Friar Watch

Padres fans have been abuzz since mlbtraderumors.com reported that the Padres are going to make a play for Kousuke Fukudome, the next big thing out of Japan. He’s a 31 year old rightfielder with a cannon arm who draws walks and has some line drive power. The Padres big need is in centerfield and there’s some doubt about Fukudome’s ability to cover that kind of ground so perhaps the plan is to put him in right and move Giles to left and scrounge up a cheap centerfielder.

I looked around for some videos on YouTube and like what I see. How can you not like a rightfielder who throws dudes out at first on routine singles?

If this is representative of the kind of umpiring they have in Japan Fukudome should be fine over here. He gets victimized by three atrocious called strikes on a 3-0 count and ends up striking out. He’s no Milton Bradley but he’s definitely a guy who will show emotion:

Here he is victimizing Byung Hyung Kim in the WBC:

Here’s another Fukudome blast. I like the way he takes a big step and kind of glides into the ball and then explodes with a lot of torque:

I love the atmosphere at Asian baseball games. Why don’t we have organized cheers and trumpets? Instead we get the wave and a beach ball.