Despite Baird’s emergence, RSL went out and added DP forward Sam Johnson from Valerenga, in Norway (this probably means Baird gets more looks out wide this year). People that would know better than I rate him pretty highly﻿. He’s just 25, so he’s hitting his prime right now, and having Baird on a cheap contract gives the team insurance in case Johnson doesn’t pan out. It appears too that his DP status should be able to be bought down with TAM in case the team decides it can better use that DP spot. In sum, that makes the addition of Johnson relatively low-risk, even if his ceiling is also not that high.

Everton Luiz looks to be the new partner for either Beckerman or Kreilach in the midfield. Luiz, 30-year old Brazilian, joins the team on loan from SPAL in Italy. He’s profile checks out - he’s gotten decent run in Italy and before that with Partizan, a top of the table club in Serbia, so he’s probably fine.

RSL also signed five (5!!!) homegrowns to first-team contracts. This is exactly what a club that wants to make their youth system into a competitive advantage should be doing. Forward Julian Vazquez has shown well in preseason, and keeper David Ochoa probably won’t get minutes over Rimando this year, and may likely be loaned out, but he’ll be a player to watch down the line as RSL looks to phase-out Rimando (at this rate probably not until 2030, but still).

Key 2019 Departures

It’s hard to call any of RSL’s offseason departures “key”. Promising but mercurial fullback Danny Acosta was sent on loan to Orlando, where he’ll hopefully find it easier to get into the starting 11.

Sunny, who dealt with injury issues and at times looked good but at other times looked pretty lost, had his option declined.

A few solid veterans also had their options declined, including Demar Phillips, Luke Mulholland, and David Horst, but none were otherwise looking at starter-quality minutes in 2019.