Weekly Transfer Analysis Part 3: Astana Completes a Drastic Makeover While Bahrain Stands Still
Astana's interesting off-season sees them build an island of misfit toys while Bahrain fails to replace their outgoing stars
Programming note: This will be the last BTP email update of the week since I will be taking the remainder of the Thanksgiving week off. I hope everyone in the US has a great holiday week.
To continue our in-depth transfer analysis of every WorldTour team (See: Part 1 & Part 2), I’ve selected two more teams that, at least so far, have had polar opposite experiences in the transfer market.
Bahrain-Victorious, who had a great 2024 season that saw them out-perform their pre-season BTP NET Rating to finish sixth in the 2023 UCI WorldTour team rankings, has appeared to struggle in the transfer market and will see their roster lose nearly 2,000 PCS points over the off-season. Meanwhile, Astana, which had by far the worst 2023 in the sport’s top tier (while still outperforming their BTP Net Rating), has built on the momentum of re-signing Mark Cavendish for one final season by picking up a string of solid but underrated and/or underperforming riders to give themselves the third-best PCS net inflow in the WorldTour.
Bahrain-Victorious
Notable new signings: Torstein Træen (Uno-X), Finlay Pickering (Trinity)
Notable departing riders: Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep), Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek)
Notable unsigned riders:
Total Riders In: 3
Total Riders Out: 4
2024 Roster Spots Remaining: 3
Pro Cycling Stats Points In/Out: -1,896
The understated team, which has quietly and steadily improved since the 2020 season, finished sixth in last year’s WorlTour team rankings, mainly due to overperformance from veteran riders like Pello Bilbao, Mikel Landa, and Matej Mohorič, has seemingly taken a massive step back this off-season due to losing Landa and Jonathan Milan while failing to bring on any significant up-and-coming stars. This, and the fact that Mohorič, the team’s biggest remaining star, has stated he wishes to put more energy and effort into gravel racing in 2024, will place immense pressure on their remaining talent to sustain their recent success in the upcoming season.
While they were linked to Primož Roglič before his public, and somewhat strange, recruitment period ended with him heading to Bora-Hansgrohe for the 2024 season, Bahrain failed to bring on any significant stars for the new season.
The pickup of the 20-year-old Finlay Pickering is good, considering he has shown big potential at such a young age.
The 28-year-old Torstein Træen, who finished 8th overall at the 2023 Dauphine, is certainly a nice addition as a potential domestique, but the fact that he is their biggest addition by PCS points tells us all we need to know about their underwhelming recruitment period.
Considering their lack of serious recruitment, the team’s losses are notable.
Normally, getting rid of an aging Landa and his expensive contract and generally underwhelming grand tour GC results would be seen as a positive.
But while his race-winning days are well behind him (he hasn’t won a WorldTour-level race since 2018), the 33-year-old Basque veteran has been having a decent run of consistent results that have been key to his team’s high standings in the WorldTour points standings, which has kept them free and clear of the relegation battle.
The loss of Jonathan Milan, a young and massively talented up-and-coming sprinter, will hurt, especially since the 23-year-old just broke out in 2023.
Even with three remaining roster spots remaining, the team has only brought on a total of three new riders so far, meaning they will likely have one of the most stagnant squads (defined by the total number of riders in and riders out) in the sport, which is significantly considering they already had notable gaps in their team in 2024.
Astana-Qazaqstan
Notable new signings: Henok Mulubrhan (Green Project-Bardiani CSF), Lorenzo Fortunato (Eolo), Davide Ballerini (Soudal-QuickStep), Ide Schelling (Bora), Max Kanter (Movistar), Michael Mørkøv (Soudal-QuickStep)
Notable departing riders: Luis León Sánchez (retired), Fabio Felline (Lidl-Trek), Gianni Moscon (Soudal-QuickStep)
Notable unsigned riders: David de la Cruz, Joe Dombrowski
Total Riders In: 14
Total Riders Out: 15
2024 Roster Spots Remaining: 1
Pro Cycling Stats Points In/Out: +1,745
In stark contrast to Bahrain-Victorious, the Kazak squad has had an extremely active past few months, racking up more rider turnover than any other team in the WorldTour. This is likely due to management wanting to shake up a roster that produced an incredibly poor 2023 season that saw them finish below every other WorldTour team, plus two second-division teams, and struggle to eclipse the upstart Uno-X squad. This effort has seen them depart with some high-profile but underperforming stalwarts en route to a major roster makeover that has seen them put together one of the most productive off-seasons due to their net increase of 1,475 PCS points.
Despite not bringing on any major stars, the team’s new recruits are all fairly talented riders taking a major step up into the WorldTour (Henok Mulubrhan and Lorenzo Fortunato) or versatile mid-career riders whose careers have stalled out on their current teams and are looking for more chances to win elsewhere (Davide Ballerini, Max Kanter and Ide Schelling).
Mulubrhan and Fortunato might not move the needle for many teams, but bringing them on is a win for Astana, whose need for UCI points to avoid relegation means they have to target talented, but largely unproven riders, who don’t have GC ambitions but can potentially score wins from breakaways in grand tours.
Ballerini, Kanter, and Schelling might have been unwanted at their former teams, but at Astana, they present a major upgrade over the riders they are replacing.
Also, Ballerini and Kanter both have the power and bunch sprinting experience to potentially act as much-needed sprint leadout support for Mark Cavendish at the 2024 Tour de France.
From a glance, the losses of Luis León Sánchez, Gianni Moscon, Fabio Felline, David de la Cruz, and Joe Dombrowski are significant since all are talented riders with fairly recent past successes. But, upon closer inspection, moving on from these riders begins to look like a savvy move from Astana management.
For example, all five riders have suffered a significant decline in performances in the last few years, which is underlined by the fact that none of them have won a single pro race of any level in the last two years, and the most recent WorldTour win from the group was Dombrowski’s Giro d’Italia stage victory in 2021.
Even after all these moves, the team still has some major roster holes, and questions remain regarding their ability to support Cavendish in sprints and their roster’s ability to score enough points across the entire calendar at the level required to stave off relegation.
But, while we don’t know if it will be enough, it is still impressive that Astana has seemingly come to terms with its current place in the market and the moves it must make to increase the team’s performance to the level it needs to be in order to deliver Cavendish a record-setting Tour stage win, as well as to extend their stay in the sport’s top-tier.
It is rare to see a team understand that drastic change is needed and execute that change by going out and targeting stagnant mid-career riders instead of going all-in for past-their-prime big-name stars.
Astana's strategy will be interesting to follow next year. Feels like they have nowhere to go but up after their lack of results in 2023. Ide Schelling is particularly compelling given his ability to sprint after a hard race that trims the group down to 40 or so riders going to the finish together.
Don’t forget Morkov! Nice to see Astana bring in some legit support for Cav.