Edwin Rivas selected 37th overall by Toronto FC in 2015 MLS Draft

By the time that you get to the 37th overall pick in the draft the board has basically been thrown out the window but that did not stop Toronto FC from finding a way to once again go off the board with their final pick in the first two rounds.

The club went defensive with all of their previous picks but finally made the move to grab an attacking player at 37th overall by selecting Edwin Rivas.  The forward out of California started 18 games for the Matadors in 2014 notching just 2 assists.  That followed up from a junior year where he had 4 goals and 4 assists.

With his numbers certainly not jumping off the page as a forward who rarely found the back of the net during his college career it will be interesting to find out what Toronto FC saw in the player.  Despite the lack of scoring he was second on his team in attempted shots as he took 40 efforts on goal while hitting the net just 17 times and never finding the back of the goal.

On paper this pick is a complete head scratcher by Toronto FC.  There were certainly a number of players on the draft board with stronger college resumes than Rivas has but hopefully it just means that the team saw something in the player that no one else has picked up on thus far.

The bad news for Rivas is that unless the team sees a positional change in his future he is going to be up against some very stiff competition just to even get minutes in USL Pro.  Not only does the team have a large collection of forwards on their MLS roster but they also have a fair few young players who will be looking for minutes at the USL Pro level and should probably get them ahead of a guy like Rivas.

Considering that most players taken in the second round never manage to make it out of training camp it would be harsh to be overly critical of this selection but it seems like Rivas will be a very long shot to actually earn a contract with TFC.  I will gladly be proven wrong though.