Getty Japanese lefty Shota Imanaga winds up at the World Baseball Classic
After his countrymen signed record-breaking contracts this offseason, with the Los Angeles Dodgers giving Shohei Ohtani $700 million and Yoshinobu Yamamoto $325 million, free-agent pitcher Shota Imanaga is set to receive a deal worth $100 million or more.
“The buzz among agents and executives … was that the Japanese free-agent left-hander is poised to receive a contract of at least $100 million,” according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “The Red Sox, Giants and other teams are believed to be in the mix.”
How Good Is Shota Imanaga?
Despite the massive deals for Ohtani and Yamamoto, fans might be surprised if and when Imanaga agrees to a nine-figure contract.
He is already 30 years old with no experience against MLB hitters outside of the World Baseball Classic. But his numbers in the Japanese pros are eye-catching: across eight seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), he’s pitched to a 3.18 ERA with 64 wins and 1,021 strikeouts. He’s played in several NPB all-star games.
The strike-throwing lefty deploys a wide variety of pitches, including the kind of four-seam fastball that can cause swings and misses in the top of the zone for MLB hitters. It is this kind of stuff that might justify such a lucrative contract, and Rosenthal offered a comparison for Imanaga that front offices and fans alike would be happy with, even at $100 million.
“A more recent comp for Imanaga, at least among Japanese pitchers, would be Mets righty Kodai Senga, who signed a five-year, $75 million free-agent contract last offseason,” Rosenthal wrote. “Senga, 30, worked 166 ⅓ innings in his first major-league campaign and ranked fifth in the league with a 2.98 ERA.”
Which MLB Teams Are Competing to Sign Shota Imanaga?
With several teams missing out on the Yamamoto sweepstakes — including the San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox, as well as the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and New York Mets — it’s possible a handful of teams have earmarked substantial money to take a chance on a Japanese veteran to bolster their rotation.
There is good reason to believe a team like the Phillies, which sent a contract offer to Yamamoto before being rebuffed, would be interested in Imanaga, even with a substantial price tag. With Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola at the top of their rotation, signing a reliable third or fourth option could make the difference in pursuit of a World Series next season.
“A hypothetical top-four rotation of Wheeler, Nola, Imanaga and Ranger Suárez could carry the Phillies into October once again,” Shamus Clancy of PhillyVoice explained.
But, for whichever teams do want to add Imanaga, the clock is ticking. Because he is an NPB player, the pitcher has a limited “posting window” in which an MLB team can sign him.
“Imanaga’s 45-day posting window expires Jan. 11,” Jeff Passan noted for ESPN.
Furthermore, as an NPB player, any team that does sign Imanaga will have to pay an additional “posting fee” to his current team, the Yokohama BayStars. At $100 million, that would be an additional $16.875 million, per Rosenthal.