The 2016 Expansion Draft is coming!

Back in September, Rapids Rabbi put out his best guess about who the Colorado Rapids will protect and who will go unprotected in the upcoming Expansion Draft. Since then, he has changed some things around.

Meanwhile, SB Nation has put together a mock draft and the format of the Expansion Draft has been changed a bit since last time. Here’s my list, and a quick overview of how the draft works.

Abbie’s Predicted Protection List

Protected:

1. Eric Miller

2. Tim Howard

3. Shkelzen Gashi

4. Sam Cronin

5. Axel Sjoberg

6. Marlon Hairston

7. Jared Watts

8. Dominique Badji

9. Marc Burch

10. Dillon Powers

11. John Berner

+

Dillon Serna (Homegrown)

Caleb Calvert (on Homegrown contract)

Zach Pfeffer (on Homegrown contract)

Unprotected:

Marco Pappa

Dennis Castillo

Kevin Doyle

Connor Doyle

Joseph Greenspan

Jermaine Jones

Zac MacMath*

Sean St. Ledger

Sebastien Le Toux

Bobby Burling

Micheal Azira

Mekeil Williams

*Right off the bat, I can’t for the life of me remember why I added MacMath to the unprotected list. I would guess that I forgot we could hold on to him and sell him. I probably ruined the entire mock draft with that one, so I apologize ahead of time. ALSO, this list was made literally the day before Tim got hurt, but I wanted to publish the list I turned in for the mock draft. Today, I would switch out MacMath and Berner.

How I made my choices

I basically kept the Burgundy Boys who played consistently well pretty much all season, and it’s honestly mostly defensive players plus our definite keepers on offense (Gashi, Hairston). I’m not sure about Badji, but I think he’ll stay. Definitely let me know your thoughts in the comments!

The unprotected list is about who is replaceable and who is unlikely to get taken by another team.

The Rapids wouldn’t be too lost without Castillo, St. Ledger, C. Doyle, etc. if they did happen to get picked up, but I don’t think they will to be honest. As we’ve been talking about all season, Kevin Doyle and Marco Pappa are great players, they just don’t seem to fit into Pablo’s “system”, so I can’t imagine them being protected.

Besides MacMath (see disclaimer above), the biggest difference that Rapids Rabbi and I have is with Marc Burch and Micheal Azira. I think the Rapids will protect Burch - I don’t think he’s easily replaced. Azira, on the other hand, is a good player on his own, but I think you can put any “good” player in that position with Sam Cronin, and he will do fine. In my eyes, Azira is replaceable.

What you need to know about the Expansion Draft

• The draft is going to be held on December 13 this year.
• It has been determined that Atlanta United FC will choose first, and then they will go back and forth with Minnesota United FC.
• Unlike previous years, the teams will choose five players each, for a total of five rounds. Usually, the teams pick 10 players each.
• Once a player from a team has been chosen, no other person from that team can be chosen in a future round (aka that team is off the table).

Now it’s your turn - Do you think any of the Rapids’ players will get snagged? If so, who do you think could go unprotected and get taken?