{"id":29750,"date":"2020-09-23T19:07:55","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T23:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=29750"},"modified":"2020-09-23T19:07:55","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T23:07:55","slug":"colorado-rapids-transfers-depth-in-drama-avoided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2020\/09\/23\/colorado-rapids-transfers-depth-in-drama-avoided\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Rapids Transfers: Depth in, Drama Avoided"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>COMMERCE CITY, Colo.<\/strong> &#8211; The Colorado Rapids have made two player moves going back to this past weekend. They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coloradorapids.com\/post\/2020\/09\/19\/colorado-rapids-trade-kei-kamara-minnesota-united-fc-150000-gam\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dealt veteran striker Kei Kamara<\/a> to Minnesota United FC for $150,000 in 2021 GAM and a 2022 MLS SuperDraft Second Round pick. Then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coloradorapids.com\/post\/2020\/09\/19\/colorado-rapids-sign-decorated-defender-steven-beitashour-one-year-contract\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Beitashour was signed<\/a> as a free agent to a one-year deal with a team option. Let&#8217;s take a look at what these Colorado Rapids transfers mean for the club.<\/p>\n<h2>Colorado Rapids Transfers: Depth in, Drama Avoided<\/h2>\n<p>Kamara has been a fantastic servant to the club. When he came to Colorado last season, several people on Rapids Twitter (this writer included) were concerned about his reputation as a locker room cancer. Whatever happened during an argument over a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.massivereport.com\/2020\/5\/13\/21254935\/what-if-columbus-crew-kei-kamara-and-federico-higuain-never-argued-over-a-penalty\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">penalty in 2016<\/a>, that player isn&#8217;t who showed up to Commerce City. He was all about the team, appeared happy on and off the field, and worked really hard.<\/p>\n<p>The 36-year-old wasn&#8217;t healthy going into Phase One of the MLS regular season restart. The coaching staff went with Diego Rubio as the center forward. The team&#8217;s still transitioning to a 4-3-3 system that relies on a forward who can press, check back to the midfield, and work hard defensively. They&#8217;re playing direct football at times but with the ball on the ground. The team hasn&#8217;t been the set piece juggernaut of yester year.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Robin Fraser on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Rapids96?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Rapids96<\/a> trade of Kei Kamara: &quot;It became evident it was time to go our separate ways. We wish Kei well. We have a lot of faith in Diego Rubio and Andre Shinyashiki. They&#39;ll get more opportunities this way.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Shapalicious\/status\/1307036236046053377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Kei&#8217;s happiest when he had a good relationship with management, he&#8217;s playing regularly, and gets to be &#8216;the man&#8217; offensively. The organization was ready to move on. He&#8217;s not a part of the future nor is his prefered style of play. Less crosses, more running, and less playing time makes Kamara a less than happy player. Fortunately for all parties, they made a move. Any potential for Kamara to be a problem in the locker room has been prevented (though this reporter doesn&#8217;t think he would have gone nuclear like in Columbus).<\/p>\n<p>The club got some return for a player who has an experation date. Minnesota filled a position of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/post\/2020\/09\/13\/adrian-heath-minnesota-united-fc-might-need-sign-another-striker-injuries-mount\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">desperate need<\/a>. Kamara goes to a team that&#8217;s likely making the playoffs (unlike the Rapids who are a bubble team) and will play. The Rapids get to move on with Rubio and Andre Shinyashiki continuing to progress within Fraser&#8217;s system.<\/p>\n<p>Now onto Steven Beitashour, a natural <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/more-sports\/rapids-send-kei-kamara-to-minnesota-26-sign-free-agent-steven-beitashour\/ar-BB19dkyr?ocid=uxbndlbing\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">right back<\/a> who can play on the left as well. Fraser has been largely riding <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2019\/10\/14\/keegan-rosenberry-every-mls-minute\/\" target=\"_self\">iron man<\/a> Keegan Rosenberry on the right and youngster Sam Vines on the left. Rookie draft pick <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2020\/03\/26\/jeremy-kelly-colorado-rapids\/\" target=\"_self\">Jeremy Kelly<\/a> has made a few appearances as well.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">On Beitashour:<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s taken care of his body. He&#8217;s got some rust to shake off. As a defender, he has a great sense of where danger is coming from and urgency to deal with it.<\/p>\n<p>No timeline for him being available for selection. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Rapids96?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Rapids96<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COLvSJ?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#COLvSJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Pollard #JusticeForJacob (@LWOSMattPollard) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LWOSMattPollard\/status\/1308490046849212416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 22, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Colorado needed a veteran option that could play on either side of the field and in particular, be a second option to Vines. He knows MLS well as a 10-year veteran. It cost Colorado nothing to sign him as a free agent. He and Fraser were at Toronto FC for two years together. He&#8217;s a known quantity. Assuming the salary isn&#8217;t ridiculous, he&#8217;s a low risk and high reward safety blanket for the fullback position for the business end of the season. The Rapids outside backs have been a bit underwhelming at times this year.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Beitashour will bring competition there to help push Rosenberry and Vines.<\/p>\n<p>Overall these were two moves that (pending massive injuries to the forwards) were low risk and helped the team improve incrementally without mortgaging the future.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"tmtQdtcYRbpJvWdNK3VL-g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1160086771\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'tmtQdtcYRbpJvWdNK3VL-g',sig:'hEX4PcM2pasPTYEND-DFl3BblQAuC1V7sND57H9EfIQ=',w:'594px',h:'398px',items:'1160086771',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COMMERCE CITY, Colo. &#8211; The Colorado Rapids have made two player moves going back to this past weekend. They dealt veteran striker Kei Kamara to Minnesota United FC for $150,000 in 2021 GAM and a 2022 MLS SuperDraft Second Round pick. Then Steven Beitashour was signed as a free agent to a one-year deal with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1044,"featured_media":29763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,119,3],"tags":[35,242,290,57,3057,665],"class_list":["post-29750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rapids","category-mls","category-news","tag-colorado-rapids","tag-kei-kamara","tag-minnesota-united-fc","tag-mls","tag-robin-fraser","tag-steven-beitashour"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}