UMFan83

Looking at the pics on BCB...it doesnt look like there is much room for the bullpens with the expanded warning track. http://images.bleedcubbieblue.com/images/admin/wrigley111807a.jpg

Dusty calls Jim Hendry and convinces him that Soto simply isnt ready to be a starting catcher because 'you need veterans to catch dude'. Jimbo resigns Kendall for 3/20 to play catcher 158 games a year.

I seem to recall a few years ago Choi doing well in his winter league. I seem to recall a few years ago Choi doing well in the major leagues. I don't recall that... it's true http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/choihe01.shtml I remember all the sigs and threads about Choi vs. Lee in 2004. Funny stuff.

Why are people shocked? The Cubs have shown interest in every LH hitting OF out there. Doesn't mean that he's our first choice.

DAMN YOU JIM HENDRY! YOU COULD HAVE SIGNED AROD AND YOU DIDNT! Jim Hendry just set the team back at least 5 years with his inaction. Come talk to me when Omar @(#$@ Infante hits 40+ HRs. Did he not play enough positions for you Jimbo?? Was he not fast enough for you Donut Boy! All he had to do was offer him 8 years, $500 million and the Cubs have a HOF SS/3B. But nooo...stupid Jim Hendry is over in Japan drooling over Mr. Tools Fukudome and the rest of his Asian buddys. I hate this team!!! (by the way, completely kidding)

Is this a guess? If that is the case, why would a writer or the Cubs consider it newsworthy? I was looking at the transactions from last year and there is no mention of Prior or Wood being activated from the 60 day DL in November/December. Haha, I love the hotstove season.

Who is this? Are we talking about the guy who hit 16 HRs and slugged 560 after the all star break? And he hit 46 in 2005

I know its hypothetical, but I like playing Devil's Advocate 1. OK 2. Not sure if LA would do that. Although they are not smart enough to play Loney and Kemp, I think they know the value that they hold. A 32 year old 1B with declining power and speed that is being paid $10 million (?) a season is not the value they would be looking for 3. Also not sure. I think they are not committed to trading Chamberlain or holding onto him for a player like Cabrera. Don't get me wrong, ARam is a really nice player and Soriano provides good value, but with their contracts (and trust me the Yankees aren't as careless as they used to be) they arent in the same league as Cabrera or ARod. Then again, acquiring 2 potential 40 HR guys under the age of 33 for just Chamberlain and Cano might be enticing. 4. OK, but not sure where Infante adds to the trade. 5. Not in a million years would the Twins take that package. 6. I'd probably rather Andruw Jones in that situation, but ok.

Rickey Henderson career OBP: .401 Carl Crawford career OBP: .331 This was one of the biggest parts of Henderson's game. Crawford is NOT Rickey

C'mon man, there are 168 hours in a week. 80 hours at your job, plus 56 hours sleeping leaves you an entire 32 extra hours a week to fix all of the boards problems. Thats almost 4.5 hours a day!

No. I think JH's plan should be getting a good corner OF whether it be Fukudome, Crawford, Guillen and the committing to Pie in Center. Cheap option that could put up decent to good numbers with great defense. If Pie really flops, you can always make a deadline deal.

Not sure what career numbers you're using for Kosuke. I'm going with the numbers from this site: http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064 .305/.397/.543 Multiplying that out by those factors gives: .292/.369/.462/.831 Pretty much a Carl Crawford equivalent, but older and without the steals. Straight up, I'd rather have Carl. Given the cost of acquisition and contracts, I'm not sure. Depends on the package required to bring Crawford to the Cubs and what Kosuke would sign for. You are concluding that Fukudome's CAREER number projections are comparable to what Crawford would put up right now (last year his OPS was .821, 10 points less than Fukudome's career projected career numbers in the US) If you compare Crawford's last 3 years with Fukudome's (when reduced to US ball), there is no comparison. Plus, everyone is making it seem like Fukudome is so old at 30. Lee is 31, ARod is 32, Ramirez will be 30 this season. Again, not that Fukudome is in the level of those players, but 30 is right in their peak years. We are taking about giving a 4 year contract to a 30 year old. How much regression do you think you'll see at 34? Not much We're just saying that if you want to use Fukudome's last 3 years compared to Crawford's, that's fine. You have to use a different reduction system though then the one you linked, because that one uses career numbers. You can't say that all these Japanese players hit 93% of their career numbers so Fukudome is going to hit 93% of his numbers in his prime. That's comparing apples and oranges. You either have to use career numbers, or translate everybody's numbers again that came over from Japan using their last 3 year data. Yes, I realized that after you pointed that out. It did just temper my excitement on Fukudome a bit, especially when looking at the numbers Matsui put up before and after his move. Considering Matsui was still a 30 HR hitter when he came to the Yankees, and his OBP dropped that much makes we wonder whether a .370 projection would be expected.

