The 2010 Cubs Free Agent and Roster Moves Thread: SAVEENG OUR KUBBEEZ!!11

[fiveouts]

Fukudome has actually been the Cubs unluckiest hitter this year (based on statfaggory: BABIP, LD%, etc.).  Behold, statfags:

Fukudome's Actual Line - .272/.390/.462
Fukudome's Expected Line - .314/.425/.523

The 15 hits that he has missed out on basically turns him from the #4 CF in baseball to the best hitting CF in baseball.  

I won't fuck off and die but I will happily wait with baited breath while you try to justify your opinion that a guy who will never bat higher than .280 or hit more than 15 homeruns -- or for that matter drive in more than 80 RBI at the very most -- is "great" enough to justify a 14 million dollar a year contract.

Good thing the Cubs are only paying him $12 million/year.  For the fourth best CF in baseball, its not a bad deal.  

As far as RBI goes: I wish that fucker Fukudome could do a better job of making sure runners get on base before he comes up, then don't score until he gets his hits.



Oh yeah-fuck batting average.  

[CT III]

I really should have better considered my adjective use during the eight seconds it took me to write that earlier post. 

Well, you should if you're going to do it to everyone else.

Just sayin'.

[Canadouche]

I wish that fucker Fukudome could do a better job of making sure runners get on base before he comes up, then don't score until he gets his hits.

¿Qué?

But if you're arguing that he's the leadoff hitter we've all been waiting for -- and I think that's what you're trying to say there -- then maybe he should have better than a 43% success rate at stealing bases.

[Pre]

I will happily wait with baited breath while you try to justify your opinion that [Fukudome] is
"great" enough to justify a 14 million dollar a year contract.

Oh shit, if only there was a whole bunch of people that attempted to calculate approximate
player values and they came up with with a similar idea that I did.  Maybe that might be more
compelling argument than if I proved player worth your way and just mention his 5 triples or
some other bullshit.

If you could stop from randomly changing your argument for a second and note that I never
said he was great and that I have no fucking interest in engaging in your sophomoric semantic
games you might realize that I simply said he's been at least above average and has earned his
contract.  I'm not trying to claim he's Hank Aaron and it's a shame you're too fucking stupid to
realize that there are shades of gray and by saying he's earned his contract isn't saying he's
the best fucking player in the league. 

And I was being polite.  He's nowhere near mostly awesome.  But he is better than bad.

So you're arguing against yourself now too?  What the fuck.

I won't fuck off and die

It was worth a try.  Low probability but a hell of an upside for us all.

[fiveouts]

I wish that fucker Fukudome could do a better job of making sure runners get on base before he comes up, then don't score until he gets his hits.

¿Qué?

But if you're arguing that he's the leadoff hitter we've all been waiting for -- and I think that's what you're trying to say there -- then maybe he should have better than a 43% success rate at stealing bases.

Actually, its not.  The fact that he wouldn't get more than 80 RBI has nothing to do with how good of a hitter he is; it has to do what what the hitters in front of him do. 


And stolen bases are fucking stupid, too, by the way. 

[Eli]

I really should have better considered my adjective use during the eight seconds it took me to write that earlier post. 

Well, you should if you're going to do it to everyone else.

Just sayin'.

Now you've gone and hurt my feelings.

[CBStew]

What do I have to smoke to be able to follow this thread?

[Canadouche]

What do I have to smoke to be able to follow this thread?

Kosuke Fukudome's pole, obviously.

[Canadouche]

I will happily wait with baited breath while you try to justify your opinion that [Fukudome] is
"great" enough to justify a 14 million dollar a year contract.

Oh shit, if only there was a whole bunch of people that attempted to calculate approximate
player values and they came up with with a similar idea that I did.  Maybe that might be more
compelling argument than if I proved player worth your way and just mention his 5 triples or
some other bullshit.

If you could stop from randomly changing your argument for a second and note that I never
said he was great and that I have no fucking interest in engaging in your sophomoric semantic
games you might realize that I simply said he's been at least above average and has earned his
contract.  I'm not trying to claim he's Hank Aaron and it's a shame you're too fucking stupid to
realize that there are shades of gray and by saying he's earned his contract isn't saying he's
the best fucking player in the league. 

And I was being polite.  He's nowhere near mostly awesome.  But he is better than bad.

So you're arguing against yourself now too?  What the fuck.

I won't fuck off and die

It was worth a try.  Low probability but a hell of an upside for us all.

You need to get laid.

[Canadouche]

I wish that fucker Fukudome could do a better job of making sure runners get on base before he comes up, then don't score until he gets his hits.

¿Qué?

But if you're arguing that he's the leadoff hitter we've all been waiting for -- and I think that's what you're trying to say there -- then maybe he should have better than a 43% success rate at stealing bases.

Actually, its not.  The fact that he wouldn't get more than 80 RBI has nothing to do with how good of a hitter he is; it has to do what what the hitters in front of him do.  


