The Colorado Rapids selected two players on Tuesday during the 2012 Supplemental Draft. Japanese native Kehei Yamada, a midfielder, joins fellow countryman Kosuke Kimura on the squad, while goalkeeper Joel Helmick was also selected in the draft.

The MLS Supplemental Draft was re-instated in January, 2011. It is an opportunity for clubs to make additional selections of players that participated and impressed during the MLS player combine. The Supplemental draft is usually conducted via conference call as opposed to a ceremonial public display like the MLS Superdraft.

Kehei Yamada started his professional career in his native Japan in the J-League 2, which is the second division of professional soccer within Japan. The midfielder has played in 34 games since 2010 with J-League 2 side Thespa Kusatsu. He was considered a first round talent in the Superdraft after a strong combine but his international status brought him down as teams wanted to avoid giving him an automatic roster spot, ala Michael Boxall last year. He will likely feature on the team in 2012.

Joel Helmick is a 6'3'' goalkeeper who played all four years at Longwood University. During his senior season, Helmick posted a .92 goals against average through 20 games. The shot stopper has also racked up some impressive defensive accolades throughout his collegiate career.

With the MLS SuperDraft being reduced to two rounds, there is quite a bit of talent available in the top rounds of the 2012 Supplemental Draft that before would have been taken in the third and fourth rounds. Unfortunately, the Colorado Rapids won't be seeing any of those decent players unless something interesting happens thanks to a gang of draft pick trades made by the previous regime.

The 14th overall pick in the draft was traded to Toronto FC for the unfortunately hapless Joseph Nane and their second round pick was taken by FC Dallas for the more useful Anthony Wallace. That pick now belongs to Seattle. Colorado's only two picks in this draft will be in the third and fourth rounds, #52 and #71th overall to be precise. It's pretty unlikely that the Rapids are going to find anyone useful that late in the draft, but of course you never know.

We'll have an update tomorrow with the unknown guys that the Rapids have selected. Perhaps they can secretly find some 14 year old Columbian Wonderk- oh wait, this isn't Football Manager. My bad!

Former Colorado Rapids coach Gary Smith had a very restrictive system when it came to youth players. There seemed to be a system that kept the kids in the reserve team for at least a year and sometimes more before they could even sniff the field for some first team football at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

It was a system that worked fairly well - well enough to get Colorado to the MLS Cup in 2010 obviously - but it was a bit, shall we say, out of date. This is a league that is increasingly being driven by the youth players and leaving them off the field like Smith did with Eddie Ababio, Ross LaBauex or Andre Akpan just got frustrating as less talented but older tenured players were getting the field time during the injury situation last season.

Fortunately, it's pretty likely that our newest player Tony Cascio isn't going to be quite as bound as former Rapids youth were under the new regime.

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The Colorado Rapids have selected the best pure winger in the MLS Superdraft with their 14th overall pick, University of Connecticut midfielder Tony Cascio. Cascio joins a Rapids squad that is currently a bit short on depth at the midfield position and in dire need of a great offensive mind to take over for the departed Sanna Nyassi. Cascio should be able to produce.

Cascio is speedy, has amazing touch on the ball near the box and can pass and cross with the best of them. Don't be surprised if under coach Oscar Pareja's new system you see Tony starting on the wing almost immediately. His combine game was quite good and showed off his speed and passing ability as well, though he never scored a goal. His real skill comes from his deadly passes and shots from just inside the box, where he should certainly be able to get to on the Rapids with the strong forwards that they've collected over the past few years.

This is the first draft pick of the new Tim Hinchey/Oscar Pareja regime, and will likely be the second signing of the regime as well. Welcome to the Rapids, Tony!

A couple of days ago, SBnation did our second annual MLS Mock Superdraft with me as the representative for the Colorado Rapids. The fun thing about our mock drafts is that instead of having one guy try and pick for every team, we had every team blogger pick their own player based on the needs of the teams. It makes it a lot more authentic that way, after all!

With the 14th pick I decided to select my favorite prospect, UCONN winger/forward Tony Cascio. Here was my official explanation:

14. Colorado Rapids: Tony Cascio, F, UConn

The Colorado Rapids are now under a system of a new coach, a coach that has shown a love of offensive flair in his players back in Dallas. Unfortunately, they're a team right now without much offensive flair outside of a deep striker corps. Tony Cascio is probably the best pure winger in the draft and has shown fairly well during the combine playing both right wing, central mid and forward, and he might just be the young spark that the Rapids need.

He has fantastic touch near the box and is not afraid to shoot the ball, which is a problem that the Rapids have had for a while now. That's why their leading scorer last season was a defensive midfielder who never scored from anything but set pieces. Even better, he can play box-to-box and defend, something that Sanna Nyassi would never dream of doing. Seeing as how Cascio would likely be Nyassi's replacement of sorts, I can't see how that's a bad thing. #DraftTony

You might want to note that I got the selections last year completely wrong so don't take this as an official prediction! Check out the mock draft with my pick and everyone else's on the network here.

With the MLS SuperDraft coming up on January 12th, Burgundy Wave is doing some miniature profiles of the players that are likely to be taken by the Colorado Rapids with their 14th overall pick in the first round. Today, we're looking at UCONN Center back Andrew Jean-Baptiste.

One of the things to remember about the Colorado Rapids is that they are in a situation where they won't be picking a guy that they're going to need to start in league play right away. Pretty much every position has a first team starter firmly in place, and it's unlikely that unless there is a big name signing - Jamie Castrillon is a great example of this - the Rapids aren't going to be looking for a CJ Sapong or Jalil Anibaba to immediately fit in and try and contribute to the team with 20 starts right away.

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With the MLS SuperDraft coming up on January 12th, Burgundy Wave is doing some miniature profiles of the players that are likely to be taken by the Colorado Rapids with their 14th overall pick in the first round. Today, we're looking at Louisville center back Austin Berry.

With the Rapids solely lacking in center back depth, I doubt anyone in the Rapids fanbase would mind terribly if they stocked up on depth in that area. Watching Tyrone Marshall need to use too much physicality on his opponents to make up for his lack of abilities as he aged was not much fun at all. In that regard, the best option might be to get the Drew Moor-esque Austin Berry from Louisville.

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The Colorado Rapids are finally getting somewhere in the offseason. Their front office blow-up is almost complete - Coach Pareja still needs to hire some assistants after all - right in time for the 2012 MLS SuperDraft. Last season the Rapids went out and picked up defender/midfielder Eddie Ababio with the 18th overall selection, and considering his fantastic showing the one time he appeared, it looks like that was a great selection.

In fact, every selection during the Gary Smith era has looked pretty good. Andre Akpan and Ross LaBeaux have both bloomed into borderline starters on the squad, with Akpan especially looking ready to crack the starting lineup as an every day striker with his fast and furious growth over the past two years.

It's a new era now though, the era of Oscar Pareja doing the managing. Pareja has had a proven record of developing youth - to the point where FC Dallas is considered the best youth system in the country - so I'm not worried about the players that he will select. The question is, what position should we expect to see selected? Three ideas after the jump.

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