With the transfer window slamming to a close yesterday, I started taking a look at previous transfer windows to mount a little bit of a comparison. In doing so, I found that it’s a fair amount of work, and nobody’s really compiled it all in this sort of format that I could easily find, so you’re going to get a little bit of a limited look.
Ideally, though, this gives me a framework for looking at future transfer windows, so hopefully I remember this exists.
Anyway, on to the fun. I’m going to grade each of RSL’s last 10 transfer windows. Transfer windows before this one have the benefit of being in the past for my grading, and I’m not going to try to be objective and put myself in that mindset. Let’s grade these transfer windows on outcomes, not on potential.
Of course, this transfer window can only be graded on potential, because the future has yet to happen, if you truly do believe that time is linear.
OK, on with it.
Summer 2022
Grade: C. While we did fill the three positions of need described in Winter 2022, they’re all short-term solutions. Musovski’s MLS contract apparently expires at the end of the year. Ojeda is in on a year-long loan. Oviedo is reportedly on an 18-month deal. That’s a weird thing, and it doesn’t feel like the front office isn’t expecting big things from the latter two. Diego Luna is a good addition as well, and while he fell between transfer windows because of the weird rules of MLS (MLS trades have to take place inside the window, and transfers from outside the U.S. must as well, but transfers from inside the U.S. can happen any time before the roster freeze), I’m still counting him here, because I do think we need to account for him here.
It’s also a little (or very) awkward for a coach to talk publicly about how players aren’t first-choice or second-choice, but I won’t let that impact the grade here.
If some of these players become great contributors, I think we’d be right to look more positively on it. But there’s also a not-insignificant chance they don’t,
In: Diego Luna (transfer from El Paso Locomotive), Danny Musovski ($250k GAM trade w/ LAFC), Braian Ojeda, Bryan Oviedo
Out: Chris Kablan (loan terminated), Everton Luiz (free), Jonathan Menendez (loan), David Ochoa ($75k GAM trade w/ D.C. United)
Winter 2022
Grade: B-. I think this is actually pretty good, especially on players in. Losing Albert Rusnak on a free does bring this down from a B to a B-, because that was a travesty. But our players in are good, save Chris Kablan. Each of the players listed are contributors to the team, which is about as good as you can hope for in MLS. To be an A, I think we’d have filled positions of real need — especially a commanding midfielder, a left back, and a true center forward. But I do also understand not being able to add all the players you’d like at once, and …….
Source: https://www.rslsoapbox.com/2022/8/5/23293782/grading-five-years-of-rsl-transfer-windows