The Chicago Cubs’ $48 million outfielder started off the season well enough, putting up a .955 OPS in his first 27 games, but Kosuke Fukudome has fallen off the charts ever since.

PECOTA pegged Fukudome as a .905 OPS hitter (.401 OBP/.504 SLG) and while the projections may have been a bit too friendly, not even a solid foundation of mathematics could have predicted that he’d be sitting with a .768 OPS on August 11. There’s a clear downward trend with a month-by-month look at his OPS.

March/April: .915

May: .792

June: .789

July: .688

August: .330

What’s Fuk’s problem? BABIP?

March/April: .392 BABIP/.323 xBABIP

May: .329/.337

June: .323/.302

July: .306/.310

August: .130/.287

Season: .325/.317

Only in August does Fukudome significantly underperform his expected BABIP, but his it really hasn’t been that high since May, so that’s a case of lowered expectations. He has, however, seen his line drives turn into fly balls as this graph, courtesy FanGraphs, shows:

Is he weak against a certain type of pitch? Surprising results from a look at Josh Kalk’s player card: Kosuke doesn’t hit fastballs well. He has only a .252 batting average and a .420 slugging percentage on fastballs. Conversely, he’s hitting .333 and slugging .463 or better against sinkers, curve balls, and sliders.

Even though he sees them much less than fastballs, Fukudome is similarly weak against splitters (.235 BA/.294 SLG) and cutters (.200 BA/.267 SLG). If you throw him hard stuff, you’ll probably get him out.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella is growing weary watching Fuk’s futility, saying, “We need him to start hitting. If not, I’m going to have to start looking for other options.”

If Fukudome starts riding the pine, Mark DeRosa (110 OPS+) and Reed Johnson (109 OPS+) will get more playing time in the outfield and Mike Fontenot (134 OPS+) will get more time at second base. The Cubs’ offense hasn’t skipped a beat (avg. 5.2 runs per game in their last nine games) even with futile Fuk in the lineup, so it’s hard to imagine that the offense will do anything but get better with him out of it.

Fortunately for the Cubs, his contract is back-loaded so they’re only paying him $6 million this season for a .768 OPS! With his offense or without it, the Cubs are making the playoffs, so it all works out in the end, right? What’s $42 million over the next three seasons anyway?