Eric Brunner trade turned into a solid deal for Columbus. (Getty Images)

Since we are nearly done with the 2009 regular season I figured it was high time we started looking back at the best deals that were made that shaped this season into what it has become. I say going into every year that there will pretty much be a trade that shakes up things a bit when it happens and really helps push a club towards the playoffs instead of an early start to winter.

This year there were loads of trades. Some were good and some were down right a waste of time. Now I won’t go through every single trade here today but I am going to point out the ones that I thought were good and some that were bad.

If for some reason you think I missed a trade that was noteworthy this year, just post it below.

Best Trades in 2009:

Chivas USA trades Alecko Eskandarian to LA Galaxy: When he was healthy this year this deal was a great one for the Galaxy. Esky proved to me that he still had what it takes to be an impact player in this league.

Chivas USA trades Atiba Harris to FC Dallas for Marcelo Saragosa: On the surface Chivas got the bad end of the stick, especially if Dallas reaches the playoffs. I put this in the good trade category solely because of Harris and what he has been able to do since he got to Dallas. Schellas Hyndman got a great deal when he finally shipped out Saragosa because Harris fits his system on the wings better than Saragosa ever did in the midfield.

New York trades rights to Eric Brunner to Columbus: There is a lot of reasons why New York has been terrible in 2009, their defense has been largely to blame. One has to wonder if they had been able to keep Brunner and sign him to a decent deal last year if their defense would be nearly as poor as it has been in 2009. Brunner got signed on by the Crew and has really come into his own with them this season.

LA Galaxy trade Josh Wicks to DC United: Before the injury and the kick to Fredy Montero in the US Open Cup final, Wicks was one of the big reasons why DC was playing well early on this year. After winning the starting job over Louis Crayton, Wicks proved to a lot of people that he was good enough to start in this league.

San Jose trades Pablo Campos to Real Salt Lake: Its weird, I was never high on Campos until he started actually producing in Salt Lake. If he helps get the Lakers into the playoffs this season this trade may help save Jason Kreis’ job.

Other notable trades:

Houston’s list of trades: Dominic Kinnear traded with four clubs and got four players in the process. He did his usually if he can’t get what he wants he will trade until he gets it. This year Kinnear traded twice with San Jose (Cam Weaver for Chris Wondolowski and Ryan Cochrane), once with New York (Dominic Oduro) and once with Kansas City (Abe Thompson in exchange for Kei Kamara). He also worked a deal to send Julius James to DC United. Overall not his best year of working the trades, partly due to Weaver getting hurt and Oduro not being the speedster that he was probably hoping for.

San Jose’s list of deals: Frank Yallop was also busy this year working deals. Along with the ones mentioned above with Houston and Salt Lake he also traded with DC twice early on in the season for Mike Zaher and Mike Graczyk. He got Aaron Pitchkolen from Dallas and Bobby Burling from Chivas USA. Yallop also gave up veteran defender Nick Garcia back in the summer to Toronto FC.

Young Players Sent Packing: Two trades here that saw young players traded away. Kyle Davis was won in a lottery by RSL only then to be shipped off to Dallas. New England and Colorado swapped some young talent when they swapped Nico Colaluca and Rob Valentino.

Chivas sent striker winger Atiba Harris to Dallas in exchange for midfielder Marcelo Saragosa.

I can honestly tell you this trade does very little for either side. I am kind of happy to see Dallas get rid of the card happy and sloppy defending Saragosa here. I’ve been saying for a while he was trade bait or just on the chopping block for a release.

As for Chivas getting rid of Harris it kind of tells me they are set to make a move or two to get a striker as the summer transfer window stays open for another couple weeks. Harris is a quality player but I doubt he will make a huge impact on Dallas’s roster this season.

What do you make of this swap? Good deal for either side?

This all got me thinking of a few guys that would be worth trading to mix things up here for other MLS clubs. We’ve already seen a flury of trades and releases in the past couple weeks and I know more clubs will be looking to clean house in the coming weeks as we get closer to the summer transfer window opening up in the middle of next month.

Some guys listed are going to be coming back from injury soon, while others are just looking for more PT in general right now. I had a couple of the same players from the article above but differed on a couple other players. I didn’t see a need for Justin Mapp, Devon McTavish or Fuad Ibrahim to be traded away here.

If you have any other guys that thing are worth a mention here, put them below and why.

Ante Razov (Chivas USA): I know once Razov gets fit again he will be a good spark for Chivas but I am still not convinced that he will be with this club at the end of the season. Chivas has shown they have talent that can score, even though no one has stepped up in a big time way to be a go-to scorer like Razov once was. I think he’d be good trade bait to get a little extra allocation in for a summer pick up.

Jason Garey (Columbus Crew): I know the Crew need scorers and Garey should be one but I think his time in Columbus is coming to a close very soon. I still believe he has the talent to compete in this league but I think it could be time to get him into a system where he isn’t expected to be a scorer. It also may be best to see if he could be converted into another position as well. He’s still fairly cheap and could be a player worth taking on as some clubs gear up for the playoff run.

