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Talking Chicago Baseball was founded in February 2009 as a way for the authors to whine about the Cubs and White Sox. Now it is a top destination for all the latest Cubs and White Sox news and analysis. We have all the current news for both teams in Chicago and proudly do so with as much bias as possible.

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Should Cubs consider Iwamura? | Print |  E-mail
Written by Greg Mitchell   
Saturday, 31 October 2009 14:25

Jeff Baker proved that he deserves at the very least an opportunity to compete for the Cubs second base job in 2010 and we've made it pretty clear on TCB that Placido Polanco is our preferred choice if Hendry wants to go with Mr. Outside-Hire. However Akinori Iwamura is someone the Cubs could look at if he is available because he bats left-handed (oh man!) and has hit at the top of the order in his big league career. Iwamura has a $4.25M club option for next season, but the Rays aren't likely to pick it up with Jason Bartlett and Ben Zobrist on the roster. Would the 30 year-old Japanese infielder be worth $3-4M a year? Below are his stats courtesy ESPN.com:

Iwamura's career BA and OBP aren't bad, but they don't really jump off the page. His career slugging of .389 is pretty terrible and he strikes out more than you would like. Not pictured is his career UZR/150 of 1.1, which is par for the course hovering around league average numbers. One aspect of Iwamura's game that I like (and I am a sucker for this) is his career average of 4.08 pitches seen per plate appearance. When you look at the whole package though, and I'm not trying to be racist, you get relatively the same production you get from Kosuke Fukudome. Both are disciplined at the plate and solid in the field, but aren't necessarily special players. The only difference is that Iwamura is slightly better offensively while Fukudome holds the edge defensively.

My perfect world still involves Polanco picking it at second and putting together solid AB's in a Cub uniform next year. However it wouldn't be the end of the world if the Cubs signed Iwamura at the right price ($3-4M) and he certainly could contribute in the two hole. It should be a moot point for Hendry because Jeff Baker plays better defense (2.2 UZR/150), has a higher career OPS (.782) and clearly is cheaper.



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