Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice? That remains to be seen.
One would think the Lumberjacks may stay out of the International Free Agent (IFA) market after the debacle that was and still is Cosmo Maganas. For the uneducated on the matter, Portland spent over $21 million to bring the raw Greek Freek to Portland at the age of 16. Well 5 years later the front office might have been better served flushing that money down the toilet and hoping for it to overflow. That overflow will likely yield more production for the big league squad than Maganas ever will.
But we digress. No, that overspending did not deter the front office from once again diving head first into the IFA waters. Portland invested over 16 million in available budget dollars (who knows what this is in taxes and fees and what not. It's kind of like buying tickets on ticketmaster. You get hit with all those fees later) to grab four names on the IFA market. The biggest fish in the equation being Wu Thean.
"Wu Thean" shouted AGM Sandy Mounds. "Fuck, I thought we was buying Wu Tang. Damn it, there goes that promotional night" the sexy AGM said with a grin.
In all seriousness, Wu Thean is a stout Chinese 3B prospect that seems to possess all the major tools to one day be a great BBA player. "We'll keep a close eye on his development and hope to see more of a return than what Maganas has given us" commented team GM Chris Wilson. "We do like he fact he's a little more developed at the age of 16 than Maganas was when we signed him. At least his floor is starting higher and hopefully will continue to inch closer to what we think his ceiling can be."
While Thean is the big fish for Portland, the team also went out and signed three potential shortstops as well. Bo Hall signed the biggest deal at $4.575 million with Pedro Hidalgo coming in at $2.575 million. The team added Shyamal Nandkeolyar for a mere $575,000.
"We hope one of these guys can potentially develop into our next shortstop" said Wilson. "The way our current draft situation is going, we may never see a top 5 pick, where you'd need to be to likely draft a top class shortstop. Or get really lucky with a developing later pick. With our pick the latter would be our hope but why not increase our odds by nabbing these 3 guys as well in hopes one makes it."
All 3 have pretty solid offensive potential with above average defensive work. All 3 likely lack what it would take to be a gold glover at SS but if they develop into what they are projected to be, then Portland would have its SS of the future.
Thean and Hall join Robinson Palma as highly touted IFA prospects to watch in the Lumberjacks farm system.