Daniel Leyva loaned to Colorado Rapids for remainder of 2023 MLS season /// analysis
As broken by Jeremiah Oshan on Monday and officially announced by the club yesterday, Sounders’ 19-year old central midfielder Danny Leyva is on his way to the Colorado Rapids.
This post is just a look into the type of player Danny Leyva is, some thoughts about the timing and purpose of this loan, and a guess at the downstream effects to Sounders’ salary cap flexibility.
Player profile
The Las Vegas native joined the Sounders academy in 2017 as a 13-year old, having previously been a part of the Barcelona USA set-up in Nevada. In 2018, he signed a homegrown contract, becoming Sounders’ youngest ever professional player. During that first year he played a mix of U15s, U17s and S2 matches and established himself in the US Soccer youth system, where he has made himself a mainstay. Only a year later, at 15 years old, he made his first team debut, making him one of the youngest ever players to make an MLS debut. Since then, despite some injury issues in 2021, his minutes have been on an upward trend. The last two seasons have seen his number getting called more, and last season he played nearly 1,000 MLS minutes in 19 appearances in central midfield for the first team.
I don’t think anyone is under any illusions about whether Leyva is a good player or not. He’s been a professional for 3 years, has just signed his second professional contract, and still hasn’t hit 20 years of age. He never looks out of place on the field, he’s composed on the ball and, make no mistake, our dude can pass:
Colorado were also not the only club interested in bringing Leyva on board. In addition to the rumors about a potential Pumas UNAM transfer we heard about over the offseason, Craig Waibel also noted that he had “a lot” of other clubs calling him and expressing interest.
If there are any gripes to Leyva’s game, it is likely his lack of lateral speed and explosiveness, which has the potential to expose Sounders to a counter attacking threat. This is particularly important this season as the Sounders are more or less playing with only one holding midfielder while in possession, and having a rangy midfielder is key to keeping fast break threat to a minimum when you’re looking to get 5 players into attacking lanes in the opposition box.
This liability is not unique to him, though. Many central midfielders with the same limitations have risen to the top of the game by being technically secure and knowing where to be before anyone else does. Leyva has that in him, and Sounders seem to think the potential in his game far outweighs any holes. Waibel has been nothing but praiseworthy, describing him in yesterday’s press appearance (embedded below) as “one of the highest caliber character people that we have.” On a squad that’s made “character” a KPI in who they acquire, that should say something about how highly the team values him.
Why loan him now?
Despite all the positives, the guy faces extreme competition for playing time in Seattle. The Sounders’ midfield is congested, with one DP (Albert Rusnák), one max TAM former DP (João Paulo Mior), a hometown golden boy (Josh Atencio) and an Alaskan wunderkind (Obed Vargas) all well-established or slightly ahead of him in Brian Schmetzer’s plans, and that’s not even accounting for Kelyn Rowe and Cristian Roldan, who can play the role as well. Consequently, Leyva’s been limited to only 21 minutes through the first quarter of the 2023 season. But apart from that, it should be remembered that Leyva’s skillset seems to most closely correlate with João Paulo’s, and João Paulo is just not coming off the field. If Nicolás Lodeiro is the beating heart of the Sounders, João Paulo is their liver, kidneys, and pancreas, and it’s no surprise that the year Leyva made 19 appearances was the year João Paulo spent rehabilitating from an ACL repair operation.
In his talks with journalists yesterday (again, the video is embedded below), Waibel made sure to note that “sometimes [an MLS team] loan[s] to sell; sometimes [it] loan[s] to develop. Danny is a great example of loan to develop.” This is not primarily a “shop window” exercise, even if Waibel acknowledged that if Leyva’s performances were good, there “will be appetite on both sides to keep it going.” With minutes hard to come by, it makes perfect sense for Sounders to look to get a prized asset an easier path to minutes, not only to do right by the young guy who they recently completed a long term contract with, but also to maintain his value after a solid season of work last year.
In my opinion, Colorado seems a pretty ideal place for that for a couple reasons. First, it’s no secret that they’re hurting for players. With Jack Price out for the season after an Achilles tear, and Cole Bassett also sidelined with some hamstring issues, the pathway to playing time is shorter in the immediate term.
Second, the pressure will be on, but in a different way than he’s used to. I don’t think it’s any disrespect to say that the expectations on the Colorado Rapids are different than for the Sounders. The Sounders expect to win last year, now, next year, and for every year after that until heat death of the universe. The Colorado Rapids do not. That, however, does not mean it will be a cakewalk for Leyva.
Have you ever driven a rental car? Did you go easy on the rental car? I know I didn’t.
The Rapids will be in a situation where they can use Leyva in whatever way they think will be best for them, and because they have no purchase option, they will not have much incentive to — like the Sounders would — concern themselves about whether it jives with Leyva’s long-term development plan. In Seattle, Leyva has always had older, more experienced, and, frankly, better players around him. That won’t be the case going forward. He will be expected to slot straight in and contribute as a member of a team that is missing key players and under pressure to perform. The Rapids are not in a good way, having won just one of their first nine MLS matches, and while they have somewhat steadied the ship with a string of draws, Leyva is going to be dropped into the middle of a dogfight. Real sink or swim hours for him, and he will need to show up and carry water immediately.
It’s an exciting time for him. If he can be a key cog in turning this Colorado Rapids season around toward something positive, it will be a real accomplishment for the kid, and will bode well for his career and the Sounders’ bank account. But as good as that would be, it can also go the other direction.
Deal details and salary cap ramifications
The loan deal is nominally set for the rest of the 2023 MLS season, but Sounders General Manager Craig Waibel confirmed today that both Sounders and Colorado maintain unilateral recall rights during the summer transfer window, which — along with the fact that Colorado does not have a purchase option — was an important factor in accepting Colorado’s offer of the loan.
In the Sounders’ official announcement of the deal, it was mentioned that Sounders will be receiving a third round pick in the 2025 MLS Super Draft, and the curious amount of GAM 92,000. Jeremiah Oshan noted that this amount was a prorated offset of Leyva’s contract, and indeed, 92,000 is 80% of the $115,000 in guaranteed salary that Leyva will receive in 2023, meaning that if he were recalled by the Sounders in the summer window, a prorated portion of the GAM 92,000 would likely be refunded. This essentially means the GAM will offset the salary, because under MLS loan rules, loaning a player out provides roster relief but no cap hit relief. In other words, his roster spot on the Senior Roster is open, but Sounders are still on the hook for his salary. The $92,000 GAM offset offered by Colorado consequently brings the burdget his budget hit to $0.00 for the months he’s with them.
The roster and cap hits of each Sounders player is listed below. The xAM number in the bottom right includes both the $115,000 Leyva is set to make, as well as the GAM 92,000 Sounders have received from the Rapids.
The GAM 92,000 here will likely not have much of an impact on the general plans for the summer transfer window. All of the current DPs (Rusnák, Lodeiro, and Raúl Ruidíaz) make in excess of the 2023 max TAM threshold amount ($1,651,250 — see CBA numbers below). Consequently, it’s not possible to buy their contracts down to non-DP status with allocation money.
It seems to me that all this GAM 92,000 does is give the Sounders an extra $92,000 (for a total of approximately GAM 1.1M) to pay one or two players should they choose to dip into the market during the summer window when players’ cap hits are only 50% of their salaries. This would mean that, theoretically at least, Sounders have enough allocation money to bring in two $1,000,000-salary players for the second half of the season.
