The opening match of the 2025 season is now roughly three weeks away.
So far as I can tell the Thorns still haven’t opened camp.
Despite that, the FO has been busy. Signings since our last discussion include former UCLA centerback Jayden Perry and former Bay FC and Venezuelan midfielder Deyna Castellanos.
Individually? Perry looks promising (with my usual caveat that amateur-to-professional is a big step up and not all rookies, regardless of ability, make it or make it completely) while Castellanos…well…let’s talk.
Our vaudevillian cane blogger Andre Carlisle had a nice little discussion of Castellanos in his “postseason Washington Spirit postmortem” here (and hat tip to kielbj for his link to this).
I commented on the Stumptown thread that I was very much of two minds about the signing.
- Castellanos has played well for her country. Taken individually she has attractive-looking ACM/#10 numbers, and was a standout in college.
- Since then she has underwhelmed as a professional, both for ManCity and BayFC. She hasn’t been “good” since her time with Atletico Madrid three years ago. And she was ridiculously expensive at BFC, sitting on about $1M/year, and they bought out her contract to get shut of her.
But Carlisle Sensei makes a good point; Castellanos was badly misused in Montoya’s setup at BFC. He used her as a #8, and she’s not an 8 – she doesn’t defend worth a lick – she’s a pure AM, a #10.
Now. Here? That’s kind of a problem, because last season made it brutally clear that 1) Coach Ken doesn’t play a #10, and 2) he doesn’t know what to do with a #10, as his crude mishandling of Olivia Moultrie showed.
But. Maybe that’s not a total problem, because, as the nut graf in the linked Carlisle piece says;
“…Castellanos didn’t spend much time in positions I think are her best, CAM and right wing. She likes inside spaces and drifting around the box, so shouldn’t be thought of as a classic winger, but if a fullback pushes up to maintain width, her tucking in is ideal. The Spirit do this, and I think Castellanos would relish the more familiar role.”
I can see Ken doing that, too; he tended to bomb Marie Muller forward wide (and with somewhat lesser success, Nicole Payne). We need a right winger to bookend Morgan Weaver and to help Sophia Smith. Could Castellanos be that winger for Ken, with Muller/Payne behind her?
Given Sugita’s value going forward from midfield I’d certainly rather see Castellanos out there than Hina-san, and their respective defensive skills (or lack of them, in Castellanos’ case…) makes the point more thoroughly.
So perhaps, maybe, just possibly Castellanos is an Agoos/Gale “RW Project”?
What does make me nervous about that is her paycheck.
She was an expensive bust for BFC. If she’s expensive here, $500K/yr? Or more? That makes her as a project much less attractive – if she fails that’s a pretty big cap hit.
If she’s on something more like $200K/yr? That’s more acceptable…but we have and never will have any way of knowing.
Update 1/25: I subscribe to Carlile’s newsletter, and last Friday he added some interesting comments on the Castellanos deal.
To wit:
1) He begins with his distrust of Ken (join the club!),
2) Notes that one of the Thorns biggest midfield issues in 2024 was “too many people with #10 skillsets” and that’s, as we noted, Castellanos’ best position,
3) then, somewhat oddly, says that winger isn’t really a good option for Castellanos because she a) lacks pace (“shifty” versus “pacey”) and b) can’t track back, so
4) He concludes this is likely to be a disappointment.
I’m curious why he appears to have changed his mind from “We could use her here in D.C. as a RW” in December to “You won’t like her there in Portland as a RW” in January. Is it just Ken? I won’t pretend Ken couldn’t fuck up a wet dream, but is that all? Giraldez could manage her, Ken won’t?
Hmmmm.
Here’s what makes me hesitate about all this player speculation, though.
Ken.
We saw last season that his gormless “tactics” and poor skills-to-role assignments could nerf an otherwise strong roster. Despite slipping into the playoffs, his Thorns never looked remotely like competing with teams like Orlando or Washington, and didn’t.
