COMMERCE CITY, CO (December 13, 2016) – It’s been a busy few days for the Colorado Rapids off-season. They announced their protected roster for the 2016 MLS Expansion Draft. They also made a few trades with the incoming expansion teams, Atlanta United FC and Minnesota United FC.

Colorado Rapids Expansion Draft Roster, Trades, And Preview

Here’s the full list of players the Rapids chose to protect: Michael Azira, Dominique Badji, Sam Cronin, Kevin Doyle, Shkelzen Gashi, Marlon Hairston, Tim Howard, Zach MacMath, Eric Miller, Dillon Powers, and Axel Sjoberg.

The Rapids also had three players automatically protected because of their homegrown status: Caleb Calvert, Zachary Pfeffer, and Dillon Serna.

Thus, the following players are eligible for selection: Marc Burch, Bobby Burling, John Berner, Dennis Castillo, Conor Doyle, Jermaine Jones, Sebastian Le Toux, Marco Pappa, Juan Ramirez, Sean St. Ledger, Jared Watts, and Mekeil Williams.

Rapids Protect The Future:

Major League Soccer is very much trending younger of late. The Rapids certainly see that and have chosen to protect their young talent. Unlike many other clubs, most of their young talent didn’t fall under automatic protect as Homegrowns or Generation Adidas.

Still, Badji, Hairston, Powers, Sjoberg, and Serna are all protected. This group is the future of the club and they’ll all be staying.

The Rapids also protected much of their defensive core. Azira and Cronin are both safe. Their best center back, Axel Sjoberg, is protected. Interestingly, Colorado chose to protect two goal keepers, Howard and MacMath.

It seemed certain earlier in the year that MacMath would be departing the club to look for more playing time. Perhaps Howard’s recovery will take more time than expected and Colorado wants to have an experienced starter for the first few months of the 2017 season. They could also use him as a trade chip for later in the off season to address another need.

Defensive Pieces At Risk:

The Rapids have several valuable pieces unprotected for the expansion draft. Burch, Burling, and Watts all played valuable roles defensively for the club in 2016. Burch in particular had a very good year quietly. They all make less than $120,000 a year and could all be in the 18 at least for an expansion side.

While he didn’t play as much as the other three, Williams could also be selected. He will take up an international roster spot, but he’s a pretty fast full back going forward.

The wild card of this group is Jermaine Jones. He’s technically not a free agent, but the Rapids might not be willing to risk signing him. He was great in the locker room and on the field. He just wasn’t on the field as much. If Atlanta or Minnesota are willing to take that risk and want to pay him what he think he’s worth, Jones could get selected.

Pre-Draft Trades Could Prevent Any Selections:

The Rapids made a trade with both expansion teams during the brief transfer window this past week. They acquired Atlanta’s natural second round SuperDraft pick in 2017 for one international roster spot for the 2017 and 2018 season.

Colorado sent defender Joseph Greenspan to Minnesota in exchange for their natural third round pick in the 2017 SuperDraft.

In past expansion draft years, we’ve seen clubs make deals with expansion teams that included stipulations that none of their players would be selected in the expansion draft. Often times however, these trades involved allocation money and/or a player (existing team gives the expansion team a specific player so they don’t risk losing and unknown player).

It’s unclear if the Rapids made these deals to ensure that neither expansion team would select one of their unprotected players. We’ll have to wait and see.