If his goal scoring is a gimmick, it’s one we could use after last year. (Zing!)

I think I still like Bruin at number 3 (assuming Nagbe and Kitchen are gone). Bruin won the penalty on Plata’s first goal and made the pass to assist on his second, and he seemed to hold up play well and get teammates involved from what I saw of the first games.

We just got rid of Christman (to LA for a supplemental pick) so I’m thinking we may be wanting the size of a Bruin.

On one hand, he’s supposed to be one of the better teenage prospects in CONMEBOL. That is truly lofty company, and MLS doesn’t often (ever?) get young players with that kind of reputation. I remember when Adu was drafted, there was some quote from an Argentine or Brazilian journalist about how he was just like 50 or 100 kids from whichever country the guy was from. In other words, the same people that were unimpressed by Adu (who as a rookie was a contributor on a championship team) think Plata is a future star.

On the other hand, MLS has been pretty brutal on short players. For every Mauricio Cienfuegos or David Ferreira (or even Pitufo Da Avila from back in the day), there are a handful of players like Niell, Castillo, and other 5’6" or shorter players that simply couldn’t cope with MLS’s physicality. The guys that make the adjustment all have a top-notch sense of space and timing, and generally avoid being run into. Castillo, for example, never quite grasped the rhythm of MLS defending, and consequently found himself tackled and knocked down that split second before he would have released the ball. It’s a razor-thin margin, but if you don’t get on the right side of it you’ll find yourself out of the league in no time.

I haven’t seen Plata enough to judge whether he has hopes of being elusive and intelligent enough to evade defenders. Part of me thinks he could be an MLS answer to one of my favorite non-MLS players to watch, Darwin Quintero of Santos (who is about 5’7" and might not even weigh 130 lbs). Part of me is thinking that MLS defenders will just body him up early and he won’t get the chances he’s created in the Combine.

Like Shatz, I wouldn’t endorse taking him, but at the same time I can’t shake the thought that someone else will get him and he’ll fulfill his potential. What’s worse is that the team that likely rolls the dice is going to be one of MLS’s “haves,” since the “have-nots” will likely draft to fill holes they have rather than take a risk. Teams like Seattle (#11), RSL (#14), LA (#16), and Dallas (#17) strike me as fitting that profile, along with possibly NY (#13). They have nothing to lose, and each team has reason to feel that they can bring a youngster along well enough to make it worth the gamble.