So I’m really unsure of what he can make of these players, both those returning from 2024 and the additions, all the Sam Hiatts and Daianes and Perrys and Castellanos and whoever else arrives between now and March.
I still think we need depth, too, along with a third keeper and maybe another centerback.
(And it’s worth noting that per Henderson 42 players who were rostered in 2024 are still unsigned free agents, including Kelli Hubly, Meghan Klingenberg, Gabby Provenzano, and Marisa Sheva. My guess is that the Thorns might re-sign Provenzano if her rehab looks successful. The others are gone…)
At this point I think we sort of need to put a pin in the roster-build speculation.
Hope for good signings, yes. But Ken is still the Barbie In The Room. It’s going to matter what he does with them. And his record to date is not promising; he could nerf Sophia Smith, a generational talent, ferchrissakes!
I hope these signings are good moves, and I hope the FO is still working the phones.
But I don’t think we can know. These players are just the posts and beams. What sort of house will Ken build from them? I honestly don’t know.
So until February…I’m going to hold off my judgement.
Next: 2025 S-2 Briefings
Note:
1The title of this post is from a very old song (also called “The Daemon Lover”), that concludes:
“What hills, what hills are those, my love
That rise so fair and high?
Those are the hills of heaven, my love
But not for you and I.
And what hills, what hills are those, my love
Those hills so dark and low?
Those are the hills of hell, my love
Where you and I must go.”
Brrr. Let’s hope not.
- The House-Carpenter - January 24, 2025
- Sing, sing a song… - January 14, 2025
- Goose (updated 1/11/25) - January 7, 2025
As you and many others point out, whether signing Castellanos is a good deal depends on the price, as it does for most any deal anywhere I guess. She was making around $450k/year ($1.8M over 4 years) at Bay FC. Hopefully her poor performance and decreasing minutes both there and at her previous club, Man City, mean that she costs less now, but player salary declines tend not to be very large compared to salary increases. In any case her price is set by what teams everywhere are willing to pay for her, and I imagine someone somewhere still sees her potential and would be willing to pony up. So I doubt she’s much cheaper than $400k/year, and might be more. For reference, that’s (ludicrously) about what we were paying end-of-career Sinclair. Hopefully Castellanos is better than that version of Sinclair. If she’s anywhere in the ballpark of peak Sinclair then we’ll have gotten a real deal.
Also, I’ve been wondering about the odd fact that she signed here VERY soon after the Bay FC buyout. You’d think she would wade into the free agent waters to find the best offer, and it makes me wonder if there was some three-way agreement among her, the Thorns, and Bay. I have no idea what that might agreement might be, but it could be part of the Thorns’ cost for her.
I sure wish the NWSLPA would publish salary numbers the way MLS does.
If Castellanos was anywhere NEAR peak Sinclair we’d never have gotten a sniff at her anymore than we did Shaw or Girma.
I see her as a project at this point. I wish I had more confidence that Ken could “do” projects. Hopefully she’s got a big chip on her shoulder to prove the post-ManC/BFC-doubters wrong.
The other possibility for the “quick” signing is that she DID test the FA water (my guess is she and her agent would have been informed of the buyout some time ago…) and found them to be very shallow. Rushton may have still been a believer and offered her much LESS of a markdown that anyone else, but after three consecutive “meh” or worse seasons I have to think she was hardly a seller’s market.
But…yeah, we have no idea. Frustrating.
AND we have no real idea what Ken does with her. Which is just as frustrating.
I agree that if the Thorns are paying as much as $400 k/year that Sinc was getting during her last three , that is not a terrible deal. If she plays well she will be a big improvement over Sinc and if she plays poorly, unlike Sinc, she will sit on the bench, because she doesn’t have the gravitas or some of the intangibles that Sinc brought to the field.
She has potentially a very high ceiling and right now the biggest risk is that she will sit on the bench as often as she did with her last two clubs.
