when faced with abject poverty, it seems to have worked for him.
Yep.
And - this is just part of the cost of doing business in the international free agency arena. You have to accept that extra bit of risk that guys are lying about age or injury history or whatever. The incentive to escape poverty is just too much.
Add that to the higher signing bonuses and it really makes using the regular draft to build your team look a lot better. I'd rather they keep signing over slot guys in the draft.
That being said - the Nats can't afford to ignore international free agency. We're still several years behind other teams due to the great MLB selloff before the Lerners as well as the Lerner/Bowden/Kasten mistakes in their first few years.
NFA Brian talked about signing lots of guys for lower bonuses rather than going all in on 2 or 3 players. That seems to make sense to me.
