Cubs sign Fukudome, 4 years

[plask_stirlac]

CHICAGO -- The Cubs' patience paid off. Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome has agreed to terms on a four-year deal with the team, pending his passing a physical.

Sources confirmed the contract Tuesday night, which would run through 2011, and was believed to be worth $48 million.

There, he signed.

[nathanKent]

I hope he pans out. At least the money is right. Hopefully we're smart enough to hold on to Murton for at least this season as an insurance policy.

[Bob Sacamento]

Hendry finally gets his Japanese player, something he's talked about bidding/adding before but never got serious in the past. With the unavailability of good free agents back here in the states, the Cubs went out and bought the best thing on the market. Even if we had to cough up 4 years at 12 million per to a player who's never played in the MLB before or against this type of competition. The good news is not many scouts see him busting due to his plate discipline that will likely follow him overseas. The bad news is many scouts see him as a doubles hitter in America with the occasional dinger, something ala Mark Grace. The early runs on Fukudome's first full season here are coming at at .280/.360/.440/.800, that might be a little conservative but remember he has alot of adjusting to do and his slugging is likely to suffer. The high end projections have him around .300/.380/.490/.870 but that's hoping for a lot out of a first year player.

I'll gladly take the low end numbers, as they'll put him in serious competition for Rookie of the Year. I just hope the Wrigley faithful don't start booing him if he gets off to a slow start, something we've become notorious for the past few seasons and after playing his career in Japan, he's not accustomed to being booed even during his struggles.

[Shawon-o-Meter]

Finally...I'm excited for this

[Mattingly]

Anyone mind if an Evil Yankee fan hijacks this thread and turns it into a question of how good his offensive numbers will be in 2008? RBI, HR, BA, OBP, SLG. Stuff like that.

[RBi]

Anyone mind if an Evil Yankee fan hijacks this thread and turns it into a question of how good his offensive numbers will be in 2008? RBI, HR, BA, OBP, SLG. Stuff like that.

Brad,

We don't mind at all... but Bob already answered that in his post 2 above your post asking the same question...


From Bob:

The early runs on Fukudome's first full season here are coming at at .280/.360/.440/.800, that might be a little conservative but remember he has alot of adjusting to do and his slugging is likely to suffer. The high end projections have him around .300/.380/.490/.870 but that's hoping for a lot out of a first year player.

[nathanKent]

The plate discipline is key for me. I couldn't care less about power hitting. I already saw us with four big bats and I hated it. What I don't want to see is guys grounding into double plays on hitter's counts with RISP (*cough* DeRosa *cough*, though that's hardly the norm for him, so *cough* Jacque Jones *cough*), and it would appear that Fukodome knows how to not do that.

This could be good. I am cautiously optimisitic.

[cubmanjay]

Great to have him in Chicago. I have to laugh they are bringing him out to Chitown next week. "Welcome to Chicago Fukudome, bring a jacket and dress warm!"

CHICAGO (TICKER) -
"On behalf of the entire Cubs organization, we're honored Kosuke Fukudome has chosen to become a member of the Chicago Cubs and very excited to introduce him to our great fans," Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said. "We are looking forward to welcoming him to Chicago next week and helping make Wrigley Field his home."

[Scartissue]

Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus ran the PECOTA projection, and came out with .289/.401/.504 with EQA of .303, VORP of 29.2 and WARP of 4.4. That seems pretty optimistic to me.

Pretty Boy Matsui did much better in all the years after his first MLB year, which is a guy many like to compare Fukudome against. Matsui hit only .287/.353/.435 versus a MLB career of .295/.371/.485. His career average in Japan was .304/.413/.582, so it was roughly a 100 point drop in slugging and a 40 point drop in OBP. Matsui came over in his prime, at age 29.

Although Ichiro did very well his first year (it was his second best year in his MLB career), his production in the MLB was predictibily not as high as in Japan. He had a career .353/.421/.522 in Japan vs. .333/.379/.437 in the U.S. This was a roughly 90 point drop in slugging and a 40 point drop in OBP. Ichiro came at the prime of his career, at the age of 28.

Fukudome is coming over at age 30, having hit .305/.397/.543 in his career. PECOTA projections were probably influenced by the fact that last year he hit .294/.443/.520 and .351/.438/.653 the year before. If we project using his career numbers, it might look like .295/.350/.450 for his MLB career. If we project using his last 3 years, which blew away all the years before, it might look like .310/.390/.490 for his MLB career.

I initially thought the contract for him was too high, but I hadn't taken a close look at his stats and projections until now. I'm coming around to the view that it's a pretty good contract. Corner outfielders hitting within his projected range around his age are probably worth at least that much. Some corner outfielders hitting his projected range are Abreu (age 33/$16 million option exercised), Chemically-enhanced Guillen (age 31/$12 million per for 3 years) and J.D. Drew (age 32/$14 million per for another 4 years). If we picked up a comparable player in free agency, we would have paid at least the same, plus lost picks; possibly first round pick. In a trade for comparable quality player we're probably talking about losing Hill or some solid prospects. Finally, I don't know if there's any truth to the idea that a top Japanese player generates extra money for the club, but he is one of their best players.

Overall, a very solid move in my book, based of course on projections that have yet to be proven.

[The Splendid Splinter]

Anyone mind if an Evil Yankee fan hijacks this thread and turns it into a question of how good his offensive numbers will be in 2008? RBI, HR, BA, OBP, SLG. Stuff like that.

also... a good comparsion would be Hideki Matsui's rookie year... it's basically what Bob projected too numbers-wise. this is what I'm hoping he will do in 2008 (with maybe a higher OBP), which will be great for the 5th spot as for A Ram will see some more pitches.

does anybody know about his baserunning or stealing ability? Like how many SB he could have? I don't know how he is in that really. I can't find much on that for him.

So our lineup is like this... (as I would put it at least and keeping Soriano at leadoff is against my thinking but it's his most comfortable spot)

Soriano
DeRosa (i could also see Fukudome batting here also... giving Lee and A Ram a great on base player)
Lee
A Ram
Fukudome
Soto
Theriot
Pie
Pitcher

Overall I like the lineup. It would be a lot better if we had another solid dependable hitter at SS instead of Theriot then you just have 2 hitters where they might be below average instead of 3 (Pie and Soto- anybody got a projection on Soto for '08?? Bob??) but the offense and pitching can make up for that. The last half kinda drops off a bit, but there's not as much pressure for them as last year to perform really well so I'm hoping they will do better (mostly towards Pie).

[Derek Jeter]

The signing seems kind of fast. I mean, he just declared he was going to the major leagues on saturday. :twocents:

[The Big C]

How's his defense?

[rockin500]

The signing seems kind of fast. I mean, he just declared he was going to the major leagues on saturday. :twocents:

you think they werent sending feelers out to each other for quite some time? he may have only made it official on saturday that he was going to come over, but it was suspected that he was leaning that way for a long time.

[Scartissue]

How's his defense?

He's got good speed and strong arm, and is considered to play good defense. He had elbow surgery, so I'm not sure if reports of his arm strength are still true.

[Scartissue]

does anybody know about his baserunning or stealing ability? Like how many SB he could have? I don't know how he is in that really. I can't find much on that for him.

Although he has speed, he never stole more than 13 bases in a single season. For his career, he's stolen 71 times while being caught 35 times, which is not very good success rate.

For his career Japanese stats, go to: http://japanesebaseball.com/players/...?PlayerID=1064