Shortly after Garth Lagerwey was hired to be the head of the Seattle Sounders’ front office, he made a seemingly innocuous trade. The Sounders’ new GM agreed to send the MLS rights to a little-known Ghanian midfielder to New York City FC in exchange for a conditional draft pick.
As the 2015 season unfolded, though, it turned out that Kwadwo Poku was actually a pretty talented player. In limited minutes, Poku scored four goals and had seven assists for an otherwise bad team. In last year’s postseason analysis, we suggested the trade had the potential to become “Doyle Alexander-for-John Smoltz” bad.