Europe (hey - we knew it had to happen to at least one of these guys!).

But it's the conspicuously absent names of Ryan Cordeiro, Craig Thompson, Quavas Kirk, and Pat Carroll that has me upset the most.

I knew there would be some point during the season where we all complained about how terrible the MLS roster changes are, I just didn't think it would come this soon.

By cutting the developmental roster by 50% from 8 players to just 4, MLS is seriously limiting each team's ability to perform over the course of a full season. We all whined numerous times during 2008 about a lack of roster depth. And the league's reaction is to... trim rosters?

Here's a point for ya... Had the developmental roster only held 4 slots in previous years, Devon McTavish would not have been on the team. Same can probably be said for Marc Burch.

But United's reaction to the altered roster size is inexcusable. Why not at least invite Cordeiro, Thompson, Kirk, and Carroll to participate in the camp? This group of players contributed 769 minutes over the course on 28 appearances last season. Avid readers of this blog know that I fell in love with Ryan Cordeiro since the first day I saw him, which was when he scored the winning goal in extra time of the first Reserve division match last year. In his few appearances with the first team, he showed a lot of potential and I thought he was poised to be a bit more of a regular contributor this year. And what Craig Thompson lacked in size he made up for in effort.

Why not reward these guys for their efforts and at least give them a chance to qualify for the roster in 2009? Why not give Cordeiro a chance to push Pontius? Or Thompson to go head to head against Barklage? These kinds of competitions almost always result in both players playing better.

With the disappearance of Cordeiro, that means that not one of our draft picks from either of the past TWO seasons has remained on the roster for an entire year. Sarcastic claps to the Payne/Kasper/Soehn regime for that one. And the only rookie holdover from last season appears to be Mike Zaher. Nothing against either of them, but what did Zaher and Ryan Miller do so well to earn them camp invitations ahead of Carroll and Cordeiro?

I'm crossing my fingers that a few of these gents will be brought in later in camp, otherwise we bid them the best of luck finding new clubs. But with the way this offseason has gone, is anybody actually excited about the new season???

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.