A Look at Sporting KC's Draft Position

The MLS Superdraft is this week. It's not going to be an incredibly busy day for Sporting KC, especially in the early going. KC's first pick isn't until the last pick of the second round, the 38th pick overall. The team traded their first round pick, 19th overall, to New England in the trade that brought Benny Feilhaber to Kansas City. KC still has four picks though in the draft: the 38th pick, the 41st acquired from Toronto FC in the Bobby Convey trade, the 57th, and 76th. With those four picks, here's a historic look at the players that have been selected there.

38th pick

2000 - Adam Eyre - New England
2001 - Greg Simmonds - Miami
2002 - Cory Gibbs - Los Angeles
2003 - Matt Crawford - Colorado
2004 - Denny Clanton - Chicago
2005 - Esteban Arias - Chivas
2006 - Duke Hashimoto - Columbus
2007 - Bryan Byrne - New England
2008 - Dwight Barnett - Chicago
2009 - Chris Salvaggione - New England
2010 - Jason Yeisley - Dallas
2011 - Billy Cortes - New York
2012 - Kenny Walker - Los Angeles
2013 - Greg Cochrane - Los Angeles

From looking at this list, Cory Gibbs stands out, but this is actually the second time he was drafted. Both times he ended up not playing for the team that drafted him. Instead he remained in Europe and returned to MLS at a different time. Of the players that actually played for the team that drafted him, was Matt Crawford in 2003. He played 52 league games for Colorado over a four year period. For the most part there's not much in the pick. Just three of the last six players drafted in this spot have made their team's roster. And of those three, only Greg Cochrane drafted last year by LA has played more than 45 league minutes.

41st pick

2000 - Michael Burke - DC
2001 - Ryan Trout - Colorado
2002 - Derek Potteiger - New England
2003 - John Swann - DC
2004 - Adom Crew - Columbus
2005 - Antou Jallow - San Jose
2006 - Blake Camp - New York
2007 - Aaron Chandler - Columbus
2008 - Matt Britner - New England
2009 - Danny Cruz - Houston
2010 - Mauro Fuzetti - KC
2011 - Levi Houapeu - Philadelphia
2012 - Dawyne Smith - NEw England
2013 - David Meves - Portland

This pick is all about Danny Cruz. He's played 111 games in five seasons with three teams. Other than that, this is a fairly forgettable pick. Other than Cruz, the remaining 13 picks have spent a grand total of 6 seasons with MLS teams. Only one of the last four, Levi Houapeu, even made an MLS roster, and he never appeared in a game for Philly.

57th pick
2000 - Dominic Schell - Columbus
2001 - Alex Bengard - Los Angeles
2002 - Brian Lavin - KC
2003 - PASS - NEw England
2004 - Chris Aloisi - Los Angeles
2005 - Bill Gaudette - Columbus
2006 - Jordan Harvey - Colorado
2007 - Steve Purdy - Los Angeles
2008 - Adam Smarte - San Jose
2009 - Mfana Futhi Bhembe - Real Salt Lake
2010 - Adam Welch - New England
2011 - Dan Keat - Los Angeles
2012 - Bryan Gaul - Los Angeles
2013 - Paul Islas - Chivas

This pick actually had some decent talent selected in it, with a number of players have some respectable MLS careers. It's led by Jordan Harvey who has appeared over 150 times in league play for the likes of Colorado, Philadelphia, and Vancouver. You also have Steve Purdy, although his case is similar to Gibbs above where he was drafted by a team but went abroad and did not return until later with a different team. More recently, LA has gotten at least some value out of their two picks, with Keat and Gaul combining for 20 appearances, 9 starts and just over 1000 minutes. They're the only two players from the last five years to make a roster from this pick.

76th pick
2005 - Chris Schwarze - Dallas
2006 - Corey Farabi - KC
2007 - Raul Batista - Chivas
2008 - Cory Elenio - Columbus
2011 - Ernesto Carranza - Chivas
2012 - Rafael Garcia - Los Angeles
2013 - Jose Gomez - Toronto

Not much in this pick, Elenio and Garcia each spent two seasons in the league, Garcia having the better go of it, appearing 10 times for the Galaxy, starting 1 game. The rest of the picks did not make any roster.

So there is the chance with these picks to pick up some talent, but don't expect a world beater to be selected. Sporting may be able to find a steal, but more likely than not, most of the guys KC takes here won't see the field, or possibly won't even make the roster.