I agree with John is she probably knows now it is not a sellers market for her. It has been a while since she was listed in top 20 players in the world. I think almost everybody in the blogosphere believes she can be a great player, but everyone seems to qualify that f with “if paired with a great coach.”
Don’t see anyway they are paying anywhere close to the money Castelllanos made last year. My guess is she took a 50% buyout for them and Portland is paying the rest, but we won’t know for a while I’d guess.
This is the definition of boom or bust. Macario, Castellanos, Fleming, and Smith were along the best college players I’ve seen. I do think part of Smith’s improvement has been her being the top player in the NWSL as opposed to struggling to secure consistent playing time.
If Castellanos hits, it has the potential to change the trajectory of the team.
When Macario went to Europe and Smith was given the chance to be Number 1 in the draft and I remember I was a bit sorry that we couldn’t get Macario. But out of those four Smith has been the Super Nova.
Macario started great with Lyon but injuries have plagued her since. Fleming’s pro career has been up and down, but mostly disappointing for the last two years. But I think she has it in her to be a really good pro. Castellanos started great in the pros and then has flamed out, but she does have the skills to a great pro. If Fleming and Castellanos can figure it out this year (they will need to, I am not sure there is going to much in the way of coaching to help), then the Thorns could be sensational.
But as Dandy Don Meredith used to say on Monday Night Football “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we would all have a Merry Christmas.”
I know we’ve disagreed on this in the past, but in this case I feel pretty good confident that Castellanos college form is so far in the past and so “below professional grade” as to be effectively a closed book.
Now…if she can re-create her Atletico form? THAT will be terrific. But…
I’m thoroughly unconvinced that Castellanos is SO good – Marta-good, Pele/Garrincha-good – that even if she does she can or will singlehandedly change the character of the club because, well, Ken. She’s been highly regarded before ManCity and BFC misused her…but THAT good? I’m not seeing that.
I think she’s – as I said above – a “project” – and hopefully a successful one. But this team needs better tactics, better fitting-skills-to-roles, better…pretty much everything.
We already have a generational talent in Smith, a Marta-grade talent, and she couldn’t drag the club to glory last season. It’s not enough to add good pieces. The pieces gotta fit.
A few thoughts, some of which we have touched upon elsewhere, since off-seasons exist to indulge speculation, rumor, and doggerybaw.
Assuming the club is through playing “Now you see her, now you don’t” with Deyna Castellanos, it bears noting the NWSL has a recent history of slowing-down the processing of (and therefore announcements) of free agent moves. We all tend to raise an eyebrow at the Thorns front office when something weird happens—with justification—but they may not be the only entity fumbling paperwork. The only specific example i know of dates to last winter, as you know, but, if still involved, I see no reason to trust the league has improved since the previous offseason.
I’ve no idea whether either of these acquisitions will pan out. We have all seen players who performed well elsewhere come here and flounder, or crater. Not gonna be rude and name names. We have also seen players who underperformed elsewhere come in and play pretty well—Christen Westphal comes to mind.
I feel no more confidence than you, John, (or most everyone else) the Thorns coach will help this roster play at a level closer to their individual qualities. But the Thorns no longer carry six goalkeepers, and that alone suggests adults have entered the building.
Speaking of goalkeepers—Lauren Kozal sighting! She landed with Grasshopper Club Zurich at some point in the past few weeks. I know nothing about the Swiss league, but great club name.
AFAIK the league has a minimal if any role in approving deals under the current CBA. In the Bad Old Days the problem of “rights”, FA limitations, &tc meant they had to vet these moves? Now? My guess is that it’s not even a question of approval; the only question is cap space, and I think Gotham proved in ‘24 that even that’s not really very closely scrutinized. No, I think it’s just the FO being the FO.
Glad Kozal found a gig. I don’t have any clue about their women’s side but the BroSo Grasshoppers is a fairly prominent Swiss club or was; they have been in the UEFA Champions League hunt which is where I recall the name.
As above, we’ll just have to see what Ken can do. We need his whole to be much better than the sum of his parts were last season.