With Real Salt Lake now officially missing the playoffs for the first time in seven years, there's some understandable Monday-morning quarterbacking going on as to the root cause. One theory is that the trading away of Nat Borchers was a key part.
And it would appear that the decision to trade Borchers is a significant part of why current Sounders GM Garth Lagerwey was apparently available to switch teams, at least in the words of Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen, who made this clear in a comment on RSL Soapbox's Facebook page. A Salt Lake City reporter has since confirmed the identity of the commenter.
Been informed that this is Dell Loy Hansen's Facebook profile, which made this comment on @rslsoapbox. pic.twitter.com/EZZcUDXb3i
— Chris Kamrani (@chriskamrani) October 15, 2015
Not something you see everyday, that's for sure.
It's also note entirely surprising, given that Lagerwey was the GM when the trade was made. Should Lagerwey have been allowed such complete control over the team's personnel just as his contract was to expire? Surely something that will be debated.
The politics aside, it's probably worth pointing out that the trade probably made a fair amount of sense from RSL's perspective. Borchers is obviously still a very good defender, but he's also one of the more expensive ones in the league and 34 years old. RSL also got a fair amount of allocation money in the deal, and were probably not expecting the Carlos Salcedo situation to go down like it did.
Kinda nice to have an owner that doesn't air our team's dirty laundry in public, right?