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Morning Ticker: Herron to Chicago, Borchers to RSL and Corrales to San Jose

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Good morning folks. Apologies for the slow morning (aside from the Vanney trade). I had to crank out a training camp piece for ESPN.com.

There are plenty of news nuggets in MLS today (and from earlier in the week). Here is a rundown:

Andy Herron signs with Chicago. The Fire officially signed Herron after acquiring his rights from Columbus last month, adding to the logjam at forward. I have a feeling Herron is going to have a solid season playing for Denis Hamlett. The real question is which forward or forwards will Chicago trade or cut loose? They have Herron, Chris Rolfe, Chad Barrett and Patrick Nyarko and they’re still trying to acquire French forward/winger Fabrice Pancrate as well as Polish striker Tomasz Frankowski. Might be a few too many forwards there.

Nat Borchers to Real Salt Lake. Real Salt Lake has signed what seems like a dozen defenders this off-season. Now you can add Borchers to that list. RSL won a lottery for Borcher’s rights and now have a solid potential starter, or some trade bait.

Ramiro Corrales to San Jose. From the "They still signed him after THAT game" department comes the news that San Jose acquired Corrales’ rights from Houston and signed him. Maybe the Earthquakes didn’t watch the USA-Mexico game last week. Okay, in all seriousness, Corrals is a solid fullback/midfielder but he’s not worth 200K, which is a number that has been linked to him.

More on the Vanney to LA trade. Steve Goff is reporting that Quavas Kirk will head to DC United in that trade. A West Coast source has confirmed that Kirk is, in fact, the other half of the trade. Not a bad bit of business by either team. LA gets the central defender it sorely needs and DC gets a roster-protected player with good upside.

Share your thoughts on these transactions below.

Comments

  1. @Posted by: EDB | February 15, 2008 at 01:02 PM

    Rolfe has never been the best as a traditional midfielder. That’s why they moves him up to forward last year and he was a revelation.
    If anyone goes it’s Barrett. I’m not worried about a glut of forwards though because if, and I mean IF, they sign Pancrate, he is going to be a wing on the right side no matter what. Carr tried to move out there with limited success but we haven’t had anyone on the right side in forever.

    @Posted by: Eugene | February 15, 2008 at 07:55 PM

    I think even LA would agree with you in principle about dumping young talent but they need people who can play NOW not in 2 years. They have Beckham for 4 more years and want to win every single year. If you are going for the ‘win now’ mentality you need people who are tested and ready to perform NOW. It will ultimately explode in their face once Becks and Donovan are gone but it could work short term. (of course that assumes their academy doen’t start brimming with talent which it very well could with the MASSIVE number of people playing soccer in LA)

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  2. LA is off their rocker. They keep trading away young talent for average veterans, that doesn’t sound like a good strategic plan for building a franchise to me!

    But hey, if they’re willing to part with their youth, I hope NY would be interested in picking up Franklin and Valentin next year.

    Another good pickup for DC. I’ll refrain from calling them the favorites in ’08 considering people were calling LA the favorites in ’07 and LA had a terrible season. I’m guessing Quirk has to be happy to, considering he’ll be playing in more international competitions next year.

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  3. Northzax,

    One of the best posts defending MLS I have ever read.

    God knows I love EPL, La Liga, (SPL too), etc., because they do have some great story lines, especially between the “power teams.” But I think he’s got a point about MLS. I mean, we have plenty to discuss about our teams here, that’s for sure. Even though maybe what we all really want is for Red Bulls and DC United to be on the same level talent-wise as Real Madrid and Arsenal; well, they’re not.

    MLS keeps me highly entertained. I think MOST of you would agree, because, well, you take the time to read a blog about it, and make comments. I know the level of comptetion isn’t what we all desire, but it is still entertaining. And I for one like being an “underdog” league even more. It means being able to root for young MLS talent like Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey (he started here, duh), etcetera. Which in turn helps our national team.

    Also, If, like northzax says, teams like LA had unlimited spending power, what in the world would happen RSL or Colorado?

    Maybe in the future, distant future as far as I can tell, MLS will have relegation/promotion … but for now, (barring a few inconsistencies like LA’s above the law mentality), MLS works.

    Great post, northzax.

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  4. REALLY excited to learn that I’ll be able to see my new club start overpaying underperformers right off the bat. Corrales looks like a good start in that direction… go Quakes.

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  5. Thanks northzax,

    I concur with your observations. Also do the teams that get promoted every year and get killed by the top teams in the leagues in Europe bring any real value? One can also predict in 2015 all of the top teams you listed will destroy the newly promoted teams in their domestic leagues.

