Japanese ace Tatsuya Imai, one of the best starting pitchers available on the market, is reportedly going to be coming to the United States as soon as this week to meet with interested clubs. The Chicago Cubs have been among the teams attached to Imai by rumor and speculation, but with the bidding potentially approaching or topping $200 million – with the posting fee included – it’s difficult to imagine the Cubs coming out on top. That’s a level we haven’t seen them go on any free agent, much less a starting pitcher.
Jeff Passan indicates that Imai’s market is moving, and it’s possible he signs at the Winter Meetings next week in Orlando.
If that’s on the table, then I expect we’ll probably hear about Stateside meetings soon. As usual, Chicago weather is not being especially cooperative, so the Cubs will have to hope that Imai has been well-advised by others that the actual season in Chicago usually very nice!
Tatsuya Imai, 27, recently came in for an evaluation from ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel, as he surveyed this year’s transitions from Japan. Some reports have Imai as a possible ace in MLB, but McDaniel’s take is considerably more conservative. Among McDaniel’s comments, which follow him projecting Imai as a mid-3s ERA third starter in MLB:
“Imai is not that big, standing 5-foot-11, and though he has above-average control now, that hasn’t always been the case. His walk rate was 5.1 BB/9 in 2022, then 4.1 in 2023, 3.6 in 2024 and 2.5 in 2025. That makes him sound like a soft tosser who gets by on his newfound feel, but his four-seam fastball sits at 93-97 mph and hits 99. There’s some real stuff here, too, as his splitter is an above-average pitch by nearly any metric and his slider also performs as an above-average pitch.
I worded it that way because his slider is a unique pitch as it doesn’t ‘slide,’ or, in other words, it averages arm-side movement (like a splitter/changeup does) rather than glove side movement (like a slider/curveball does). That might sound bad, but pitching is all about deception, and hitters don’t expect a slider to move like that, which is part of the reason the pitch performed well last season, garnering a 45% miss rate and a .212 xwOBA allowed ….
Since he doesn’t come with a qualifying offer and is among the youngest free agents in the class, Imai is attractive to most of MLB, so his contract is expected to go well into nine figures. I projected an all-in cost (including posting fee to his NPB club) of $157 million over six years. If anything, that could be a bit low.”
If you believed Imai could be, at best, a mid-rotation starter with downside risks from there (all transitions to MLB come with significant risk), I don’t see how you could justify giving him a nine-figure deal, especially in a market with so many other options. Putting that another way, if the final deal falls into the $150 million to $200 million range, the winning bidder is necessarily going to believe that Imai could be something more than a mere touch-above-league-average starting pitcher (plus the value of having a Japanese star on your team).
Because the posting system from the NPB comes with a 45-day window, by the way, Tatsuya Imai must sign by January 2.
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