Kosuke Fukudome

Before I post my preview of the free agent outfielders, I needed to take some time to improve my Japanese translation process. Much thanks to this site Japan Baseball Daily, which has more data than I could have possibly asked for. Kosuke Fukudome has indeed been the best hitter in Japan over the last four seasons.

After translating his stats and feeding it into the CHONE system, I get a projection of 283/373/465. This agrees with just about every scouting report I've read on him, he's a very good hitter with gap power and patience, but his homerun power would only be good for 15-20 in our major leagues.

As a defender he's described as capable of playing center, but best suited for right, and with a strong enough arm for the position. My defensive projection for him, which is based entirely on his projected speed score, is +1 as a corner and -8 as a center fielder.

CHONE only projects 357 at bats and a little over 400 plate appearances for him, as he must have had some sort of injury last year. I don't take playing time projections as seriously as the rate stats projections, I simply project them to play about as often as they have in the past. I don't know enough about Fukudome to say he's an injury prone player, so here's his stat line per 600 plate appearances:

112 strikeouts, 69 walks, 38 doubles, 4 triples, 16 homers, and the 283/373/465 rate stats. He's probably most comparable to these players, value wise: Bobby Abreu, JD Drew, Milton Bradley.

At 16 runs per 600 PA above average hitting, +1 for defense, -5 for position, and +17 to compare with replacement level, he's a +2.9 win player. Worth about 45 million over 4 years.