And stolen bases are fucking stupid, too, by the way.  

I'd agree with that.  I never really cared if the leadoff guy steals a ton of bases, but he's not really helping anybody if he tries to steal bases and fails.  I'd rather he hit all those doubles and triples and get on base at a .390 ratio and never even try to steal a base if he's going to fail so regularly.  

Edited to add: Fukudome is also on pace to score only 78 runs despite his high OBP.  Obviously it's not his fault that the people batting behind him have failed to drive him in regularly, though.  Then again, of his 358 at bats this season, only 84 have come in the leadoff spot.

He's on pace to have 596 plate appearances.  If he had 596 plate appearances from the leadoff spot, he'd be on pace to score 88 runs, despite his .321 AVG and .437 OBP from that spot.  I understand, though, that he can't help that the hitters behind him aren't able to drive him in.  I was merely comparing him with Mark Grace, a guy who spent the majority of his career batting 3rd -- or even cleanup -- and never drove in 100 runs in a season.

If he had 596 plate appearances batting 3rd, where he has the majority of his at bats this season, he'd be on pace to drive in 55 RBI.  I understand, though, that he can't help if he doesn't have many hitters in front of him to drive in.  Then again, he does have decent numbers with runners on.

I'm glad that Fukudome has turned his season around after a couple of very ugly months.  I agree that his defensive skills are a huge plus -- he'd be even better in RF.  As a leadoff man he's a good choice, so long as he doesn't actually try to steal bases.  I merely contested his "great"ness, based on his lack of power, his modest batting average, and his inability to hit lefties.  Pre -- for somebody who never called him great either -- sure did get upset at my "cherry picking" his statistics ... considering that I basically laid out his entire offensive line, including OBP and OPS, minus doubles and triples.  Oh well.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

I won't fuck off and die but I will happily wait with baited bated breath...

You're just kind of burying yourself LOL.

...during the long months when he can't get his AVG over .200.  (Three times in his illustrious 11 months-so-far of playing baseball.)

For starters, Kosuke has been playing baseball for well over 11 months. If you're gonna be a nitpicky asshole yourself...

More to the point, though, I thought we were talking about this season, anyways.

I mean, we're all perfectly aware of how his MLB rookie season panned out. The question coming into 2009 was whether he would manage to adjust to the major leagues and bounce back from that.

And he has.

I don't think even you are trying to dispute this.

What you seem to be suggesting, though, with this comment about those "long months" below the Mendoza line, is that he's inconsistent.

So let's look at his monthly splits from 2009...

Split     G   GS   PA   AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  SB  CS   BB   SO      BA     OBP     SLG     OPS   BAbip  tOPS+  sOPS+
Apr/Mar  20   19   89   71   14   24   6   0   4   15   1   3   16   15   0.338   0.461   0.592   1.052   0.377    148    176
May      22   19   82   65   12   18   4   1   1    5   3   1   15   13   0.277   0.415   0.415   0.830   0.327     98    124
June     23   20   96   83    7   14   4   1   0    3   2   0   11   23   0.169   0.266   0.241   0.507   0.233     21     41
July     26   22  103   88   12   27   8   3   2   12   0   4   13   11   0.307   0.392   0.534   0.926   0.329    118    146
August   16   13   64   51   11   14   5   0   3    9   0   0   13   13   0.275   0.422   0.549   0.971   0.314    129    149


So, he sucked pretty hard in June. Struck out a ton while likely being pretty unlucky on balls he put in play.

And it was for pretty much the entire month of June. Looking at his game logs, he was raking at the tail end of May, sucked from the start of June to the end, and then resumed raking again come July 1.

Let's drill down further, though...

He had a 7-game hitless streak in there, the longest of his short MLB career, during which he struck out 9 times and walked only once. He busted out of that streak with a 4-hit game against the Indians. But, again, he wouldn't totally shake the slump until July.

Outside of that awful month, he's had two 4-game hitless streaks (beginning of May and the middle of July) but otherwise hasn't gone for more than two games without a hit.

Okay, you might say, but even someone on a season-long hit streak could still wind up batting .200... And you'd be right: it's not necessarily about whether he hits outside of these slumps, but how well he hits.

Looking at every 5-game stretch this season (that is: games 1 through 5, games 2 through 6, and so on), we find 8 such stretches outside of those obvious slumps in which his OPS was anywhere below .700, and 6 of these 5-game stretches overlap each other over a 10-game stretch in May.

So we're effectively talking about the following...

4/12–4/16... .278/.409/.278/.687
5/13–5/24... .226/.385/.226/.610
7/25–7/29... .267/.389/.267/.656

These are the other stretches when he "sucked." And only the May 13–24 stretch is really 100% awful.

The bottom line...

