2013 MLS Draft: Change Your Mocks, The Rapids Should Go Defense

The first MLS mock draft by TopDrawerSoccer had the Rapids selecting Jose Gomez, a midfielder out of Creighton, to help boost the attacking profile of the midfield. I'm expecting we'll see a slightly different tone out of their next mock draft following the huge round of cuts that the team made on Friday.

This is a Rapids defense that already allowed 50 goals during 2012, and they lost just about every depth player in an already very not-deep team on the back line during the cuts. Tyson Wahl, Tyrone Marshall and Luis Zapata may not have been great players, but they were just about all the team had at times during the season. After losing them, they're down to Drew Moor, Anthony Wallace, Chris Klute, Marvell Wynne, Hunter Freeman and that's about it. Four of them together might not make for a terrible back four — specifically, replacing Zapata with Wallace — but there's gonna be injuries and those are gonna hurt.

Because of that, the Rapids really shouldn't focus their efforts in the SuperDraft on the midfield. While there's no mistaking that adding another young attacker to the midfield wouldn't hurt matters in the goal-scoring department, the team won't get much use out of adding three goals to their total next year if they're still letting in 50.

There will be a couple of very intriguing young defenders available in the draft, as well. Right now, TDS has Furman defender Walter Zimmerman going No. 1 to Toronto FC, but anyone who has watched an MLS draft will tell you that top 10 players tend to slip and swap positions every year. He may be the best defender in the draft and he may be available at No. 6. If he's gone, they could also go for a guy like Eric Schoenle out of West Virginia, another guy who might be ready to step in for 10 starts next season.

Either way, there will be options and teams in the MLS Draft rarely go for the Best Player Available method, instead drafting by need. Considering how hit-or-miss MLS prospects from the draft tend to be, that's probably the best way to do it. Personally, I'd rather get the next Austin Berry than the next Darren Mattocks out of the 2013 draft, if only just to shave a few goals off of that ugly negative goal differential we saw in 2012.