MLS offseason notebook: Breaking down huge early trades

The MLS offseason got off to a busy start, with a few major trades taking place in the days following the cup final.

The MLS offseason is coming fast and heavy. A peculiar half-day trade window was held the day after MLS Cup, LAFC’s expansion draft will be on Tuesday and the free agent list is out with all contracts declined and accepted. Protected lists are out for the expansion draft, featuring a number of quality players.

All of it is hard to process. Most teams barely have enough players to fill out a gameday 18 at the moment, and the ridiculously complicated roster rules make it difficult to decipher which players will stick around. Trades are more concrete, though, and there were plenty of them on Sunday. In the second edition of MLS offseason notebook, we’re here to break down the important ones:

Kei Kamara to Vancouver Whitecaps

In a nutshell, this trade is Vancouver doubling down on Carl Robinson Soccer. The Whitecaps bunkered and headed their way to third in the Western Conference and a 5-0 playoff demolition of San Jose, which was more a product of the conference being inconsistent and terrible than it was the Caps being a good team.

Robinson developed a tactical identity that was centered around winning aerial battles and letting Kendall Waston and either Matias Laba or Aly Ghazal aggressively cover ground in midfield. They kept the least amount of possession in MLS by far and attempted just 331 passes per game, the lowest by almost 60. Teams that avoid the ball at all costs and sit deep in their own defensive third tend to cross the ball a lot. Other than set pieces (which they thrived on), there aren’t a lot of other options.

But they were far too inefficient at putting the ball in the box:

Kamara is way overpaid and hasn’t had a great couple of seasons, but it seems the Whitecaps vividly remember his 22 goals in the Columbus Crew’s cross-heavy 2015 system.

Paying him as much as they are and pairing him with target striker Fredy Montero, who might still come back, is and would be a curious move. Credit to them for finding a tactical identity and making an effort to win with it, but should it really be this identity? Risky, to say the least, especially in a conference that promises to be a lot better in 2018.

New England got a first round SuperDraft pick in 2019 and a conditional second-rounder in 2020. Not getting any allocation money in return is a thumbs-down, but they’re mostly happy to get that contract off the blocks and, hopefully, build around Juan Agudelo at center-forward.

Walker Zimmerman to LAFC

Here we have a blockbuster, folks.

FC Dallas center-back Walker Zimmerman, still only 24 years old, was dealt to expansion LAFC as the third player on their 2018 roster in exchange for $500,000 in allocation money and the No. 1 spot in the allocation ranking. For those uninitiated to the world of MLS roster mechanisms, that’s a big and valuable package.

Zimmerman is as talented as any young-ish center-back in MLS. Rumors linking him to Europe persist, and he should figure somehow into the USMNT picture. He got benched in the middle of FCD’s precipitous late summer fall off a cliff, though, and naturally he was unhappy, so it makes sense for Dallas to deal him as part of the presumed full-scale rebuild. Getting the cash they did in return certainly helps.

LAFC are getting a talented player. Now we see what FCD can do with those funds.

Darlington Nagbe to Atlanta United?

Multiple credible people are reporting that Timbers’ midfielder Darlington Nagbe will be traded to Atlanta for a large sum of Targeted and General Allocation Money. Kristian Dyer of Metro NY is reporting that it will be for somewhere around $1.8 million, and Jeff Carlisle of ESPN wrote that defender Gbenga Arokoyo will go to Atlanta as a salary dump.

Atlanta are doing the thing. They acquired an Argentinian right-back, 22-year-old Franco Escobar from Newell’s Old Boys and have been strongly linked to 18-year-old rising superstar Ezequiel Barco, who would theoretically take the spot of a departed Yamil Asad. Nagbe, who started in Trinidad and Tobago on Oct. 10, is a top player in this league and the USMNT pool.

What exactly this means for the day one starting XI is unclear. MLS neutrals and Atlanta fans hope this doesn’t signal the end for the Barco move, although that appears unlikely given the reports so far from both here and Argentina. It could mean that one of Josef Martinez, Hector Villalba, Miguel Almiron, Nagbe or Barco will not be in that lineup; that’s hard to believe as well, considering their talents and salaries.

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Fitting them all in is possible but risky. Nagbe’s best position could well be in central midfield as a box-to-box No. 8. When he’s on the ball it looks like his feet are glued to it, and when he lets it go, it either goes directly to a teammate or zips toward the goal. Efficiency is the first word you think of when you ponder Nagbe, a beautiful player who thrives on productivity and ball possession.

Relying on him as a secondary scorer is a fool’s errand, though, because he still struggles put goals and assists on the board. That’s why he could thrive in Atlanta, who already employ multiple primary scorers. Whether there is enough defensive coverage in that lineup is another question.

This is not a bad deal for Portland, providing they use all the cash they receive effectively. That’s the same story for FC Dallas, and will continue to be the case for numerous MLS teams this offseason.

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