• A hot-and-cold May that included a 4-game hitless streak and a separate 10-game cold streak with an OPS just above .600, counterbalanced by 9 games in which he went .440/.516/.800/1.316
• An extended June slump, at least some of which can be chalked up to bad luck, some of which can be chalked up to Ks
• A 146 OPS+ July that featured a 4-game hitless streak, followed by a 9-game hit streak

And then you have the rest of the season, during which he has been a consistently average-to-great hitter.

Which is more or less accurately reflected in his .271/.387/.458/.846 line and 117 OPS+... which is where this all started.

[Canadouche]

You're just kind of burying yourself LOL.

Only if I call it a grammatical error, rather than a typographical.

For starters, Kosuke has been playing baseball for well over 11 months. If you're gonna be a nitpicky asshole yourself...

Maybe he's spent the winter months playing in the Dominican, or back home in Japan, but the actual months he's spent playing in the bigs have been two Aprils, Mays, Junes, Julys, and Augusts, along with one September/October.  That's 11 months of big league baseball.  In those 11 months, he's batted below .200 in August of '08 (.193), in September of '08 (.178), and as recently as in June of '09 (.169).  Perhaps he's as streaky a hitter as Soriano. 

More to the point, though, I thought we were talking about this season, anyways.

I mean, we're all perfectly aware of how his MLB rookie season panned out. The question coming into 2009 was whether he would manage to adjust to the major leagues and bounce back from that.

And he has.

I don't think even you are trying to dispute this.

What you seem to be suggesting, though, with this comment about those "long months" below the Mendoza line, is that he's inconsistent.

Look at that line a little closer ... in May he batted 60 points lower than he did in April.  In June he batted 108 points lower than he did in May.  He batted 138 points higher in July than he did in June, and so far in August he's batting 32 points lower than he did in July.  Recognizing that any player will have slumps and hot streaks, those are still some very low dips and very high peaks.

I'm fine with that, as long as the numbers pan out in the end. 

And then you have the rest of the season, during which he has been a consistently average-to-great hitter.

Which is more or less accurately reflected in his .271/.387/.458/.846 line and 117 OPS+... which is where this all started.

Unless we want to be Yellons about it -- "if we ignore this and this and this then he's a great hitter" -- then the overall sum of his season has been good, certainly above average, but hardly great.  I think we'd all agree that if Fukudome had 15-20 seasons just like this one he wouldn't be banging down the door of the Hall of Fame.  And why's that a bad thing?  He is who he is ... I like him a lot and I'm glad he's turned his season around. 

[Slaky]

FYKE

[Canadouche]

FYKE

... but ...

[air2300]

I wish that fucker Fukudome could do a better job of making sure runners get on base before he comes up, then don't score until he gets his hits.

¿Qué?

But if you're arguing that he's the leadoff hitter we've all been waiting for -- and I think that's what you're trying to say there -- then maybe he should have better than a 43% success rate at stealing bases.

Actually, its not.  The fact that he wouldn't get more than 80 RBI has nothing to do with how good of a hitter he is; it has to do what what the hitters in front of him do.  


And stolen bases are fucking stupid, too, by the way.  

I'd agree with that.  I never really cared if the leadoff guy steals a ton of bases, but he's not really helping anybody if he tries to steal bases and fails.  I'd rather he hit all those doubles and triples and get on base at a .390 ratio and never even try to steal a base if he's going to fail so regularly.  

Edited to add: Fukudome is also on pace to score only 78 runs despite his high OBP.  Obviously it's not his fault that the people batting behind him have failed to drive him in regularly, though.  Then again, of his 358 at bats this season, only 84 have come in the leadoff spot.

He's on pace to have 596 plate appearances.  If he had 596 plate appearances from the leadoff spot, he'd be on pace to score 88 runs, despite his .321 AVG and .437 OBP from that spot.  I understand, though, that he can't help that the hitters behind him aren't able to drive him in.  I was merely comparing him with Mark Grace, a guy who spent the majority of his career batting 3rd -- or even cleanup -- and never drove in 100 runs in a season.

If he had 596 plate appearances batting 3rd, where he has the majority of his at bats this season, he'd be on pace to drive in 55 RBI.  I understand, though, that he can't help if he doesn't have many hitters in front of him to drive in.  Then again, he does have decent numbers with runners on.

I'm glad that Fukudome has turned his season around after a couple of very ugly months.  I agree that his defensive skills are a huge plus -- he'd be even better in RF.  As a leadoff man he's a good choice, so long as he doesn't actually try to steal bases.  I merely contested his "great"ness, based on his lack of power, his modest batting average, and his inability to hit lefties.  Pre -- for somebody who never called him great either -- sure did get upset at my "cherry picking" his statistics ... considering that I basically laid out his entire offensive line, including OBP and OPS, minus doubles and triples.  Oh well.

If you understand that Fukudome has no control over how many runs he has scored then why would you even bring it up to argue your point?


Edit - FYK