Whenever there's a trade like the one Minnesota United just made for Kei Kamara, it usually means that someone else is going down in the pecking order.
For Minnesota, it would seem to be Mason Toye, the club's 21-year-old forward who has shown his immense talent in flashes, but has never quite put it together consistently at the MLS level, whether that's due to incomplete development or a lack of opportunity. With that in mind, the Extratime crew put it up for debate as to what would be the best landing spot for Toye within MLS, assuming Minnesota do indeed deem it time to move on.
Charlie Davies led it off with three teams that jumped to his mind when he thinks of the best setting for Toye's future prospects.
"Colorado. San Jose. [Real Salt Lake]," Davies said. "I will send him anywhere where he's going to get some time. Play this man.
"There are times where you watch him play and it doesn't look like he's involved, drifts out of matches. But the times where he is playing, when he is involved — I'll go back to the brace against LAFC on the road. I'm like, 'This kid has something.' He just needs to be put in a situation where he's going to develop and grow. Minnesota's not it. That's for sure."
David Gass also mentioned RSL as a good potential suitor, adding that the Houston Dynamo and Montreal Impact also come to mind, as teams who might not be dropping money on a big-name No. 9 and could benefit from Toye's upside.
"I look at Houston, who might be on the verge of losing [Mauro] Manotas," Gass said. "I look at RSL who can't spend big on a center forward. And I look at Montreal. Those are three teams where the assets are worth it. So they will play [him] through the growing pains because they know what they can get later on in Mason Toye is better than what they're going to go out and get on the market outside. FC Dallas went out and got Franco Jara. That's a legitimate Liga MX goalscorer. We have not seen Houston do that, we have not seen RSL do that, we have not seen Montreal do that."
Andrew Wiebe made the case for another team Davies mentioned: The Colorado Rapids, who are in a youthful part of their cycle, which could make for a good environment for Toye to get the minutes needed to accelerate his development. Of course, the Loons just acquired a striker for the Rapids, who you figure might have inquired about Toye.
"If you look at Colorado, to me that feels like the perfect spot for a guy who needs confidence and needs to be in an environment that's going to build him up in some way," Wiebe said. "And that environment in Colorado right now is basically: Young dudes. Young dudes trying to be upwardly mobile. And to me, I don't know if that's the perfect place for him because maybe he needs a little bit more guidance, a little more structure, but I definitely think that he would feel more comfortable than certainly he feels now."