Marcelo Saragosa (FC Dallas): Saragosa is one of those guys that works very hard in practice and usually does a lot of little things right. I just think right now he is a victim of a bad system in Dallas where he isn’t used right. He isn’t a good fit for Dallas and Dallas isn’t a good fit for him. I’d think a club like San Jose or a Kansas City would do well with a guy like Saragosa.

Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake): I know a trade won’t happen with this kid because RSL has asked for too much when other clubs have approached them about Seitz. Thing is this kid is good but we aren’t seeing him nearly enough like we should. I think it could be a matter of RSL waiting on Nick Rimando to either retire or trade him (which is looking like could be the case later this winter).

Abe Thompson (Kansas City Wizards): Thompson was trade late last year from Dallas to KC and I really don’t think KC was the place for him to go. I know Thompson is a quality striker but he has to be in the right system for that and right now KC just has too many guys ahead of him. He’s still fairly cheap and a club like New York or San Jose could really use someone who is as hungry around the goal as Thompson is.

Mainly it comes down to a few factors but most ultimately end up with a lot of blame on head coach Schellas Hyndman.

Now I am not calling for a dismissal of Hyndman, not yet at least. I think every coach for the most part needs a decent amount of time to figure out what they need to do to get the club in a position to win and be successful. If the coach isn’t able to do that after I would say at least two seasons then it may be time for them to go. Maybe even two seasons isn’t long enough in some cases.

But with Hyndman we knew down here in Dallas what we were getting into. A long-time college coach that knows the game well but never won any major championships on the college level. The FCD job was his for the taking for a few years and once he finally was in the position to do it he finally took it.

The more I view this club and see how Hyndman coaches I know the man can do it but I am starting to believe he just may not be able to do it on this sort of level. He typically out thinks the room in a league that if you can keep things simple enough you can typically win. Look at the coaches that are successful. Most usually have a veteran keeper, a tight defense, a midfield that holds onto possesion and creates offense and is also physically tough and finally has strikers that are hungry around the penality box.

Hyndman has those kinds of players but he out thinks the room in the sense that he thinks too much about how to be defensive and how to maintain possession over periods of time. It may not help that he has an assistant coach that typically out thought the room in his time at RSL. Yes John Ellinger typicallty was the type of coach that thought too hard about how to make his expansion club into a winning club instead of getting the right peices in place to become a winner. Instead he breaded a culture at Salt Lake that the club is finally getting over under Jason Kreis.

But back to Hyndman here. He’s also being too stubborn about a formation that clearly isn’t working with his core group of players, which results in a lack of creativity on the offensive side of the ball and it ends up putting more pressure on a defense that could be good if they weren’t always put into a position to have to defend so much during a game.

And since he isn’t parting with his formation the club continues to have issues creating offense and finding a good enough partner for Kenny Cooper. They also continue to have issues on the right side of the field, not to mention the wing backs in defense. Then you have guys like Pablo Ricchetti that are currently on pace to break down by mid-July.

A lot of moves just aren’t working under Hyndman. The club is loaded with talent that sort of reminds me of a few New York Rangers teams from a few years ago. Lots of talent but couldn’t get the W’s. Some of it has to do with talent not being on form yet, which is also sort of ridiculous for being this far into a season, and some has to do with the talent just not being that good to begin with.

The club has plenty of young guys that also need to see time. Hell the Red Stripes have a handful of players on the US U-20 club that see more time with that team than with this team. I’d honestly love to see the likes of Josh Lambo, Kyle Davies, Brek Shea, Peri Marosevic, and Eric Avila mixed in more with Cooper, Dave van den Burgh and Drew Moor.

I think some things need to be shook up with this club to get it going here. I kind of think had the club gotten rid of a guy like Dax McCarty in the off season the midfield wouldn’t be as big of a mess as it is now and maybe the formation would be working for them. Maybe also making some other moves like dumping guys like Marcelo Saragosa. Or even cur your losses with someone like Steve Purdy or Daniel Torres, two guys that clear aren’t working out like Hyndman and GM Micheal Hitchcock had hoped for earlier this season.

I’m sure there are plenty of other things that club could do right now to improve. The talent is in place but sometimes it does boil down to coaching. And when you out think the room on things or making things too complicated for yourself you typically end up in a mess like FC Dallas is in at the moment.

It’s a shame too because there is a lot of good talent on this roster that deserves better. And not to mention the fans deserve better.

Edit: One final note…Hyndman’s all-time record with FCD is currently 5-12-9. At first I thought giving him more time would be fine but that is a terrilbe record for any coach. Even Steve Morrow

My overall feelings are still pretty much in tune to what they were a month or so ago when it was rumored that Hyndman would easily be the front-runner for the vacant spot after the dismissal of Steve Morrow. I’m not overly thrilled with the move, along with the hire of John Ellinger as the assistant. But the more I dig into this the more I get a sense of where this club could be headed here.

