Earlier this spring, I mentioned the next hot Japanese import, OF Kusode Fukudome and promised to provide Fake Teams readers with some regular updates. Just recently, I found some current stats on Japanese Baseball. Fortunately, Fukudome is amongst the league leaders in AVG. This allowed his stats line to be seen in its entirety.
| BA | RISP | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | SF | BB | HBP | K | E | OBP | Slug | |
| 8 Fukudome (CD) | .326 | .500 | 14 | 46 | 10 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 2 | 10 | 0 | .441 | .543 |
Not bad. The 9 BBs and zero errors are of some use.
With little in the way of direct information from the Japanese leagues, I can only look at those players who have recently came stateside to get an indicator of Fukudome's potential production. Tampa Bay "rookie" Akinori Iwamura offers some signs. He is off to a torrid start with the Devil Rays - 395/540/577.
FWIW, Iwamura went 311/389/544 in 2006, and Fukudome was better across the board, 351/438/653, in the Central League.