How did the team do when olave, henry, dax, Sasha, Felipe, and Sam left the team?
I was thinking about this the other day. Here is my estimation of how the team has done at replacing its top players over the last four years or so.
2015 Miazga - Replaced by Gideon Baah. Major downgrade.
2016 McCarty - Replaced by Tyler Adams from Academy. Clear Upgrade.
2016 Sam - Replaced by Royer. Upgrade.
2017 Kljestan - Replaced by Kaku. Downgrade. Kljestan had 45 goals and assists and in his last two seasons with Red Bull. Kaku has 31 goals and assists in his first two seasons with Red Bull.
2018 Felipe - Replaced by Rzatkowski. Downgrade.
2019 Adams - Replaced by CCJ who was already with the team and no one was brought in. Very clear Downgrade.
The only times the team has replaced an important player with a better players is when they brought in Royer and when they had the greatest talent ever produced by a US MLS academy ready and waiting. We clearly do not have anyone in the academy who will be better than Royer by next season, much less a Tyler Adams level talent. Basically the only times we upgrade a position in a position is get lucky and have a generation talent or buy Danny Royer.
The last time the team legitimately upgraded a position through bringing in a new player was when they brought in Royer. That does not give me hope that getting rid of Royer will lead to improvement, unless we can somehow bring in a younger cloned version of Royer or put him in some sort of time machine and reacquire him.
All these people who say sell high are assuming the team will be able to reinvest in an equal or superior player. That is not at all a safe assumption as past precedent demonstrates the team usually fails to do this.
A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Royer is in hand. There may be Royers in the bush but I have no faith in the team's ability to capture those Royers in the bush.