Cubs Sign Fukudome (Press Conference Pics--Page 6)

[Howling Mad]

Just dropping by to say Congrats to us!!!

...now back to Finals.

[GYBE]

Nate Silver's PECOTA projection

Nice. A .401 OBP and .905 OPS.

[Posey H8er]

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dont worry, he will soon be property of the stros.

btw, would this be funny if the we get tejada, you guys get roberts and the reds get bedard? lmao

I guess I was wrong.

[A.J.]

i guess we will play can you top that for the rest of the offseason

[#1TKfan]

havent been on here in awhile (been really busy) i just like to say congrats to us for landing fuku. i hope he is not just hype. at least we didnt pay an arm and a leg for him though.

btw, all this lead off talk in this thread. roberts and soriano. are we forgetting theriot?

[Shootdabull]

Wow he had a great 2006.......

Fukudome was named the Central League Most Valuable Player in 2006 when he batted .351 with 31 home runs and a career-high 104 RBI.

[GYBE]

btw, all this lead off talk in this thread. roberts and soriano. are we forgetting theriot?

Are you forgetting how bad he is?

[Posey H8er]

When watching film of Fukudome, one thing I really like is his-Ichiro like swing, where he starts towards first base almost when contact with the ball is made.
Another thing I like is that he has a beautiful swing (not when he misses though ) and he has lightning quick hands.

[Howling Mad]

So can we get use to Soriano, Pie, and Fukudome in the outfield for the next 5 years?

[Howling Mad]

Fukudome's swing is nasty as hell. Typical Japanese lefty swing. There's actually more people with that swing than most think. Ichiro wasn't the first to use it. A lot of coaches started teaching it to lefties before Ichiro made it popular.

[Howling Mad]

(in Japan that is)

[Posey H8er]

Fukudome had 9 home runs in the first month of baseball last year out of his 13 total. I guess his elbow was a big problem for his poor production the rest of the way.

http://www1.fukudome1.com/latestgame/index.php

[Ben]

Here's a question for any of you who know anything about the Japanese league. If it's not as good as the Majors, and I assume that it's not very close, then do his stats really seem all that impressive? There's been a long history of mediocre US players going over there and wreaking havoc. Now, I'm sure that the Japanese league has improved a lot over time, as they have focused on baseball and worked very hard at it. But Fukudome wasn't close to as good as Matsui or Ichiro.

Matsui hit .304 over 10 years with 332 homers, 901 runs, 889 rbi. Fukudome hit .305 over 9 seasons with 192 HR, 713 runs and 647 rbi. A big dropoff from Matsui's production, and Matsui has been a .295, 20-25 homer, 100 rbi guy in the pros. And it's not as if Fukudome has stolen a lot of bases (71 over 9 seasons, or 8 per season).

I see that Ichiro hit .353 over 9 seasons with 199 stolen bases and 7 golden glove awards.

Thus, I'm wondering whether Fukudome really projects to be all that great in the ML? Something like .290, 15-18 HR, 75 rbi? This is just wild speculation, of course, based upon the ways in which Matsui's and Ichiro's stats translated over to the ML. (Although Ichiro actually increased his runs and stolen bases in the ML, while decreasing in just about everything else from his Japanese experience.) Nothing scientific about it, nor do I know anything about Japanese baseball. I'm just saying.

One more thing. For any of you who remember the very old Simpsons episode in which they go to a sushi restaurant and Homer might have gotten fatal food poisoning from an improperly prepared "fugu," or blowfish:

Homer's method of ordering the blowfish should be Cub fans' cheer whenever Fukudome does something good.

Come on, pal. Fugu me!"

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F11.html

[GYBE]

Here's a question for any of you who know anything about the Japanese league. If it's not as good as the Majors, and I assume that it's not very close, then do his stats really seem all that impressive?

Some stats are more useful than others. OBP is pretty consistent, usually carries over with about a 30 point loss. HR's are usually cut in half though, small parks over there.

But Fukudome wasn't close to as good as Matsui or Ichiro.

I have a big problem with this. He was close. You're just looking at the wrong stats (HR's, AVG, RBI's). Those are far from the best measure of a player. RBI's and runs scored are completely team-dependant, OBP is infinitely more important than average and SLG is more telling than HR's.

Matsui

.413 OBP
.582 SLG
.995 OPS

Ichiro

.421 OBP
.522 SLG
.943 OPS

Fukudome

.397 OBP
.543 SLG
.940 OPS

They're a lot closer than you are giving Fukudome credit for. Yeah, Matsui hit a lot more HR's. But Fukudome has a big speed advantage, and hit a lot more doubles and triples which is why the SLG is closer than the raw HR numbers would tell you. Those are valuable too.

Also keep in mind he plays significantly better defense than Matsui and can cover CF part-time. Also, I don't think anyone here is expecting him to be the slugger Hideki is. Fukudome is a complimentary player, only our 4th best hitter likely. His job is to play great defense, and get on base for the middle of the order with decent power.

Personally, I'm expecting something like .280 AVG, .370 OBP, .480 SLG (maybe 15 HR's, 30 other extra base hits). He's not expected to be amazing, just a great player to have for the next 4 years.

[#1TKfan]

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Are you forgetting how bad he is?

you must be thinking of somebody else, cause the theriot i know played very well leading off.

[Ben]

Good points, GYBE, on the "other" (important) stats that show Fuku to greater advantage. I didn't know anything about his fielding. I doubt that he's as good as Ichiro, and he certainly wasn't close to the same kind of baserunner that Ichiro was, so it sounds as if we're anticipating a less powerful and productive (but better fielding and faster) version of Matsui.

Note that your suggested stat line for him was just about the same as mine. But to me, $14 million/year for that is kind of steep. Oh well, it's not my money. The difference b/w this and the Wrigley regime with which I grew up is just mind-boggling. Unfortunately, there hasn't yet been vastly more success. Here's hoping that that'll change.

[GYBE]

It's only $12 million a year, if that eases your mind any Ben. It's the same contract Aaron Rowand just got with one less year. And IMO, Fukudome has way more upside.

[Posey H8er]

Supposedly Fukudome will meet the media tomorrow and get his physical.

Here's a video of him hitting an inside the park HR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vupPYuGa ... re=related

[SportsWorld]

Fukudome's press conference will be at 4:00 PM CST on Comcast.

[hermes]

great siging hendry