All offseason, CubbyMike76 has been translating these fantastic podcast interviews from Shota Imanaga, and I’ve really been enjoying them.
For example:
This is a short summary of today’s Shōta podcast. It was really interesting again today. I’m sorry if I can’t fully share how fun it was, because my English skills are limited and some things are easier to express in Japanese. @Cubs #BeHereForIt #FlyTheW #今永SHOTAISM t.co/FJooq7ZjNt pic.twitter.com/K5lhgpOrZM
— CubbyMike?? (@CubbyMike76) January 6, 2026This response from Imanaga, as translated, was an interesting note about a very specific difference from NPB to MLB: “I also talked with Seiya Suzuki about travel and opposing hitters. He asked me about my pitches and gave me advice. He told me not to avoid pitching inside. In the majors, players should not show pain. If you show pain, people think you are weak. In America, being strong is very important. Even if hitters get hit, they don’t show fear, so they step closer to the plate. He told me that if I only pitch outside, hitters will keep crowding in. He said this is different from Japan.”
Interesting point in the abstract, though I got curious about it as it relates to Shota Imanaga’s 2025 season. This is not a deep dive on all that went wrong in the second half, or what needs to change for 2026, as that stuff is all a pretty complex layering of health, velocity, pitch selection, movement, hitter familiarity, wind patterns, and so on and so forth.
I was simply very specifically curious about pitch location, and the advice that he should work inside more often, since it *felt* like (1) he did try to work inside more often to righties in 2025, and (2) so much of the damage he gave up came on inner-third pitches at the belt.
So I headed over to FanGraphs to look at some charts.
Sure enough, Shota Imanaga did pitch far more often on the inner third in 2025, and also the results there were … not great:
(via FanGraphs)That doesn’t mean Suzuki’s advice was wrong, mind you, because that’s just balls in play. If Imanaga is getting a lot of whiffs on the inner third, or stealing a lot of called strikes, then it might still be worth it. But I looked at those charts, and Imanaga’s contact rates were pretty uniformly distributed east-west, and he actually got way more whiffs down in the zone and below.
Moreover, he actually didn’t steal a whole lot of strikes in that shadow zone inside:
(via FanGraphs)So, not to throw out Suzuki’s advice entirely, but I’m not sure the data – at least in the turn from 2024 to 2025 – actually supports Imanaga pitching inside to righties more frequently, especially if his fastball velocity continues to decline. (Which, by the way, I fully recognize is a factor that introduces some noise here, at least on the whiffs and the hard contact – some of it was about pitch location, yes, but some of it was about the mile or so his fastball declined, and some of the “rise” that was lost alongside it.)
This all might be something for he, the catchers, and the pitching infrastructure to discuss, as far as game-planning and approach go. If you’re going to try to live on the inside, then you need to be inducing crappy contact (he wasn’t), getting extra whiffs (he wasn’t), or stealing a ton of strikes (he wasn’t).
All in all, it seems like – if we’re talking exclusively about pitch location – improving Shota Imanaga’s work north-south might be more important for his return to success in 2026. That doesn’t mean you never pitch inside, as it’s an important part of keeping hitters off-balance, and of setting up the rest of your execution. It just means that, pitching inside more often may not be the best way for Imanaga to break back out (unless he’s doing it while commanding exceptionally well at the top and bottom of the zone).
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