Some of our readers might be familiar with Fire Joe Morgan. If not, I highly recommend checking out their site (www.firejoemorgan.com), although they have “retired” from sports blogging. Anyway, their format is something that has been copied often, and I thought I’d get in on the mix. Here’s my FJM style critique of Eric Karabell’s latest pile of feces. For those that don’t know, the bold is the original article, the non-bold is my commentary.

Johnny Damon isn’t the only interesting free-agent outfielder still looking for work. For the first four months last season, Jermaine Dye was a valuable fantasy baseball resource, with 23 home runs, 63 RBIs and a good-enough .281 batting average entering August. Nothing wrong with those stats. Sure, you might be sour on him because of his final two months (four home runs in 45 games, .184 batting average), but don’t dismiss his overall accomplishments. The White Sox decided to move on without Dye, and he remains unemployed in mid-January. But according to ESPNChicago.com, there’s a mutual interest from the Chicago Cubs and the outfielder with 325 career home runs. Hey, it’s about time!

Ok, I get it. Karabell is a fantasy writer for ESPN. That’s great, but why is it about time that the Cubs have interest in Dye? His 325 career home runs? Well, if that’s the only criterion, why not just go after Jim Thome and his 564 career home runs?

Players like Dye are often underrated in fantasy baseball circles, because fantasy owners tend to overrate young players — see Chris Davis, for example — or players with the potential to hit for power and steal a base. I’m with you on seeking youth and multi-faceted options, but often it means safe, consistent power hitters such as Dye are ignored.

Karabell doing his job, talking about fantasy impact, bringing up some good points…

As recently as 2006, he smacked 44 home runs with 120 RBIs and a .315 batting average.

….and now the train is off the tracks. As recently as 2006!?!? As in 3 seasons ago, otherwise known as an eternity in baseball years, especially for a 36 year old player who has had issues with consistency since then? Oh, also it was his career year where he had a .334 BABIP (34 points higher than his career average) and a crazy high 25.4% HR/FB rate (9% higher than his career average).

Even last season, Dye finished with more than 25 home runs for the fifth consecutive season. Dye joined 20 other right-handed hitters in the group of those who hit 20 or more home runs against right-handed pitching in 2009. I don’t think he’s done yet at age 36, and the Cubs seem like a really good fit, both for their team and for yours, depending on what round you can steal him in.

Alright, the caveat for Karabell being a fantasy writer still applies here, but if you’re going to make a blanket statement that Jermaine Dye is a good fit for the Chicago Cubs, it might be a good idea to consider something other than how well he did compared to right handed hitters in fantasy statistics….like, I don’t know, meaningful statistics.

Dye is not that great of a fit for the Cubs, and here’s why: DEFENSE. Dye posted negative WARs in 2007 and 2009 due, in large part, because he is like a boulder in the outfield. In those years he posted a -21.6 UZR and a -20 UZR respectively, meaning he lost the White Sox over 4 wins just by being in the outfield. Also in those seasons, he wasn’t much of anything with the bat, posting .343 and .344 wOBAs, good for 3.2 and 5.1 batting runs.

For now, there is no official deal with the Cubs, and the team is cautioning him against expecting regular playing time,thinking he can be a backup at corner outfield and first base. Fair enough. However, there’s serious opportunities for Dye if he performs similarly to what he did most of 2009; he might be in line to take over regularly in right field. To wit:

If Cubs management allows that to happen, there should be riots down Waveland.

Left fielder Alfonso Soriano has missed an average of 42 games in his three seasons with the Cubs, and it’s not just his durability that is declining. So is his production. Say what you will about Dye, but he has outhomered and hit for a higher batting average than Soriano the past two seasons. Soriano is more valuable because he can still steal bases, though not nearly to the degree he used to. The point is the Cubs realize Soriano isn’t the guy he used to be, so they’re looking for depth. Hard to believe this now, but Soriano was our No. 16 overall player in the rankings at this point last year. He’s not in my top 75 now.

Valid points about Soriano missing time and declining in production. Now I’m going to say what I will about Dye: his home runs and batting average were still not enough to make him more valuable than Soriano in the past two seasons combined, and it had nothing to do with Soriano’s stolen bases. It had to do with the fact that when Soriano’s legs are healthy, he’s not a liability in the outfield like Dye is. Soriano may not be the guy he used to be, but Dye hasn’t ever been the guy Soriano used to be, and isn’t the guy Soriano is now.

Justifying the signing of Dye using his homers and batting average might work for a fantasy team, but it doesn’t work for a real life team, Mr. Karabell.

