Fukudome has a lot of question marks but I think you might under estimate the Giants brass and their need to sell tickets. He’s a mixed bag in a sense of value because you’re not sure what you’ll get, but I think he would sell tickets in San Fran and that might be very appealing to the ownership. Mortgages to pay and all.

He only really makes sense if Randy Winn or Dave Roberts are moved, those are my pre-conditions to signing him.

I’m not convinced, mainly because anybody who says they have a totally accurate prediction of how well he would do in the majors is smoking something they should share. Any analysis of that type is fraught with areas of error that makes prediction dicey. I think there are ways that point out positives, like this site did, but as I noted above, there are serious concerns over how power, particularly HR power, translate over to the US, and thus any player coming over here whose value is based greatly on his HR power, is suspect to me.

Looking more indepthly at Hideki Matsui, over his last 3-4 seasons in Japan, he was roughly hitting homers at a 11 AB/HR pace. Now the cool thing is he started his MLB career at age 29, when most players are reaching their physical peak for a few years typically. Throwing out his first year as an adjustment period, his HR rate since then has roughly been 22 AB/HR. In other words, his homer rate has roughly been cut in half by his move to the States, even though he is reaching his peak hitting years, which suggests the drop is even greater, but let’s just assume halving the HR rate.

Now here Fukudome has been a pretty good homerun hitter in Japan. Over his last 5 seasons, after taking last season with a grain of salt since he didn’t play a full season, plus 2005 as well (is he injury prone? That’s two years out of the last three…), he has roughly hit homers at a 16 AB/HR pace. Doubling that, using Godzilla’s best case scenario (and not Kaz’s worse case scenario; he also came over at a prime age, he was 28 his first year in the majors), that means a 32 AB/HR pace, which over a full season is 20 HR power.

Now another offensive value is OBP. In Godzilla’s last years, his OBP was roughly .450 and after his first year here, he has roughly been .380, a roughly 15% drop in getting on base. Fukudome in his last years in Japan had a .435 OBP, and assuming a roughly similar drop, it would drop his OBP to roughly .370, which is still very good for an OF, so he would deliver offensive value that way.

And that’s assuming the best case. Remember, both Matsui’s entered the majors in their late 20’s, Fukudome will be 31 years old in his first season, which is the age range when players start to reach their downslope of their career. Only the best players can continue into their 30’s without a steep decline.

$10M for a (roughly) 20 HR power hitter, who can get on base a lot but doesn’t have much speed, who will probably not do that well his first season because of adjustments, plus could be risking us getting and paying for the downside of his career, and has missed a lot of games in the last 4 seasons.

So the question is does that sound like too much? I think so. I don’t want to spend $10M per season for up to 3 seasons on a question mark, particularly since the first year will most probably be a throw-away season of adjustments, so you have no idea going into the second year whether it was just adjustment or just a normal career downslide.

Then throw in that we already have a player ready to play RF, only needing a chance, in Nate Schierholtz, and I think it makes the suggestion even more untenable.

The throw in that we have other players who appear capable of playing the position adequately – true not as good perhaps as Fukudome, but they won’t cost us $10M of risk either – in Randy Winn, Fred Lewis, possibly Dan Ortmeier, John Bowker, perhaps even Eugenio Velez, and I don’t see why we even look at the guy.

Is he going to make us a contender by himself? No. Is he $10M per season better than the players we have available right now? No. Could he be a core component of the team going forward? I don’t think so. He also appears to be a bit injury prone the past few years, missing 100-120 games over the past 4 seasons, plus he missed a lot of playing time his second season as well, though I cannot tell if it was injury related or a manager’s decision, since his overall numbers look OK but not great.

If he was a 1B or 3B, then I could see the allure, we have a need there, particularly at 3B since I like Dan Ortmeier at 1B, at least to start the season. Iwamura would have been a much better sign, particularly if we would have signed him instead of Feliz last season. He has positional flexibility since he could move to 2B and did OK for the season, though I think he was injured too and missed a portion of the season.

I whole heartedly agree with on you the FA OF options, none of them tremendously excite me and they’ll all be very expensive. Not to mention, we’ve got more outfielders than you can shake a stick at.

Fukudome could be a consolation prize like you mentioned, I think that’s a possibility. I’m really only interested in him if Randy Winn or Dave Roberts are traded and hopefully they might be movable. After Jones and Hunter sign, they might draw a little interest. Especially Winn, who hit .300 this year, that might impress a more traditional GM.

A Rod will get a pile of money were ever he goes. For the Giants to get A Rod he will be making a quality of life choice. The young arms and the more tolerant fan base would have to appeal largely to him to have chance of signing him. Along with the possibly of besting the current Homer Run king in his house.

It should be fairly apparent, to the front office, if A Rod is serious about the Giants early on or if his he is just stirring the pot. If the later Sabean’s past M.O. would say go hard after his second choice. Assuming Fukudome is the second choice. Then Sabean can say he tried to do something this off season.

It’s possible but I don’t think its likely. He had the surgery in ‘07 so he should be full strength by ‘08. To my knowledge, he’s never played 1B ever, in any professional game. I’m sure he could play the position but I doubt the Giants try to monkey with his defensive position.

The chances of Fukudome could have just went down as well. With A-Rod opting out today I have a feeling that the Giants are licking their chompers in anticipation. But, if Dave Roberts or Randy Winn get moved, I could see the Giants making a play for Fukudome.

A-Rod and Fukudome would probably pack the house almost every night.

I am not sure I like the idea from trying up a rooster spot with a gamble for 3-4 years but to suddenly have reliable positive offense , of any type, from that spot would be very intriguing.