To his credit, Jim Curtin rarely dodges questions when speaking with the media. He doesn't fudge answers with "coach speak" or crutch lines.

But Wednesday's midweek press conference, which confirmed the signing of American international midfielder Alejandro Bedoya, felt a bit different than the typical exchange with the Union manager.

It would be naive to expect details of a transfer fee, salary number, or contract length. It's reportedly a one-million dollar fee, one-million dollar salary, and "long term deal", but that information is rarely, if ever, disclosed by MLS clubs.

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I thought we would get more information about Bedoya's usage on the field, but Curtin seemed a bit miffed when the topic was brought up.

The Union have a gaping hole at the number eight spot that Vincent Nogueira vacated with his shock departure in June. Bedoya can probably play that spot, and he will probably play that spot, but the general consensus is that he's better as a number 10.

"Combative" probably isn't the right word, but Curtin seemed somewhat amused by the topic in a brief exchange with media.

Delco Times: Alejandro is a guy who has played a lot of his career as a winger. It seems like you guys have pretty good depth there. How much of your conversation with him was about position and whether he would take a different role here?

Curtin: We know what his role will be here. That is clear. That has been laid out. And you look through his career: He’s played as a winger, he’s played as a second forward, he’s played as a ten, he’s played for our national team as an eight in the Copa America in some pretty hotly contested, high level games. So he’s shown he has a versatile skill set. I think he complements our group of players in that he checks every box in the process that Earnie (Stewart), Chris (Albright) and I went through. He checked every box in terms of a guy who will compete for everything, is good technically on the ball, likes to get forward, likes to score goals, but also has that grit and that fight to defend. And good tactical awareness. Again, checked every box through our process.

I’m not concerned for his best position. You can go through these discussions… Let’s do it this way, I’ll flip it back on you guys - former national team players that have come over here. Jermaine Jones. Good player, we can agree. Everyone can nod their heads and say yes, Jermaine Jones is a good player. He comes back from playing as a defensive midfielder at Schalke. He goes to New England Revolution and plays defensive midfielder, plays a bit of center back for them and they go to (MLS Cup). He then flips and goes to a number ten at Colorado and they’re at the top of the table. So again, Sacha Kljestan: Great player. Number six or number eight at Anderlecht. He comes to MLS, he’s a top number ten in this league. So again, it gets into semantics. We know what we want him to do. We know what roles his roles and responsibilities will be with this team. Good players, special ones, Michael Bradleys, the Jermaine Jones', they’re top players for a reason and Alejandro is in that top class of players. You talk to Jurgen Klinsmann, and he’s one of the guys that he pencils in and needs to have in his group. And that’s powerful. The United States of America is a good team, and it’s the top of the top. And we’re excited to have him on board. And again, you can talk about his transition, but good players have a way of transitioning.

PhillyVoice: But the question is not, 'can he play these different positions?'. The question is, what's his best position? Surely Jermaine could...

Curtin: We can argue, you can argue, we can have ten beers or twenty beers and argue that and you might be wrong, you might be right. Again, what’s Landon (Donovan's) best spot? What was it? Does anyone know? Or is he just the best player our country has ever had?

PhillyVoice: Well, you can take it to another level and talk about individual players. But I think if you're talking about (spending this kind of money), it's a big financial commitment for somebody to think that he could fill a bunch of roles or whatever. Theoretically, wouldn't you want him to..

Curtin: Like I said, he's not going to fill a number of different roles for us. He’s going to fill one role that we see with him. I know what that role is, our staff knows what that role is, and we’re confident that he’s going to do a good job at it.

We just wanted to know what Curtin sees as Bedoya's best spot. This isn't some super secret strategy that needs censoring. Ben Olsen isn't sitting in his office formulating multiple game plans based on where this guy might be deployed, if he even does play.

I have zero doubt that Bedoya will play as an 8 this season. He's a smart player with two-way capabilities and tactical proficiency.

That said, I still think he's better as a number 10. Maybe he plays Nogueira's role this season, then moves up to the 10 spot if Tranquillo Barnetta leaves when his contract expires at the end of the year.

I also think the money could have been better spent on a striker.

Billy Beane-type Numbers

Never before has the Union dedicated this amount of resources to a player signing.

So what changed? Why open the wallet now?

There are two ways to look at it.

One, you could say that the Union had to be cheap with past player signings because the bulk of capital was going into building the academy, the training facility, and the practice fields. So, while the team wasn't buying Designated Players, the dollars were instead going into infrastructure and other long term-investments. In essence, they weren't really being cheap, they just needed to spend money on other things first. It took six years to get there, which was way too long, but the Union finally has the facilities to compete with other MLS clubs.

The other way to look at it is this – maybe Jay Sugarman was finally convinced that throwing money at players is worth it.

That was certainly the sense that we got from Curtin on Wednesday. 

"I mentioned the work that Earnie and Chris put in," Curtin said. "There are so many moving parts. The allocation order, there’s so much stuff that goes into this. That’s not as easy as saying (Jay Sugarman) wasn’t willing to spend last time and he is now. I don’t think that’s fair. I think it was presented in a way this time around so there were numbers that backed it. I talked about us now having the Billy Beane-type numbers to back it up. It puts ownership’s mind at ease when the process is in place that we’ve checked it. Not just from a standpoint of watching him, but breaking him down. How does he fit, is he a Philadelphia Union type of player? Does he do the things that we want? Does he recover balls on the part of the field that we want him to? Does he get into areas that are difficult? It was a much more thorough process and that put people’s minds at ease. Everybody got on board with the decision and made it more comfortable. I think what you’re seeing is the evolution of a process coming together, and the club being on the same page and executing it. So I don’t think it’s always fair to label… the word ‘cheap’ gets thrown around and that wasn’t the case. It just was presented the right way this time, and Jay, to his credit, really stepped up."

That's an interesting quote.

Were plans being presented the "wrong way" in the past? Maybe Sugarman was wary of spending money under the direction of Nick Sakiewicz. Maybe he's more comfortable in a structured system that uses analytics and sports science. Sugarman has spoken before of his interest in data and Moneyball-style practices.

But Sugarman did approve this same deal last season when Sakiewicz was still in charge. From what I've heard, Curtin and Albright did most of the convincing when they made the first attempt for Bedoya. Had Sakiewicz already been ostracized? One year later, the addition of Stewart and the expansion of the analytics program probably further solidified a decision that Sugarman was already comfortable with.

Was this always a case of short arms and deep pockets?

One thing to note is that Sugarman's iStar Financial is doing much better in recent months and seems to have recovered from the housing collapse that took place right before the Union's inaugural season. Istar stock is up 5.71% this quarter and is holding steady around $10 per share after plummeting to $1.08 in October of 2008. Union ownership has seen significant investment and contribution from Richie Graham as well.

In the end, maybe this signing is the result of all three of these ideas. In addition to resources being allocated differently, it seems like ownership is simultaneously convinced that guys like Bedoya are worth their price tags. They also probably have more capital to spend in general.

No matter what the reason, the real takeaway here is that the Philadelphia Union is spending significant cash on players for the first time ever.

Follow Kevin on Twitter: @Kevin_Kinkead