Did DC United fleece the CRapids?

In an interesting recent trade in MLS, DC United sent the Colorado Rapids the rights to Christian Gomez in exchange for the Rapids' first round draft pick next year, and the rights to their DP slot for the next two years. As part of the deal, the Rapids came to a two year agreement with Gomez, who was out of a contract, for about $500k per year. The Rapids have an additional option year on the deal, which, if exercised, gives DC their DP slot for one more year.

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Some background on the deal: Gomez could only sign with whatever MLS team held his rights. The 33 year old, who was the MLS MVP in 2006, was looking for the kind of deal he got from Colorado. DC had no intention of resigning him for that money or length of time and was prepared to let him leave MLS. The league, as part of its single entity salary structure, will pay all of Gomez's salary (as part of an effort to keep the league from collapsing financially the way the old NASL did, all MLS players sign contracts with the league and are allocated to their respective teams, though teams pay a portion of DP salaries). Colorado, a notably thrifty team, had not used its DP slot and appeared to have no intention to do so. Before this deal, only one DP slot had been traded in MLS history: Chivas USA traded their DP slot (indefinitely, it appears) to Red Bull New York in exchange for former league MVP Amado Guevara, who was a playmaking central midfielder much like Gomez (albeit one with more of an attitude problem).

In this article, Ives Galarcep, who is my favorite soccer writer, argues that DC found a sucker in Colorado for squeezing such valuable assets from them for a player it never intended to resign. As much as I usually find Ives' analysis to be the most sensible out there, I very much disagree with him on this one. This was my response to Ives' article, which I posted on his blog:

Ives, I pretty strongly disagree with you on this one. You're greatly simplifying the issue. Gomez and Guevara are pretty similarly valuable players impact-wise, both fairly recent MVPs in central midfield, and two years of a DP slot and a first round pick sounds like less than a permanent DP slot to me. From DC's perspective, yes, it's a steal, but I don't think it's a bad deal from Colorado's perspective. Ask yourself this question: can you imagine them possibly getting a player better than Gomez for two years of a DP and a draft pick? I can't fathom how they could. You criticize the Rapids for being disingenuous by touting this as an example of their willingness to pull out all the stops, but if they had no intention to use their DP slot in the next two years - and there's absolutely nothing to suggest they did - then this is a case of two teams each with an asset it had no use for. They trade them for each other and everyone wins. This isn't a zero sum game.

So yeah, that's my take on that. Seems like a fair deal to me. First round picks can be valuable, but I don't think they're much more valuable than second round picks. Most MLS draft picks either don't pan out or are highly replaceable. Even a DP, if DC signs one, is no sure thing. I think the Rapids made out well. For now, I'll relieve them of the nickname CRapids... until they go out and stink up the joint this season anyway. Ives is right about one thing: even with Gomez, they don't have much of a team.

UPDATE: Ives responded to my comment, and I responded again. The exchange...

Joamiq, no other team in MLS was giving DC United a designated player slot for Gomez. NONE. The only other team still interested in Gomez at the time Colorado acquired him was Chivas USA, which you know has no designated player slot to trade.

From a pure value standpoint, yes, you can argue that it's a fair trade and not far off from Guevara for a DP, but it's not that simple. Guevara was under contract, Gomez was not. Guevara cost about $280K to $300K, Gomez will cost at least $4ooK. Gomez's price tag at his age is why the list of suitors dwindled toward the end, but rather than negotiate, Colorado gave up the store.

And yes, I get that Colorado probably never intended to use its DP slot, but by giving it up when it didn't have to the Rapids missed out on trading it in a separate deal for a useful package.

Each team only has a certain number of chips in this MLS game, and whenever you give up more than you should it's tough to make it back up. Colorado was already at a disadvantage. The Rapids had a chance to make some real progress, some quality moves, but they didn't do as much as they could have. Gomez should help Colorado be better, but the Rapids missed a chance to do even more.

Posted by: Ives | February 11, 2008 at 11:33 PM

Ives, I ask again, what more could they hope to get for two years of their DP slot than Christian Gomez? I will grant you that Gomez costs more than Guevara in salary, but to me, that's compensated for by the fact that indefinite DP slot > 2 year loan of DP + draft pick. I really think you're overvaluing that 2 year DP slot loan. I can't see how they could get a better player, or more than one really useful player, or players under contract for longer than the length of the loan, for that temporary asset. It seems like you're only looking at this trade from DC's point of view (and I think you're neglecting part of that point of view - I'm sure they'd rather see him out of the league than on another team with just a draft pick to show for it). If you look at it from Colorado's point of view, it's really not bad at all. I think you're right that the team still isn't much good, but I don't see what DP trade would have made them better off.

Posted by: Joamiq | February 12, 2008 at 12:51 PM

UPDATE: I concede. Ives emailed me privately with a little inside info, and let's just say that the Rapids could have gotten the deal done without the DP. I'm still not sure how much they could have gotten for a 2 year DP slot loan, but it's probably a little more than a partial allocation. I still don't think this is a terrible deal value-wise, but it certainly looks like Colorado could have come out much better in the end overall if they had evaluated the situation a bit more wisely.

By the way, readers, that's about as much inside access you're ever going to get from this blog, so I hope you enjoyed that.