Not sure what career numbers you're using for Kosuke. I'm going with the numbers from this site: http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064 .305/.397/.543 Multiplying that out by those factors gives: .292/.369/.462/.831 Pretty much a Carl Crawford equivalent, but older and without the steals. Straight up, I'd rather have Carl. Given the cost of acquisition and contracts, I'm not sure. Depends on the package required to bring Crawford to the Cubs and what Kosuke would sign for. You are concluding that Fukudome's CAREER number projections are comparable to what Crawford would put up right now (last year his OPS was .821, 10 points less than Fukudome's career projected career numbers in the US) If you compare Crawford's last 3 years with Fukudome's (when reduced to US ball), there is no comparison. Plus, everyone is making it seem like Fukudome is so old at 30. Lee is 31, ARod is 32, Ramirez will be 30 this season. Again, not that Fukudome is in the level of those players, but 30 is right in their peak years. We are taking about giving a 4 year contract to a 30 year old. How much regression do you think you'll see at 34? Little to none. I'm concluding nothing of the sort. I'm merely fixing a math/reporting error. I also said nothing about regression. But if I can choose between two players with similar production & cost, one of which is 26 and one 30, I'm going to pick the 26 year old everytime. It may not be a huge factor, but it shouldn't be ignored, either. Understood...your post compared Crawford with Fukudome based on (i'm assuming) Crawford's last 2-3 years not his career numbers. With that, it seemed that you were saying that they would produce equally...but all of those projections use statistics from one Fukudome was 21-22 years old, not his peak numbers. Its not very relevant to use Fukudome's numbers from 8 years ago when projecting how he will do today. Thus, I would conclude that Fukudome would put up better numbers than Crawford, and there is no need to compare a 26 year old to a 30 year old in my mind at least.

Not sure what career numbers you're using for Kosuke. I'm going with the numbers from this site: http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064 .305/.397/.543 Multiplying that out by those factors gives: .292/.369/.462/.831 Pretty much a Carl Crawford equivalent, but older and without the steals. Straight up, I'd rather have Carl. Given the cost of acquisition and contracts, I'm not sure. Depends on the package required to bring Crawford to the Cubs and what Kosuke would sign for. You are concluding that Fukudome's CAREER number projections are comparable to what Crawford would put up right now (last year his OPS was .821, 10 points less than Fukudome's career projected career numbers in the US) If you compare Crawford's last 3 years with Fukudome's (when reduced to US ball), there is no comparison. Plus, everyone is making it seem like Fukudome is so old at 30. Lee is 31, ARod is 32, Ramirez will be 30 this season. Again, not that Fukudome is in the level of those players, but 30 is right in their peak years. We are taking about giving a 4 year contract to a 30 year old. How much regression do you think you'll see at 34? Not much

I know your not suggesting that we can trade these guys, and its more a point about how crappy some of Hendry's signings are, but most of those players are untradable unless the Cubs take on almost all of their salaries. Otherwise, Jones would have been on your list yesterday. But apparently we only dumped $1.5 million by trading him. You can probably also add Infante and his $1.5+ million salary to that list as well. Please explain how we only dumped $1.5M. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/647152,CST-SPT-cub13.article So $5.5 m - $2 m - $1.5 m (Infante's projected salary next year) = $2 million. I got the $1.5 million figure from MLBtraderumors.com who was speculating about it.

We could probably get away with both upgrading SS and signing Fukudome. I was on the Murton bandwagon for years, and I could probably live with having Murton in RF instead of Fukudome, but at the same time you have to wonder how many chances he is going to have. Every year we expect him to breakout, but every year he ends up on the bench. I'd like to think its just the Cubs org not giving him the opportunity, but he has been our opening day starter the last 2 years and has managed to end up on the bench or demoted to the minors both years. He is basically our Austin Kearns. Good OBP, moderate potential for power, a butcher in the field, cannot stick in a starting lineup. If we can solve our major glaring problem (OBP) by getting one of the top 3-4 OBP guys on the market (behind players like Bonds and ARod) we'd be stupid not to. Fukudome isn't going to OBP 400 in the states. He'll be a 360-370 guy. A smidge better than Murton. Based on what? The last 3 years in Japan, his OBP is .430, .438, .443. Even with his sure drop in HR numbers, how can you expect less then 90% of those numbers in the states? His OBP the last 3 years has been .401, .368, and .438. http://thebaseballcube.com/players/F/Kosuke-Fukudome.shtml ??? 2003, 2004, 2006? What happened to 2005 and 2007? http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064

I know your not suggesting that we can trade these guys, and its more a point about how crappy some of Hendry's signings are, but most of those players are untradable unless the Cubs take on almost all of their salaries. Otherwise, Jones would have been on your list yesterday. But apparently we only dumped $1.5 million by trading him. You can probably also add Infante and his $1.5+ million salary to that list as well.

We could probably get away with both upgrading SS and signing Fukudome. I was on the Murton bandwagon for years, and I could probably live with having Murton in RF instead of Fukudome, but at the same time you have to wonder how many chances he is going to have. Every year we expect him to breakout, but every year he ends up on the bench. I'd like to think its just the Cubs org not giving him the opportunity, but he has been our opening day starter the last 2 years and has managed to end up on the bench or demoted to the minors both years. He is basically our Austin Kearns. Good OBP, moderate potential for power, a butcher in the field, cannot stick in a starting lineup. If we can solve our major glaring problem (OBP) by getting one of the top 3-4 OBP guys on the market (behind players like Bonds and ARod) we'd be stupid not to. Fukudome isn't going to OBP 400 in the states. He'll be a 360-370 guy. A smidge better than Murton. Based on what? The last 3 years in Japan, his OBP is .430, .438, .443. Even with his sure drop in HR numbers, how can you expect less then 90% of those numbers in the states?