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  6. can we all keep complaining about the financial structure of MLS? seriously, people. There are good reasons to have things like multi-year rights and discovery players. Just because other soccer leagues don’t do this, doesn’t mean other leagues in other sports don’t do it. it creates parity (which may be bad for international competitions, but makes much more interesting domestic competitions without relegation. without these things, MLS would be done already (anyone think that Columbus can compete with LA in terms of spending? do we really want to see a league like all the European ones, where 3-4 (if you are lucky) teams dominate and everyone else is simply playing for survival? should we be Serie A, and watch Inter, AC, and Juve dominate, with Roma and Lazio getting the odd finish? or EPL, the the United, Chelski, Liverpool, Aresenal hammerlock? or Ligue I?

    if I offered to bet anyone on the winner of the EPL, Serie A and La Liga in 2015, and you got to pick 2 clubs from each league, how much agreement on this board do you think there would be? seven years from now, almost complete team turnover.

    let’s see: EPL: ManU and some combination of Liverpool and Arsenal, perhaps Chelski if Abramovitch still owns it.
    Serie A: Inter, AC, Juve, pick two of three
    La Liga: do you want Real or Barca?
    Ligue I: Lyon or Marseilles?
    Bundesliga: Bayern or who?

    and these aren’t simply short term patterns, they go back for decades in most of the leagues (the EPL of course only goes back 15 years, but look at the Championship before then) The parity is so bad they had to create a champions league to have the same great teams play eachother in different countries.

    now let’s take a traditional US comparison: if you had to pick a team to win the Superbowl in 2015, what would you base that on? guessing, basically. (I think we can rule out the Raiders and Lions just on prinicple. how about the NBA? after complete roster turnover in 7 years, who’s going to be great? Hockey? baseball is easier, but not that much more certain. is that really what we want?

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  7. Doesn’t LA have cap problems? How can they possibly trade a cap-protected player for a big-salary guy?

    And, didn’t they trade Albright to shed salary, only to pick it back up with Vanney? Is Alexi off his prescription?

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  8. Agreed with the “discovery” post.

    Who has the MLS ever discovered? Any good talent that was in the MLS before another league is a mixture of luck and/or default since most Americans aren’t recruited outside the US at a young age.

    If you want to keep the cap, whatever. But owning players rights who are not in the league, discovery, etc… it’s bullshit.

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  9. Too bad this won’t influence the front office but Rolfe=fan favorite and Barrett=fan frustration. How about Mapp and Barrett to Houston for DeRo?

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  10. I think you also have to consider that Rolfe will spend alot of time in the mid field. With Mapps injury history and Blancos age I could see Rolfe playing a playmaker mid role alot this year for the fire

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  11. MemRook, No way is Chicago trading away Rolfe. Unless they get DeRo in the deal.
    Chicago needs someone to score goals and finish off Blanco’s brilliant passes. Rolfe is the only reliable one in that department.

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  12. This idea of paying for a players rights that is out of contract is completely backwards.

    I can live with a salary cap, but all these backwards rules about players coming into the league and “discovery” have to go. It’s just a complete mockery.

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  13. Ives, any sense that Frankowski stays in Chicago?

    I’m sure they would love to have a Polish player and he did score two goals in the last pre-season game.

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  14. Steve, I didn’t say they had a bunch of GOOD strikers, just that they had a bunch of strikers.

    And yes, DC United with another genius move. If Olsen can recover from his surgery DC is my pick to win it in 2008.

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  15. With Ben Olsen out for an extended period of time, the Kirk deal helps DC get some help on the wing while shedding superfluous weight in Vanney.

    I’d say this is another shrewd play by DC.

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  16. I don’t know about the Fire having an over abundance of strikers:

    Barrett – unreliable and not a 90 minute player
    Rolfe – Only steady option
    Herron – Oft injured and hot/cold
    Nyarko – Not joining up until mid-year due to school (and a rookie so who knows)
    Pancrate – who knows if he’ll even sign and could be more coverage if Mapp lays another egg like last year
    Frankowski – still unsigned and a wild card

    So I guess you’re right: Might be a few too many ‘iffy’ forwards there.

    But at least its better than too many defensive midfielders like last year.

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  17. Yeah, I was bummed after the Mexico game because I felt like Dynamo wouldn’t get as much for him. But the $100K that the Chronicle is reporting Dynamo got seems like a nice number. I certainly wasn’t expecting any more. Of course, with the disaster that was Bobby Convey playing in front of him that night, it’s not like Corrales was given much chance to shine. (Though I still cringe in horror at Corrales and Convey’s little You-take-it-no-you-take-it-no-after-you-on-I-insist deal during that game!)

    With Herron’s signing, perhaps one of those forwards can find their way into Orange. That would be very nice.

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  18. Hi Ives

    In the Chicago story you meant they acquired his rights from Columbus, correct?

    Thanks for all the updates and keep up the good work. Love this site.

    Reply

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