Center fielder Marlon Byrd should not be viewed as an everyday player, and the friendly Cubs faithful will see that before April ends. Byrd is coming off his first season with 500 at-bats, and he did well, hitting 20 home runs with a .283 batting average. Now check his home/road splits, or better yet his career stats away from Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Byrd is a very nice fourth outfielder, capable enough in the field, not a true platoon guy because he’s the rare right-handed hitter with reverse splits (hits better against right-handers). However, it’s kind of foolish to expect him to hit fifth in the lineup for the Cubs, which is the early rumor. Dye can hit fifth. Byrd is barely draftable in a standard league now that he’s out of Texas, and he’s a far better fit as the fourth outfielder than Dye.

It can be said that Byrd may not be the standout player that some might expect him to be, but his value isn’t in how many home runs he’ll hit or how high his batting average is. He’s an average center fielder, defensively. Fukudome is not. Fukudome is one of the best right fielders in baseball with the glove. Moving him back into right adds almost 2 wins to his value, assuming he keeps the same offensive production from last season.

Another thing I’d like to address is the fact that almost every hitter in baseball does better at home than on the road. In the NL, the whole league hit for 30 more points of OPS at home than on the road. In the AL it was 40 points. Granted, Byrd’s numbers were much more apart than that, but it’s not like he’s going from a bandbox to a cavern. Wrigley Field is still a hitter’s park and expecting Byrd to struggle there is assuming a lot. Even Milton Bradley did well at Wrigley, despite what most of the fans will tell you (.892 OPS).

Again, the Cubs front office shouldn’t care about how draftable Byrd is in a fantasy league or how high you have him on your draft board. Those things aren’t relevant to a real baseball team.

Kosuke Fukudome has a .767 OPS in nearly 1,200 plate appearances with the Cubs, which isn’t very good, and at this point we should all stop expecting more. Fukudome is what he is, versatile defensively and able to hold his own when it comes to getting on base against right-handed pitching. That’s it. Like Soriano, Byrd and Dye, he’s on the wrong side of 30. Both he and Byrd can play center field capably, but neither has the power generally needed from a right fielder. Against left-handed pitching, Fukudome is downright awful, and after being caught on 10 of his 16 stolen bases attempts in 2009, he shouldn’t get the green light anymore. He and Byrd should share center field, and the 40-plus games Soriano misses in left field.

Yay! Karabell used a statistic that actually means something! Too bad he did it in one of the worst ways possible. Fukudome posted a .796 OPS in 2009. That is good. Fukudome really isn’t versatile at all defensively. He’s an outstanding right fielder and a poor center fielder. He does struggle against lefties, but that’s not all that worrisome if you can find a good platoon partner to take the 150 or so PAs against lefties. Fukudome has been more valuable than Dye the last 2 seasons, as well. That’s how bad Dye is on defense.

I’d argue the Cubs should not only sign Dye, but present him the job in right field for 140 games. Despite the poor production the final two months, I don’t think it’s a sign of precipitous decline. We’ve seen this from Dye in the past, and he has bounced back. Plenty of players struggled for two-month periods last season. A grand total of five players hit more home runs than Dye when playing right field in 2009, and they all currently have jobs (Jayson Werth, Nelson Cruz, Michael Cuddyer, Andre Ethier, Nick Swisher) and will be, dare I say, selected in pretty much all standard fantasy leagues. Dye lacks the upside of some of those guys, but he still matters.

I’d argue that Karabell is an idiot. Despite his poor attempt to make Jermaine Dye look good, he’s failed miserably, and I think it’s a sign of his overall ability to comprehend actual value opposed to fantasy value. Great, all those players were selected in fantasy leagues. Big Deal.

I’d draft him in the same region as Cuddyer, Swisher, Ryan Ludwick and Brad Hawpe, others who could post 30 homers and 100 RBIs. Dye has played 32 games at Wrigley Field, and while it’s a small sample size, he has slugged .600 in those games. Think positive!

Oh, so now we’re playing the “could post 30 HR and 100 RBI” game, otherwise known as the “something Jermaine Dye has only done twice in his career and hasn’t done since 2006″ game. If you really think he’s going to hit 30 HR and 100 RBI, you should be stripped of your job as a sports writer, Karabell.

Let’s see what the Cubs — or another team — end up doing here, and remember that the 30-100 Dye can still deliver counts just as much as when a young player attains those stats. That makes for quite the draft-day sleeper.

My good God.