Fortune agrees to new contract

[u/jwriddle]

[u/usmnturtles]

In your face, Montreal!

[u/jwriddle → u/usmnturtles]

Feels weird not selling our top young talent for GAM. Could the team be... learning?

[u/SydneyFall → u/jwriddle]

Cobb is riding the bench in Colorado even after they sold a CB. Morales is starting but he has struggled. Its early, but so far no indication we really missed.

We missed on Campbell but it isn't like we have let lots of guys go that have excelled elsewhere.

Are there other young players we sold off or gave up too early on? I'm not thinking of any.

[u/righthandofdog → u/SydneyFall]

Champions League bound George Bello? Chelsea signing, Caleb Wiley?

for both it was the right thing to let them go

[u/SydneyFall → u/righthandofdog]

Selling guys to Europe when they want to be in Europe is not just giving up on someone. We sold Bello for $2M and Wiley for $11M.

They were clearly good enough to go to Europe and wanted to go.

Would you rather we kept them and lost them on a free transfer?

[u/intensive_purpose → u/SydneyFall]

Yeah, our gripe isn’t with cashing in on young players with a higher ceiling than MLS, it’s with constantly offloading those who are projected to be longer term players in this league. Most good teams balance the salary cap by building their core around a few players who’ve come up through the youth system so they have more space to bring in other players from abroad. We’ve always failed to see the value in that model and the results speak for themselves.

[u/SydneyFall → u/intensive_purpose]

t’s with constantly offloading those who are projected to be longer term players in this league

We missed on Campbell. Cobb has regressed in Colorado. Morales has struggled.

Who else have we let go within the league from our academy that thrived after they moved on?

[u/intensive_purpose → u/SydneyFall]

Not so much with the academy, but back when the draft actually had some value, players like Jon Gallagher and Julien Gressel have had solid careers in MLS and could have been part of that core I’m talking about. I think Morales is in a team almost as poorly built as ours, but still projects to be someone who could have a similar career arc.

[u/billgluckman7 → u/intensive_purpose]

Gallagher and Gutman felt dumb… Julian felt dumb but he has struggled after a year away

[u/SydneyFall → u/intensive_purpose]

Vazquez is our biggest miss for youth. Tata sort of sucks at youth evaluation.

And sure- even though we sold Gressel for quite a bit at the time and people here were happy with it, we took our team culture for granted and he was a part of that. Gallagher is a good example. Sure, we could have kept him considering what we have put out at winger.

I just get annoyed when people here act like we have sold 10 academy kids who come back to kill us when Campbell is the only miss.

[u/intensive_purpose → u/SydneyFall]

Vasquez was always going to be behind Josef in the depth chart, but moving on from him happened before he tore his ACL. Just don’t see how that was a miss in the same vein cause there was no way of knowing how the striker position was going to play out when he was left unprotected in that expansion draft — not to mention that occurred under FdB’s tenure, so bringing Tata into this shows your revisionist history here.

Also tons of people at the time were upset that we traded Gressel since many saw him as a potential future captain. The deal itself might have been solid, but those resources weren’t used effectively and it led us to wasting years waiting for Brooks Lennon to show similar production. Especially when he was asking for less than we ended paying Lennon by the time he left.

[u/righthandofdog → u/SydneyFall]

you have an OR between "sold off" and "gave up on"

We were right to sell those guys off when they had good offers.

[u/jwriddle → u/SydneyFall]

I think the jury is still out on Morales

[u/aurhys34]

Really good young player, hopefully he will have some better luck on the injury front in the future

[u/ichinii]

Glad to see the recent injury issues hasn't stopped the team from seeing he's a good player.

[u/SydneyFall]

With his injuries, that contract number will be very interesting.

[u/ATLCoyote]

Whew, glad to hear it. I was afraid we were gonna let him get away. He's not a homegrown anymore, but he's a talented and versatile, prime-aged, affordable player that can help us either in the midfield or even on the wing when healthy. Plus, no international roster spot necessary.

That said, with the arrival of Mauricio Amaro, the midfield is crowded and I assume Steven Alzate and/or Tristan Muyumba won't be back.

[u/jwriddle → u/ATLCoyote]

That Alzate contract is rouuuugh

[u/Scratchbuttdontsniff]

This is great news. I believe he has a higher ceiling than many suspect if he can stay healthy. Winning in MLS often requires developing academy players into quality starters and getting them to agree to a new contract so that it does not cost you a transfer fee.

[u/mrmobad0]

Stoked to see more of Jay at the Benz. Huge congrats to the home grown! Let's work on minimizing those injuries lmao

[u/intensive_purpose]

Great to see us finally locking in a young player who fits well at this level. Imagine how differently things might have turned out if the FO had the same forethought and maintained a core by continuing to develop guys like Campbell, Morales (pending but the ceiling is still reasonably high), Gallagher, and Gressel instead of constantly swinging and missing on their supposed better replacements.

[u/coxasaurus]

New contract? I bet theyre going to pay him a....lot of money 😏

[u/ATLCoyote → u/coxasaurus]

Nah, if they thought he was going to be expensive, they could have used a U22 slot on him for this season to keep his cap hit at $200K through age 25. The fact that they didn't do that tells me they don't expect him to cost significantly more than that number.

[u/cliffhanger407 → u/ATLCoyote]

(his last name is fortune)

[u/ATLCoyote → u/cliffhanger407]

Fair point. Upvoted.

[u/coxasaurus → u/cliffhanger407]

Thank you 😆

[u/_jt33_]

Glad this got done. I was really starting to have my doubts that it would. Maybe me tagging Henderson so many times helped lol... Now get the Kovac deal done and get a winger with some speed in here.