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| Shit. Where’s the other goddamn shoe?? |
Trying to time the Late Tackle a
little better (earlier), maybe not take the player (me) out of the game when I
go in...
Of Bargains and Busts
On Monday (yeah, laggin’), Four
Four Two put up a list of Major League Soccer’s Top 15 (mostly young) bargain players. It’s a respectable list, but the players come in a couple ways, as I
see it. Some fit the bill on just about every level (e.g., DC’s Steve Birnbaum,
Dallas’ Matt “Not Chris” Hedges, NYCFC’s Tommy MacNamara, and Orlando’s Cyle
Larin), while others come in because, at their price point (e.g., low), they
don’t need to produce raw stats, so long as they can tilt a game a little (e.g.,
Colorado’s Dominique Badji, for under $60K). Another group features regular
starters and decent players who play positions, like fullback or defensive
midfielder, that pose mildly depressing questions of how much they’ll ever be
able to pull down; their teams get a good player at a good price (see, New
England’s Scott Caldwell or San Jose’s Fatai Alashe), but one has to wonder how
much higher each player’s salary can go at any point in their careers.
One little thought to float: a
good attacking fullback should be worth more than what most teams are paying
(think low $100,000s are the ceiling). At any rate…
The one player on the list who
really caught my eye was Columbus’ Wil Trapp. And a whole lot of questions roll
into that, starting with one I haven’t been able to shake for a couple days. What
are the odds that Trapp falls into the same sort of professional slough as
Colorado’s Dillon Powers; in other words, will fans see Trapp fielded as something
close to a stop-gap in the not-to-distant future, as Powers was in last Sunday’s
Western Conference final? As much as I like some things about Trapp’s game –
e.g. quality long-range passing – he strikes me as one of those players who
drive me crazy – i.e., one who needs a support system in order to function.
Trapp’s qualities are real, but he’s not a great tackler (and I think that
mattered for Columbus this year), and that obliges Crew SC to stick another
player alongside him or risk getting overrun. With that in the equation, how
can that $178,250 price tag not look a little more dear?