First off, there won’t be a technical director with this club, yet. Does that mean General Manager Michael Hitchcock stays on at the end of the year as GM? Maybe, but that more or less depends on the attendance from here out for the Hoops this season. That or Hitchcock is adimant about another designated player that turns out to be a bust like Denilson was last year. Most should recall it was a Hitchcock signing and not a Morrow signing.

Now saying that, I easily see Hyndman and Ellinger making some moves here from the start. Hyndman came off as a pretty serious dude in his press conference yesterday and most people gave me the sense that he is ready to tackle this coaching gig.

Hyndman had been offered this position as it has been reported three times by the Hunts and FC Dallas. He turned them down each time for various reason but for some reason he really wanted it this time around. That’s a good thing if you are a Dallas fan, because you obviously know your new coach is ready for once to make the jump. I did find it interesting that this wasn’t the first MLS club that Hyndman had turned down, back before the inaugural season in 1996, the Hunts offered him the head coaching spot in Columbus.

With the history aside in this there are reasons for and against Hyndman. I’ve stated the reasons against many times, and as have many others. The lack of experience, not winning the big one with SMU, the knock of lack of MLS products going through SMU, lack of European calibar players going through SMU, etc, etc.

There’s also the knock that his style won’t work with professional players. I don’t see that as the case with his transition into the pro level though. In his press conference in some other sound bites I’ve heard from yesterday, he basically stated that he knows the pro level is about the player and not the coach. If he genuenly feels that way he won’t have a problem connecting with the players on his new roster.

Getting away from the negative-town talk, there are some positives in this hire that I hadn’t seen yet until I listened to all the sides here.

From what people have told me and who have covered this club since its start in 1996, there has always been a level of miscommunication. Most of the people I talked to about this hire feel that Hyndman will be much better at the communication part than the past coaches. More so because of his connection with the owners and who knows maybe even to a degree he will have one with Hitchcock.

His coaching style breads communication with his players as well. Usually tough and strict coaches like Hyndman let their players know where they stand in the pecking order. Even if they don’t tell you directly where you stand, you pretty much know. This will come into the fitness of the club, along with fundamentals and pretty much everything else.

One thing that was brought up, was by Buzz Carrick in his thoughts earlier today. He made an excellent point that Hyndman has a better trust in the American players than the past two coaches (Colin Clarke and Morrow) had. That’s a good thing, seeing how this roster is full of young Americans that are ready to in the line up. You better believe all of those young Generation adidas players are getting excited about this move. They should know their time will be coming soon with Hyndman. Throw in how Ellinger is with developing young talent and this could end up being a really smart move by the Hunts.

There is something that Hyndman talked about. He was asked by Tobias Lopez of the Fort-Worth Star Telegram about formations. This year Dallas went to a 3-5-2 under Morrow and kept up with interim coach Marco Ferruzzi. Hyndman is an old school 4-4-2 man, with a diamond shaped mifield. It’s his bread and butter really. Plus the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea for this club. While the five in the midfield sort of worked at first for this club, the three in the back along with the two defensive midfielders weren’t controling the ball effectively enough and were giving up real cheap goals all season. A stronger midfield should help both cases out.

If you’ve ever seen Hyndman’s SMU teams you know how much they like to hold possession. That formation he runs is part of it. This pretty much tells me guys like Marcelo Saragosa (right) could be seeing their days in Dallas numbered. I never did like the midfield pairing of Saragosa and Pablo Ricchetti. They were too similar and really never feed off of one another well. Ricchetti was more effective in holding possession in my opinion so that is why I think Saragosa could be on the trading block.

Speaking of the trading block. Expect in the next couple of weeks for Hyndman to be making some moves. He talked about using the three open rosters spaces to do some work and I fully expect him to be trading within the league to unload players he doesn’t see fit his style or unload the ones who want out. I also expect him to bring people in on trial real soon to contend for those three spots as well. No real idea yet on what he wants to bring in, my guess is a center back, a flank player and a striker.

I look at the current roster and see a couple guys that could be on the move with this club. Saragosa isn’t the only one really. Some think Adrian Serioux could be moved, or even Artro Alvarez. I’m a little shocked to see some people mention Double A but it really wouldn’t shock me because Hyndman loves a two-way player and Alvarez doesn’t exactly have defense as his number one ability.

I wouldn’t be too shocked as well to see an international or two leave as well. I mentioned Serioux and Saragosa, but at the same time I think a guy like Ricardinho could be in the mix to leave as well. I don’t know what Hyndman’s opinion of him is at this point but you have to get a sense that players who haven’t seen a lot of action in recent weeks have to be on an alert of some sort.

Again, overall this move still seems a bit weird. I’m looking at it a couple different ways. One as an optimist and the other as a realist. I just don’t know which side of me is going to be right or wrong.