Fukudome gives Chicago the edge in NL Central

Kosuke Fukudome could bat anywhere from second to fifth because he combines a high on-base percentage with the ability to hit home runs. Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images

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No division in baseball is as easily winnable as the National League Central. Put an average team on the field, playing average ball in an average park for most of a numbingly average season and, in the Central, you have a contender. Put together something better than that -- even a little bit better -- and a team can practically start counting its playoff shares.

The Cubs took a huge step toward salting away the Central on Wednesday when they agreed to terms with free agent Kosuke Fukudome, the multi-tooled outfielder from the Chunichi Dragons. Fukudome, alone, doesn't guarantee the Cubs a second straight title. They still have Ryan Theriot at shortstop. They still could use another reliable starting pitcher. Their bullpen needs some straightening out.

Still, Fukudome makes the defending division champs better, fitting the team's need for a left-handed bat in the outfield to balance a predominantly right-handed team. And, remember, this is the Central. It's not as if the rest of the division is all that threatening.

"He's been our target acquisition from Day 1," Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said Wednesday. "He plays the entire game so well."

Hendry and his fellow front-office decision-makers knew early on -- before their 2007 season ended with a first-round sweep by the Diamondbacks -- what the Cubs needed, and they decided Fukudome was the one who could give it to them. All of it. That was way before Fukudome made up his mind to leave the Dragons after a nine-year career that included two Central League batting titles and an MVP award.

The Cubs let Fukudome know of their interest, then waited on him as he mulled whether to stay in Japan or leave for America. Once he decided, earlier this week, the Cubs blew him away -- and everybody else, too, including the Padres, Rangers and White Sox -- with a four-year, $48 million offer.

Now the Cubs not only have a better defense (Fukudome can play center in a pinch, and he has a very good arm), they have a hitter near the top of their lineup who can work a walk, hit the ball hard into the gaps, steal a base or a few -- all of those were shortcomings of the '07 Cubs -- and even dunk one over the wall at Wrigley Field once in a while. In short, the Cubs now have just what they wanted, and just what they needed.

"We think we have the whole package," Hendry said. "We thought that this was the ideal guy to play that position."

The Cubs were one of the better pitching teams in the NL last season -- second in ERA, in fact, to the Padres -- but their offense, reliant on big hitters like Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, often faltered. Chicago averaged a bit more than 4.6 runs a game in 2007, a little less than the league average. With Fukudome setting the table for the big bats, looking at more pitches and getting on base at a near .400 clip, the Cubs hope to be able to jack up that run production in 2008.

The rest of the Central is going to be hard-pressed to keep up.

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