Japanese Ballpark Analysis

I won't care about HR's if Dome only becomes a good, solid consistent lefty hitter who can poke opposite field doubles and triples at the right time when the Cubs have RISP. That's the bread and butter need of the Cubs right now, and if the indications are correct, he's going to fill that need in a great way.

Even in the caverns of places like Coors and Minute Maid, Kosuke - after making his adjustments - should do well. Watching him gun someone down at first will be a rush.

I like to watch high school baseball much as I have posted 50,000+ Okinawan high school baseball photos on flickr, and their highest goal is winning national tournament in Koshien Stadium (good to find those kids are playing in the photo you posted). Yes, I respect the history, some leaves of ivy on outside wall (now all cut down for makeover of enlargement in this off-season), but we really hate it when with the guys in black yellow pinstripe... Recent years we've been winning over Tigers at Koshien, that made us feel so good.

Another ballpark we hate the most is Tokyo Dome - where the pitchers nightmare as the article writes. Not just it's smallness, but it is frequently rumored that the air conditioning wind blows maximum from infield to outfield when Tokyo Giants are hitting, and it's turned off when visitors are hitting... This kinda homerun is called "Domerun" (not Fukudome's homerun, but homerun at Tokyo Dome).
So rich Giants buys high priced long ball hitters from outside every year (just like their associate New York Yankees), and we Dragons grows the league's best pitching staff these years to play half of season at Nagoya Dome - the pitcher's park. Again it was so sweet when Dragons beat Giants badly 2 years in a row at Tokyo Dome - in 2006 to win CL and 2007 to win CL playoff.

Actually Nagoya Dome was carefully designed after complete research of Tokyo and Fukuoka Dome, from architecture to retail system, and talked with the ballclub then built a pitcher's park... we used to play at one of the worst hitter's park, too small Nagoya Stadium, so it's quite natural move for the change of Dragons under manager Hoshino and Ochiai.

Anyhow, I actually don't like artificial turf - but I know it's too hard to keep the season schedule against the long rainy season without the roof in current NPB system. Hope most of domes will introduce softer turf, or natural turf with retractable roof to avoid knee pain... Also, I don't think dirt diamond is non-pro-level ground as the article says. This is another part of Japanese baseball tradition, and it's artistically maintained. We used to have a couple of ballparks with natural turf infield, and most of them were replaced with artificial or dirt, only remaining at Kobe as far as I know. It's simply different.

Another thing is that I believe the decline of # of homeruns of Japanese hitter in MLB is NOT the matter of the size of ballpark, naively - it's the matter of styles of baseball they plays, especially Hideki Matsui's case. I don't even see that many his fly balls over there thoughout each years, which might become homerun in Japanese ballpark. It's the matter of difference and changes of baseball itself, pitchers, pitches, zones, pitching strategy and tactics, and finally how he adapt himself for them. With Tokyo Giants at batter's heaven Tokyo Dome, he hit monster homeruns with powerful and big swing, and Dragons manager Hiromitsu Ochiai, the 3-times triple crown guy, pointed out particular technical shortage of  Matsui's swing (move of right elbow), and clearly predicted Matsui's homerun won't reach big numbers what Yankees expected for, before Matsui moved to US. Finally Matsui struggled to changed his swing much compacter, tried to hit more outside balls, to center to left, and produced a lot of grounders to second baseman.

Regarding Fukudome (I'll call him as such to avoid confusion of Dome and dome.... just in this article), he is originally not a HR king type of hitter - he is the lefty man of more doubles, better average, OBP, OPS and RISP average. His number for OPS and HR might decline especially in his first year with Cubs, but his strength and characteristics would fit to #3 or #5 spot better, I believe. Also, many of his typical homerun is a  big hit like this, and doesn't matter the size of ballpark the article discuss - he is the mistake hitter until he's in the hall.

So - my initial impression on this is - the size of ballpark doesn't matter for Fukudome at all. He also has good experiences playing internationally, so his learning curve should better than other Japanese unaverage hitters, I hope.

These are old, one-year park factors, and so I'd take them with a grain of salt. (Those 2000 park factors for the Yomuri Giants are particularly suspect.)

What a sinister place when Tigers are playing there! X-P

I have never been to Japan. I wish I would have went like you did when the Cubs played the Mets over there. That had to be a blast. I would love to travel through Japan one day. It looks to me like Koshien Stadium would be a 'must see' on any trip to Japan.

I don't care about Kosuke-san being able to hit HR's. Just provide an OBP > .380 and let everything else (offensively) fall into place.