UMFan83

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

This whole rumor made me realize how much I don't want Crawford and how overrated he is.

LOL

wth? Not to question your reputability but I would take any rumor of a trade involving a bad player who isn't even under the Cubs control over a good player with a grain of salt No prob, just repeating what I heard on the update at 11am from wmvp 11am? Its 9:15?

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.

wth? Not to question your reputability but I would take any rumor of a trade involving a bad player who isn't even under the Cubs control over a good player with a grain of salt

Furcal? Hendry wanted him or Pierre and wound up with one. Last season he said he would get Soriano and he did. If he wants Fukudome just as bad, I can only hope he would be able to get it done. I would guess. And this is just me guessing here. That since Hendry got rid of Jones, he either already has a handshake (or bow), or is extremely confident he has Fukudome pretty much signed at this point (per talks with him I suppose). I don't think its necessarily that close. I think Fukudome is his first option and there have been talks, but I think Hendry sees the market for the type of OF's he is looking for and between Fukudome, Guillen, Cameron, etc he is confident in getting one of them.

Furcal?

I think that fans should have veto power in all trades. I think that every team in every sport should have a group of 100,000 fans that vote on all trades, big and small. For each trade, 5,000 of these fans get randomly selected to vote on a trade. If both team's fans vote no on a trade, it should not occur.

I just asked my Tigers fan in the office about the trade. When I was upset he asked me "What? You really like Jacque Jones?" and I responded "No, I hate Omar Infante" and he said "Good, you should he sucks" I then asked him for a player comparison and he responded with "Neifi Perez". Now I know why the Tigers didn't go anywhere this year.. So that sounds like a player I want!

Just when we were starting to like Jacque http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/photo/2007-09/32877142.jpg

Typical Cubs offseason: Cubs needs: OF power bat Cubs acquire: Weak hitting MI's Kaz Matsui and Omar Infante Cubs lose: OF semi power bat