March 12, 2010

Who will be Fukudome's caddy?

The big news the other day was that Nady won't play 'regularly' until June, which led to much gnashing of teeth in the Cubs blogosphere but a fair number of shrugged shoulders around the rest of the interwebs. Reading the tea leaves, It sounds like Nady is likely to make the roster but should primarily be a pinch hitter.

After my initial WTF reaction, I'm not quite as teeth-gnashy as I was before but I still think the Cubs should do something. Nady will still have some value I guess as a PH, but this would mean we would get ~2 months of Fukudome or someone batting against LHP. Without Nady, who would this be? Based on the current projected roster (and my handy platoon split calculator), here's what we have

PlayerwOBA vs LHP
Fukudome (L).317
Fuld (L).307
Hoffpauir (L).314
Millar (R).325
Tracy (L).286
Colvin (L).296

In other words, ick. Millar is the best option, bat-wise, but he would probably make Hoffpauir look good in the OF.

I guess what will happen is that Fukudome will just have to hit 8th. Or maybe Fuld - he's hit lefties well in his very small sample of PAs, and Fukudome has a rep for a guy who needs a little more time off.

Luckily since the Cubs lineup is so RH anyway, they should be pounding LHP so this shouldn't be much of a big deal.

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