Danny Cruz Traded To D.C. United From Houston Dynamo

by Martin Shatzer on Jan 21, 2012 10:30 PM EST

Danny Cruz is the newest member of D.C. United

The D.C. United roster still lacks a few good forwards. It still lacks depth in defense. But midfield? Midfield we've got locked down. One of the best midfields in MLS just got better with the addition of Danny Cruz.

The 22-year old midfielder scored nine goals and seven assists in two seasons with the Houston Dynamo, playing in 31 total matches. In exchange for Cruz, United sent a partial allocation to Houston.

In the team press release announcing the move, United General Manager Dave Kasper referred to Cruz as "tenacious," but he's much more than that. His energy was very often the spark that made things happen for the Dynamo. He's a good ball winner, good at creating chances, and not a bad finisher. Not great either though. Cruz is MLS-starter quality at this point in his young career. He was good enough to start for a team that reached the MLS Cup Final in 2011. And yet he'll be second choice on the wings for a United team that already includes Andy Najar on one side and Chris Pontius on the other, and a bench that already includes top draft pick Nick DeLeon. Yeah, this midfield is stacked.

Cruz made $123,000 for the Dynamo in 2011, but failed to reach an agreement with the team this offseason after graduating from the Generation Adidas list. They retained his rights though, meaning that United had to give up something in return. Per MLS rules, the amount of money trading hands wasn't disclosed.

Perhaps the best thing we can take away from this deal is the reaction of the Houston fans over on Dynamo Theory. They're almost unanimously disappointed to see Cruz leaving, and worried sick that he'll someday reach the potential he showed on the youth national team level, and that the Dynamo will regret letting him leave. We can only hope.

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totally agree.

When I heard this, I wondered how on earth allocation money was enough. This kid is very young, solid, and has flashes. Didn’t think Kinnear would be the next one to give us a freebie.

by UnitedDemon on Jan 22, 2012 6:32 AM EST reply actions

Who pays?

Does the allocation money come out of DCU’s pocket or is it from an MLS account? If it’s the latter, there’s nothing better than playing with house money. Either way, this could be the steal of the season. Cruz will push Boscovic.

by Runningcloud on Jan 22, 2012 9:33 AM EST reply actions

My understanding is that it's more Monopoly money

Allocation money isn’t really used to pay for anything. It only really exists in the accounting books to “buy down” players’ contracts against the salary cap (either reducing the cap hit or reducing the “on-book” salary of a player to below the DP threshold). It’s one of the league’s parity tools, divvied out after each season with more going to teams further down in the standings.

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by The AMT on Jan 22, 2012 3:35 PM EST up reply actions

Pontius up top!

This has to be a sign that they are finally planning to put Pontius up top. (Or that they know something we don’t about his injury.)

by BrunoReturns on Jan 22, 2012 1:49 PM EST reply actions

Not so fast

Cruz is a right midfielder, so for Pontius to be used up front, we’d need to either play Najar out of position on the left (not a major problem for him) or DeLeon is going to have to be a big-time player right away.

My take on this move is that Cruz will offer us cover when Najar is gone for:

Olympic qualifying (virtually assured)
The Olympics (if Honduras pulls an upset and takes a spot from Mexico or us)
World Cup qualifiers (lots of good candidates at RM for Honduras, but Najar is as good as any of them)

There is also the fact that we are probably not going to have Najar for too many more seasons. In fact, if he plays well this year, serious transfer offers would be pretty much a given. When you lose $2.85 million a year as compared to other MLS teams just to play your home games, selling a player like Najar – even with MLS taking their 33% – could wipe out one year of Will Chang losing money on United. That buys the club time to continue to work towards a permanent solution in DC.

Moving for Cruz gives us a long-term option at right midfield if/when Najar goes onward to stardom in a bigger league, not to mention leaving us covered for this year, where Najar might not play more than 25 league games for us.

Writer on SBN's DC United blog Black and Red United | @ChestRockwell14 | KEEP UNITED IN DC

by ChestRockwell on Jan 24, 2012 1:47 AM EST up reply actions