COMMERCE CITY — Pablo Mastroeni will get another chance to right the Rapids’ ship, as club officials said Thursday the longtime club legend will return in 2016 for his third season as coach.

“I guarantee he’s going to be a successful coach in this league,” Rapids president Tim Hinchey told reporters at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. “What I hope is that it’s here.”

Colorado has won just 17 of its 68 league matches during Mastroeni’s tenure, but despite that, Hinchey said he did not contemplate a coaching change.

Ultimately, the decision was Paul Bravo’s to make.

“We’re aligned in this,” Bravo, the Rapids’ vice president of soccer operations, said. “The consistency piece is a big component. Certainly when you strip down the numbers and you look at the positives and the negatives, the negatives certainly outweigh the positives, but we do feel as though we’ve made progress.”

The progress, Bravo said, was on the defensive side. Only five teams in MLS allowed fewer goals than Colorado in 2015.

“He’s got 60 percent of the field sorted out,” Bravo said. “If you take from our goalline to the first ten yards of the opponent’s half, we’re as good as any team in the league.”

Hinchey pointed to improvement in the second half of the season as a reason to keep Mastroeni, but acknowledged the team must show improvement soon. The Rapids are 17-32-18 under Mastroeni.

“That’s terrible,” Hinchey said. “We’re not going to make any excuses. We owe the fan base a lot more than 17 wins over that many matches. We’re keenly aware of that.

“Were all going to be held accountable at the end of the day. But for this group right now, stability is the right course for action.”

MORE: Additional comments from Tim Hinchey and Paul Bravo on the decision to retain Pablo Mastroeni

Hinchey added that he was “completely angry” with the way the Rapids played at home. Last year, he said making Dick’s Sporting Goods Park a “fortress” was his top priority, but Colorado was 5-7-5 at home — worst in MLS.

Thursday’s announcement rules out the possibility that the Rapids will make a run at Jason Kreis, the former NYCFC coach who was dismissed this week for failing to lead the expansion club to the playoffs in its first season. Kreis won the MLS Cup Championship as coach of Real Salt Lake in 2009 and also led RSL to the MLS Cup Final in 2013 and the CONCACAF Champions League Final in 2011.

“It’s disrespectful to call (Kreis) an ‘obvious upgrade over Pablo,'” Hinchey said. “I have a head coach so I’m not interested in commenting on other people that are available.”

The Rapids executives said the team has work to do this offseason and will look at adding an experienced coach as a top assistant to Mastroeni.

Daniel Boniface: 303-954-1104, dboniface@denverpost.com or @danielboniface