I think he'd fit nicely in our plans - an upgrade over Marquis at the same dollar amount.  Now, obviously he would cost us in trade, but he'll come far cheaper than Bedard (not nearly as good, I know).  What would the Tigers want?  What are their needs?

Just sayin'.  It's not THAT far out there.  

Kemp is three years younger and has way more upside.  I would think the Dodgers would much more willing to part with Ethier.  But if they're willing to part with Kemp, I say do what it takes to get him.  He's going to be an all-star.

On the other hand, the new ownership group is likely to dismiss Hendry so that they can bring in their own front office staff, and that's likely to happen regardless of Fukudome's hitting next season.

If the facts aren't germaine to your question, then ask a better question. But don't make baseless accusations.

Does Hendry get a huge extension if Fukudome is paid very well and turns out an all star 1st year and then goes on to improve each year till he surpasses Ichiro?

Same type of question isn't it?

Either way, we all know Hendry wants to throw money his way because of how hyped he is.  I would guess that if other teams had as glaring a hole in RF and with LH hitters, that they would be in the same position as Hendry.

Therefore, whether KFuk ends up a star or a flop, I think Hendry is going to do what he needs to to pick up what he thinks will fill our holes.

Period.

That said, you insulate yourself against a lot of that risk by limiting the deal to a three-year commitment. The estimates of his value I've seen generally center around 3/30 or 3/35; the Cubs can probably afford to go over that because the value of a marginal win to the Cubs is higher than the value of a marginal win to a lot of other ballclubs.

the idea here is that the hype is enough that no matter what happens there will be some let down. i'm sure there is some good cliche here that i'm not coming up with...

not margin, potential. "either way the potential for error here is huge."

Look: sometimes teams will sign a bad contact based on the available information, the player will outperform reasonable expectations and it will end up looking like a good deal even though it was irresponsible. On the other hand, sometimes you'll sign a good deal based on the information at hand, and the player will underperform reasonable expectations.

Think of it as a game of poker. There's countless books out there on how to appropriately play Texas Hold-em; using simple math we can figure out the probabilities of winning a hand or drawing the card we need based on the flop and our hole cards, and we can adjust those odds. Certainly the best players can play against those odds if they get a good read on people and come out ahead; and if you do nothing but play the odds it becomes way to easy to get a read on you and you'll get taken to the cleaners. But the odds are what they are.

Now, sometimes a string of bad luck will occur, and even a player who knows the odds and the "intangibles" of the game pretty well will get suckered. That happens. But I'd rather stake that player for the next game than the guy who got lucky, won big and confused that with being skilled at poker. (Kenny Williams, I'm looking at you.)

In my mind, the common dumb mistakes in contract evaluation are:

• 
  
• Evaluating player contracts based solely on the first year.
  
• Failing to recognize the effects of luck, good or bad. (About 60% of BABIP is sheer luck, and let nobody confuse you on this point.)
  
• Confusing performance with true talent level.
  
• Misunderstanding the marginal value of a win.
  

I don't need to wait a year to decide if I like Fukudome's contract or not. If I'm wrong about it in a year, I'll admit to it.

But the Fukudome deal won't be a failure if he stinks in the first year, because you have to look at total value of the three years of the contract; that's still three years Fukudome could use to provide value on his contract to the team.