Fukudome to sign today (Or Not)

[acsguitar]

Well apparently this post is a dirty lie

[Tavish]

He is JD Drew-lite. A guy who is going to hit .280-.290, around 20 HRs, and be around an .825 OPS type player and throw in a handful of steals. About the only thing that won't be JD Drew-lite is his contract. If he gets less than 4 years/$11 Million per I would be shocked.

I'd be pretty surprised if he hit 20 HR. He barely averaged over a 20 a year in Japan.

He hit 34, 23, 28, and 31 in the 03-06 season. And the seasons in Japan are only 144 games. If you average his career rate out to 150 games he averaged almost 27 per season in the Nippon league. I wouldn't be surprise if he somewhere in the range of 18-22 HR in a full MLB season.

[Pogotheostrich]

Japanese ballparks are on avg a little bigger than MLB ones.

Maybe so but Japanese players have historically hit less HR when they move to MLB.

H. Matsui, Japan PA/HR = 16.58, US PA/HR = 28.27
Ichiro, Japan PA/HR = 34.73, US PA/HR = 77.31
Iguchi, Japan PA/HR = 24.40, US PA/HR = 41.45

For the record Fududome's PA/HR in Japan was 23.45. 20 HR isn't out of the question but I would still be surprised if he got there.

[Eagle Baseball]

If the Cubs do not sign him they are in OF trouble. Word around here is he was their guy from day one but now a couple of more teams are in the mix so the $$ is starting to get crazy. The Cubs really don't have a plan B for RF as of now. They will say we planned on going with our kids all along if they don't get him but that can not be true.

[BronXBombers51]

Japanese ballparks are on avg a little bigger than MLB ones.

Maybe so but Japanese players have historically hit less HR when they move to MLB.

H. Matsui, Japan PA/HR = 16.58, US PA/HR = 28.27
Ichiro, Japan PA/HR = 34.73, US PA/HR = 77.31
Iguchi, Japan PA/HR = 24.40, US PA/HR = 41.45

For the record Fududome's PA/HR in Japan was 23.45. 20 HR isn't out of the question but I would still be surprised if he got there.

Yeah, at least not initially. Matsui was a 50+ HR hitter in Japan and I believe he only hit 16 in his first year with the Yankees. He's improved upon that since but he's still come nowhere near what people expected he was going to do.

[Havok1517]

Well, Fukudome is for sure going to the majors now. The question now is for what team?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 138S91.DTL

[jake_harv88]

Japanese ballparks are on avg a little bigger than MLB ones.

Maybe so but Japanese players have historically hit less HR when they move to MLB.

H. Matsui, Japan PA/HR = 16.58, US PA/HR = 28.27
Ichiro, Japan PA/HR = 34.73, US PA/HR = 77.31
Iguchi, Japan PA/HR = 24.40, US PA/HR = 41.45

For the record Fududome's PA/HR in Japan was 23.45. 20 HR isn't out of the question but I would still be surprised if he got there.

Yeah, at least not initially. Matsui was a 50+ HR hitter in Japan and I believe he only hit 16 in his first year with the Yankees. He's improved upon that since but he's still come nowhere near what people expected he was going to do.

I believe matsui only hit 50 homeruns (exactly) once in his career. Your point is still valid but to say he was a 50+ guy is a stretch...

[pjalst]

Fukudome... Isn't that where the Tampa Bay Rays play?

lol