Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Julian Baudet To Rapids?

It was in the news yesterday that the Colorado Rapids have offered Crewe Alexandria's Julian Baudet a contract.

What could this mean for the Rapids? We won't know until he signs and his current contract is over. It's unlikely that Crewe, in a relegation battle in England's League One (Div 3) would let him go before his contract runs out this summer.

An arrival later in June would give Rapids coach Gary Smith plenty of time to sort things out with his roster to make room. It could be as simple as waiving a player. If Julian Baudet is signed, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Rapids make room for his arrival via a trade. Right now a few MLS teams could use another defender or three on their roster. And a couple teams, like LA and Seattle, have defenses that my grandma could get through easier than a Sawzall cutting through butter.

Or maybe Corey Gibbs will be leaving the Rapids this summer to head back to Europe?

As for Baudet, who knows if this is a good move or not. I don't many folks other than Crewe fans, or maybe some old Northampton or Oldham fans, have seen he play. Which is why I don't understand why View From The Couch fell for the temptation of evaluating the move. It's unfortunate to see.

Without the means to directly judge Baudet as a player, View From The Couch resorts to using this rationale :

A player that can't get out of League One when most MLS players that go to England end up in either the Premiership or the Championship is an indicator that he's average MLS quality at best.
There are several problems with this logic. The first is that one can gleam anything about Baudet based on his playing in England's 3rd division. This is then compounded by assuming that the few MLS players that have gone to England are representative of an average to good player in the MLS. But these players are the ones that are the exception to the rule. Of the few MLS players that are in England, most either haven't had time to prove themselves (Brad Guzan) are have not panned (Matt Pickens, Eddie Johnson, Duncan Oughton). Essentially this approach to judging Baudet is about meaningful as reading tea leaves (sorry, Jason).

View From The Couch is good blog for tracking the Rapids and gaining insight into events surrounding the team. It's just nice to have another blog to point to and disagree with about the Rapids.

2 comments:

Jason Maxwell said...

My turn to disagree with you Allen. ;) I think you limit your list of MLS players in England too much. Just off the top of my head of MLS players who were successful in England:

Tim Howard
Brad Friedel
Marcus Hahnemann
Ryan Nelsen
Brian McBride
Clint Dempsey
Carlos Bocanegra

etc, etc, etc

Allen said...

Yes, there's a few on the overall list. But in terms of the MLS we're talking about 2-4 players out of over 350-375 each year going to England. One or two of them make it, at least for a few years. The others don't. That maybe half of a percent of players in the league make it in either the Prem or Championship doesn't strike me as a very accurate nor useful means of trying to judge a player the Rapids have offered a contract.