The week of the 2015 MLS SuperDraft is finally here. We’ve mocked it and we’ve mocked it again. Today, though, we take a look at the rollercoaster history associated with the draft’s first overall pick. Andre Blake fed into the narrative last year by sitting on the bench for Philly all season despite scads of potential. What about his predecessors?

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the historical success rate for top overall picks is more or less a 50/50 proposition. You may think you’ve hit on a can’t-miss prospect like Steve Zakuani until the unthinkable happens. Or perhaps you’ve taken Freddy Adu, The Most Exciting Prospect In The History Of The World. Or maybe you’ve quietly taken Chance Myers and prepared yourself a lengthy spread of future reliability? To wit, the former is more common than the latter.

So let’s dive into the draft’s history with No. 1 overall picks and see where that leaves us this year. Specifically looking at UConn’s Cyle Larin or Washington’s Cristian Roldan, can either add a tick mark to the boom category? Or will it be bust?

2000

Steve Shak, MetroStars (38 appearances, 1 goal)

Our journey through the annals of shaky first overall picks doesn’t begin auspiciously. The first draft was a marathon six rounder, and the draft pool was encouragingly bolstered by a handful of very good UCLA players. Even being optimistic, Shak was probably the fourth-best of that group. Most expected Carlos Bocanegra, Sasha Victorine, Peter Vagenas or Nick Rimando to come off the board first (Rimando, incredibly, didn’t go until the 35th pick). And if the Metrostars needed a defender so badly, how they whiffed on Bocanegra is beyond comprehension. Shak played two mediocre seasons with the Metrostars before being traded to the Rapids, where his career fizzled.

2001

Chris Carreri, San Jose Earthquakes (75 appearances, 19 goals)

It’s more than possible that had he been less controversially opinionated, Carreri’s MLS career could’ve stretched on for a few more years. As it was, Carreri played just 93 minutes for the Quakes before he was traded to the Rapids for more playing time. In that sense, Carreri was a fairly epic miss for San Jose. Whether or not he was traded due to personality differences with Frank Yallop is up for discussion, but his tiff with Colorado coach Tim Hankinson was not. He turned into a productive forward for the Rapids for a few seasons, but his ego wouldn’t allow a move into the midfield, and he agitated himself right off an MLS roster. Carreri’s 69 games and 19 goals for the Rapids prevents him from joining the true busts on this list, but as far as the Quakes were concerned, this was a wasted draft pick.

2002

Chris Gbandi, Dallas Burn (111 appearances, 3 goals)

Gbandi was a quality, sensible pick at No. 1 overall, and he isn’t the opulent Babel-sized monument to the fine art of flopping that some others are on this list. But look at the talent taken behind him. Taylor Twellman went No. 2, Brad Davis No. 3, Justin Mapp No. 4. Best player available might’ve been a good strategy here. That said, this was a devastatingly bad draft for defenders, and Gbandi was clearly the pick of the group. The other three first-round defenders played a combined 42 MLS matches in their careers, and the rest of the draft’s defender pool wasn’t much better. Gbandi eventually ended up transferring to Norway, where he ostensibly ended his career as a European starter. This wasn’t the perfect No. 1 pick, but FCD gets praise for largely getting it right.

2003

Alecko Eskandarian, D.C. United (125 appearances, 30 goals)

For everything he was on the field, Eskandarian was the MLS SuperDraft’s first true hit as a first overall pick. His eight-year MLS career was the league’s longest for a first overall pick to this point, and he even earned a national team cap, the first of this group to do so. Despite the fact that he fizzled badly after he left D.C., Eskandarian is still a cult favorite in the capital for scoring 20 goals in his 81 appearances, earning a couple all-star nominations and scoring twice in an MVP stint in the MLS Cup. Let’s not forget his infamous incident with the can of Red Bull, either. While his peak production was only through a period of about four seasons, D.C. won’t complain.

2004

Freddy Adu, D.C. United (122 appearances, 31 goals)

Adu’s case is the most widely known of all first overall picks, and he’s a handy trope to point toward when the topic of “epic bust” makes the rounds. But allow me to offer an alternative history. Adu missed his mark professionally, but his standard was impossibly lofty, certainly far more so than anyone else on this list. The reality: Adu was a serviceable midfielder with good feet and questionable instincts. As a squad rotation player, he’s far from the worst draft pick on this list. His production, spotty as it’s been, certainly bares that out. Indeed, Adu showed flashes of real quality in his first MLS stint for D.C., even if his light eventually blinked out overseas. If D.C. was looking for a forward, 2004 didn’t have a lot of options (sixth-round pick Alan Gordon was the draft’s best, if that gives you an indication). If D.C. wanted a midfielder in 2004, might Clint Dempsey have been a better option?

2005

Nikolas Besagno, Real Salt Lake (8 appearances)

Here we come to the beating, heaving core of the Great MLS Busts. To date, only Adu was a younger first overall pick, which should normally indicate some kind of wunderkind level of ability mixed with a professional surety on the part of the drafting team. In actuality, Besagno played eight games for RSL, went on loan to Seattle, was waived and then completely ignored by all of MLS in the ensuing waiver draft. A final indignity. Besagno had a tie to RSL in John Ellinger, the RSL head coach who’d managed Besagno on the U17 MNT level. Apparently, Ellinger’s inflated opinion of Besagno’s ability pushed him to make one of the worst draft decisions in MLS history. A relic of the pre-Kreis days, to be sure.

