Real Salt Lake holds the fifth pick in Thursday’s 2016 MLS SuperDraft, a position the club hasn’t been in since selecting Tony Beltran with the third overall pick in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft. That draft position provides several opportunities for RSL General Manager Craig Waibel as he and the RSL Technical Staff have spent the year evaluating players from around the country who on Thursday will learn their first professional stops.
Those opportunities exist both in adding a good young prospect or swapping the pick out to build through more veteran players.
“When you have the fifth pick, you either believe you’re getting someone that you want and can play a role in your club for quite some time, or you should sell it and get allocation money to go out and pursue a player of interest that exists elsewhere,” Waibel said. “With our evaluation, it’s going to be hard for anyone to buy our pick because we believe there are five guys that can either have a great impact now or are a little bit of a project and someone we believe will have a good impact with our organization for a long time.”
Historically, the fifth overall pick has yielded some impact players in the draft. Sacha Kljestan was taken fifth overall by Chivas USA in 2006 and went on to star for now-defunct club before moving on to Europe. In 2010, FC Dallas picked Zach Loyd and he has been a consistent contributor on their defense, helping Dallas reach the MLS Cup final that season.
Waibel thinks that type of player could very well be available when RSL picks this year.
“There is the potential. The way that we ranked the draft, we think there are six or seven guys that have the ability to contribute. Some clearly more than others,” he said. “I think two of the players, in my opinion, have the ability to contribute to our particular roster and style of play more than the other three that we have ranked in our top five.”
The draft starts at 11 am MT and will be streamed live on RSL.com.