Thats irresponsible reporting if they report Monroe is the head of any trade package. Anyways, I'd rather have Fukudome than Crawford any day of the week. -Fukudome is better in the area we need more help in, OBP -Fukudome doesn't cost anything in terms of players -Fukudome will probably be making less than Crawford by the end of his contract. Fukudome is older and most definately cost more. Crawford is due 23.5 mill over the next 3 years. If Fukudome doesn't at least get 8-10 mill per over 4 years I'd be surprised OK, I didn't realize Crawford was extended. I thought he was still doing arby. But still Fukudome will put up better numbers than Crawford. He's 30, not 38. People are looking to give 8 year deals to a 32 year old ARod, but are concerned with giving a 4 year deal to a 30 year old. Granted Fukudome is not nearly in the same class as ARod, but I would not be concerned about regression between the ages of 30-34. It's not regression so much that people are worried about, it's more about how his skills will translate to the U.S. Most people I think believe that he'll be productive, but it's hard to say how productive. Personally I don't see how someone can say that Fukudome is going to put up better numbers than Crawford. Maybe comparable numbers, but better? Crawford's OPS the last 2 years is .830 and .821. Now maybe Fukudome can put up similar numbers OPS wise with better OBP, which of course would be a little better. How high is his upside though? Can he be a 900 OPS player? At the same time, Fukudome could easily be somewhere around a 750-775 OPS. Fukudome has the advantage in defense, but Crawford's 154 SB's over the last 3 years at an 85 percent clip is a nice weapon as well. Crawford's definitely the less risky option IMO. He's younger (and still theoretically hasn't entered his prime), he has less variability in projections, and his contract is better. It will all depend on how much the Cubs would have to give up in trade to see if Crawford is the better option or not, but I just don't see how you can look at the contract and numbers and say that Fukudome will be better. He has a chance to be better, but more likely not. It doesn't matter if he is better. From your argument I would conclude that you think that Fukudome would at least be 90% the player Crawford is, with the potential to be 110% the player he is. Looking at how other players who have come over from Japan to the US have fared, you could expect his OBP to be around 93% of what he is putting up in Japan, his SLG to be about 85% of Japan numbers, and (not that it matters) but his BA to be within 96% of his Japan numbers. Using his numbers from the last 3 seasons, that would put him at roughly: .307/.404/.490/.894 The difference of course being that his SLG is going to come largely from doubles instead of HRs (source for Japanese translation: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/176072/how_well_will_japanese_baseball_import.html) The key point is, Fukudome addresses a much bigger need than Crawford addresses. He will likely put up an OBP over .400 and a SLG similar to Crawfords. Edit: I forgot about my point in this. If you are getting a player thats roughly the same value of another, what is more important to you, keeping players like Rich Hill and prospects like Gallagher on the team, or spending an additional $3-5 million per year. Obviously just guessing on the players given up, but Crawfords name value is extremely high, and even with the new GM in Tampa, they've been reluctant to trade players unless they get more than adequate value for them.

Yes but cries of a different type of emotion

Are you including the rising cost of all of our backloaded contracts to players like Soriano, Lilly, DeRosa?

We could probably get away with both upgrading SS and signing Fukudome. I was on the Murton bandwagon for years, and I could probably live with having Murton in RF instead of Fukudome, but at the same time you have to wonder how many chances he is going to have. Every year we expect him to breakout, but every year he ends up on the bench. I'd like to think its just the Cubs org not giving him the opportunity, but he has been our opening day starter the last 2 years and has managed to end up on the bench or demoted to the minors both years. He is basically our Austin Kearns. Good OBP, moderate potential for power, a butcher in the field, cannot stick in a starting lineup. If we can solve our major glaring problem (OBP) by getting one of the top 3-4 OBP guys on the market (behind players like Bonds and ARod) we'd be stupid not to.

Thats irresponsible reporting if they report Monroe is the head of any trade package. Anyways, I'd rather have Fukudome than Crawford any day of the week. -Fukudome is better in the area we need more help in, OBP -Fukudome doesn't cost anything in terms of players -Fukudome will probably be making less than Crawford by the end of his contract. Fukudome is older and most definately cost more. Crawford is due 23.5 mill over the next 3 years. If Fukudome doesn't at least get 8-10 mill per over 4 years I'd be surprised OK, I didn't realize Crawford was extended. I thought he was still doing arby. But still Fukudome will put up better numbers than Crawford. He's 30, not 38. People are looking to give 8 year deals to a 32 year old ARod, but are concerned with giving a 4 year deal to a 30 year old. Granted Fukudome is not nearly in the same class as ARod, but I would not be concerned about regression between the ages of 30-34.

Wait you mean the pitcher who was 36 when he came to the US? .....

Is it sad that I might break down and cry if we don't get Fukudome