thought about it a bit, and the thomas position is logically sound. hardball asprilla, and he might get 3 years of a dominant sun belt player. let him go to maintain aa's favor and he gets nothing more than the chance to recruit tropics players - he's not going to become aa's bff just by declining to &@#% over one of his players, so he's still going to be last in line behind all of aa's true bffs, and at a low major school.
the chances that he would be able to get a similar quality player from the tropics in the next few years would be minuscule. and presumably thomas is looking to move on within 3-5 years or so.