2006

Marvell Wynne, MetroStars (214 appearances)

A sensible, successful first overall pick from the MetroStars? You. Don’t. Say. The trouble is that he didn’t get much of an opportunity to shine until he’d left the area. As if to make up for the Shak decision six years earlier, the MetroStars leapt at Wynne, an incendiary outside back with straight-line speed that would make DeAndre Yedlin blush. Wynne had a solid rookie campaign before Mo Johnston was jettisoned and Bruce Arena replaced him. When Johnston popped up in Toronto, he liked Wynne so much he traded for him. Wynne’s been one of the league’s fullback ironmen since being drafted, although this pick will look suspect considering the MetroStars (who were renamed the Red Bulls soon after this draft) only got 29 games out of him.

2007

Maurice Edu, Toronto FC (60 appearances, 8 goals)

This may be the only time you’ll ever hear us praise the TFC youth talent identification system (we kid, we kid). But seriously, TFC’s capture of Mo Edu in 2007 may go down as the best first overall pick to date. Edu was a success story almost immediately, and at least at this time in MLS’s history, TFC did what most expected and sold its talented young player along to Europe. While TFC’s directive has since changed from Selling Club to Buying Club, lest we forget why this move was so shrewd. While Edu’s return to MLS has been accompanied by something of a drop-off in intensity level, there’s little question that 2007-2010-era Edu was a fine vintage. One of the best, most sensible first-round picks in MLS history.

2008

Chance Myers, Sporting KC (123 appearances)

Both Marvell Wynne and Chris Gbandi were solid first overall choices, but Myers is probably the best right back taken in this spot in the draft’s history. SKC gets an added bonus for sticking with him and installing him into a system that eventually led to an MLS Cup title. Myers is as versatile as he is clean on the ball, and he’s comfortable as both a cyclone and a bunkering wide man. You saw his true value when he went down for the 2014 season early last year. The SKC defense was never quite the same. In a league that makes hanging onto bundles of quality for multiple seasons a difficult proposition, the fact that Myers has been made a top priority in KC tells you plenty.

2009

Steve Zakuani, Seattle Sounders (97 appearances, 17 goals)

Our first true What Coulda Been pick. You feel for the Sounders, who tracked the blazing Akron midfielder well and made the obvious choice. And Zakuani was more or less as advertised until the nasty leg break that all but ended his career in 2011. You hate to say it, but had Zakuani been just another weekend duffer trying to make it in the league, his devastating injury wouldn’t have felt so… devastating. But Zakuani was a true talent, a pure winger with pace, guile and class. So the fact that his career was robbed from him by a wayward challenge makes this all that much tougher to take.

2010

Danny Mwanga, Philadelphia Union (98 appearances, 15 goals)

It’s incredible how strikingly similarly Zakuani’s and Mwanga’s production track one another over the same amount of games. The problem is that almost all of Mwanga’s came in his first two seasons. We generously ladle out the “bust” tag on Mwanga now, but through the 2010 and 2011 seasons, Philly was ecstatic with its pick. Seven goals and four assists in ’10 and five goals and four assists in ’11 will do that. The real shame is that he was paired with Peter Nowak, the closest an MLS coach has ever come to being Napoleon. Mwanga’s production in his first two seasons is at odds with what he’s done with his four clubs since, which is to say, not much. So was this a bad pick? Or even a bust? Not with the Union, anyway. If only he’d been under the auspices of another coach earlier. Alas.

2011

Omar Salgado, Vancouver Whitecaps (26 appearances, 1 goal)

If Nikolas Besagno is the crowned king of this group, Salgado is his prince. It wasn’t enough that Salgado failed to make any tangible inroads in Vancouver. After he left, he napalmed every bridge he’d crossed by calling his time there a “nightmare” and said he left feeling he was “lied to.” Not a great way to cement a miserable three years north of the border. It’s worth pointing out that in 18 appearances spread between the U17, U20 and U23 levels, Salgado only scored three goals, and there were rumors out of Vancouver that his attitude (as Galarcep’s article seems to echo) could’ve used some fine-tuning. Salgado was a promising teenager in 2011. Was he worthy of the top overall draft pick? Heck. No.

2012

Andrew Wenger, Montreal Impact (79 appearances, 12 goals)

If we separate the draft into segmented eras, 2012 seems to represent the beginning of a more sensible one, to say nothing of the increase in general quality. Wenger didn’t have the sex appeal of a Zakuani nor the boom-bust potential of a Salgado, but he’d succeeded at center back and forward at Duke and won a Hermann Trophy. In one way, this was like taking the safety school instead of driving cross-country to try your hand at one of the Ivies. Wenger’s chiseled out a solid MLS career for himself, although he didn’t really sprout from the soil until he left Montreal for Philly. That said, six goals for a Montreal team that was a raging dumpster fire for at least half of his time there isn’t shabby.

2013

Andrew Farrell, New England Revolution (64 appearances)

If you want to judge MLS by the quality of its top picks, the league is clearly making progress. This pick is substantial proof. Farrell’s started all 64 games he’s played in his first two years in the league, and his switch to right back in 2014 for a team that came within an eyelash of winning the MLS Cup makes his career doubly impressive already. The fact that Farrell’s become an outside candidate for a USMNT call isn’t coincidence. One of the league’s brightest young defenders is an echo chamber for drafting done right.

2014

Andre Blake, Philadelphia Union (1 appearance)

Blake made history last year by becoming the first keeper taken first overall in the draft. And the Jamaican was good enough to warrant the selection. The issue, though, became a familiar one to anyone who follows MLS; the Union stockpile keepers like a chipmunk hoarding acorns for the winter. Zac MacMath was plenty good enough to hold off the charge of a rookie who wasn’t given a chance to imprint his quality, and the eventual signing of Rais M’Bolhi eventually doomed both of them. MacMath is off to Colorado, but M’Bolhi isn’t going anywhere (despite the fact that his awful giveaway ultimately killed Philly’s playoff hopes). Blake got 90 minutes in 2014. He deserves more in 2015.