Cubs Front Office Stunned by Shota Imanaga Accepting Qualifying Offer | Full Reaction

Cubs Front Office Stunned by Shota Imanaga Accepting Qualifying Offer | Full Reaction

So, each of you raise your right hand and tell me I solemnly swear that I’m just going to comment on the Cubs as if any neutral fan of the game would comment on the Cubs. And you’re not going to have to recite this. I’m just going to need a yes or a no or an I do or an I don’t. That you don’t care respectfully if the Cubs finish in first or last next year. This is a national show. Can I get an I do or a yes from Kratz? Yes. Okay, Todd. Yes, I do. Sam here. Yes, let’s charge. He’s charging them out. All right, so what do we have here? Let’s size up the Cubs off season. Let’s give them some love right now and see what they need to do. Cratz is making a face because he probably saw the tweet that’s going to kick off the conversation. George Offman, who does some radio work and a bunch of other things out in Chicago, puts this tweet out there. told that the Cubs were stunned. Immunaga accepted the qualifying offer. They expected to get a draft pick. Hampers their offseason spending plans. We can show the next one, too. The Cubs currently have around 190 million in payroll. The tax threshold, which many serve, I’m going to add this part. Many use this as their de facto salary cap, is 244 mil. Offman says the Cubs don’t want to exceed it. They think that’s enough for a top free agent pitcher, a hitter, bullpen help, arbitration cases, and perhaps paying Pearl Armstrong on an extension. You’ll need money at the trade deadline, creative trade, Sandy Alcantra, question mark. Kratz, your thoughts? What’s the big deal? They got a starter that had a below a four RA. He came back from an injury, didn’t wasn’t as good. Like they have a one-year starter who was an all-star two years ago. Like I don’t see what the big deal is. And don’t get me started on the payroll stuff. Like the salary cap at 244 million for the Cubs to be hitting that. If you’re mad as a If you’re mad as a front office that you offered somebody $22 million and they accepted it, you need to only be mad at one person and they’re stunned that he accepted it. They’re stunned that he accepted $22 million when next year he could just go back for another one-year deal after that and not make not make near 22 million. I just I I have a hard time believing that this organization truly wants to win if if these comments are true. Yeah, I I would agree with you. Yeah, wholeheartedly. Uh it’s why it’s a qualifying offer. It’s decided by a player and all of a sudden you’re going to be mad at that player, especially a pretty good left-handed pitcher that I think most teams would want on their squad. I I I would go on the opposite side and say the other teams are a little upset if I if you want the truth. Um you know, he did have a little injury, but at the same token, this guy is a pretty good lefty when he’s on and that change up and everything’s working. He’s a dominant pitcher and he’s pretty good. He’s not going to overpower you as we already know. But yeah, there I mean, why are you going to start a relationship off like that or start the new year for baseball terms off? Man, we’re pretty upset that he took the offer. What is going on here, bro? Don’t people want to win? That That’s where I get confused. And I’m actually pretty sure that with a qualifying offer, you can’t trade the player right off the jump. There’s a deadline that’s built in there. I believe that it’s June where you can’t trade the player until a certain date. I learned that recently and maybe I saw bad info, but I’m pretty sure I’m right on that. Let me add to the table here. First off, Kratz, I’m going to disagree with you. I think the Cubs do want to compete and contend and all of that, right? This isn’t a bottom of the barrel payroll. I think what you mean is their revenue to their payroll is not measured, right? It’s probably a top five team in terms of how much they pull in. They operate more in the mid-market range in terms of what they bring in talent-wise with their payroll. I mean, this was a team that made the playoffs last year, took the Brewers to the brink, and fell short. Should they be doing more? Should they be the big bad NL Central spenders? No doubt. And they’ve built up to get to this point. They’ve done a nice job or a better job of building pitching. That was actually a weak point for Theo and Hoyer during that run and I think they’ve gotten better in that department. Kate Horton I think is a prime example. They used to just buy pitching. If they don’t want to buy pitching as much, you got to develop it. I think they’ve done that better. They will still spend on pitching. I’m not backing them, okay? I want I want to be clear like they definitely should be operating more towards the high twos if not 300 and they could buy the whole freaking free agent crop if they wanted to. But if they’re playing in this game, right, and they’re going to spend probably, is my guess between 30 and 50 mil tops on free agents, I’m talking on what they’re going to make in 2026, then we can refer to Patrick Mooney, who writes for the Athletic and is on our great Northside Territory show. He said they’ve already been linked to several pitchers who rejected qualifying offers. Notable names such as Framber Valdez, Dylan Cece, Michael King, Ranger Suarez, and Zack Allen. Yeah, I I would agree with you. I I mean, what what I said was definitely more in line with what you said. They should be the juggernaut of the NL Central because those other teams have some spending issues. The Cubs do not. And when I say they’re choosing to not, I should have elaborated and said they’re choosing to not be a behemoth in NL Central. They’re saying, “Well, you know what? I’m about to run a race, a hundred yard dash, and the other people I’m running against aren’t that fast. So, I’m just not going to try that hard. But they keep getting passed up. They keep getting passed up. And I think if you truly own the Cubs to win year in and year out, I think it is something that they need to go over the salary cap. They need because they easily can because they’re bringing in tons of money. It’s the same thing we say all the time about the Cubs. But I think their spending should not be thwarted. It should not be curbed just because Shota added more depth to your to your rotation. Your organization needs six or seven solid pitchers. And it’s okay if they go after a Framber. It’s okay if they give a longer term deal to a Zack Allen. I think it brings it brings extra excitement to the NL Central when the big boys the big boy in NL Central spends its money and I think it makes everybody else in NL Central spend a little bit of money to keep up because right now why would the Brewers say, “Hey, you know what? We’re going to push in because the Cubs are really loading up.” No, they loaded up with Kyle Tucker for one year. To me, I thought that was really the jumping off point that the Cubs could have said, “Hey, we brought in Tucker. We’re now extending him.” And I was told and now I’ve been shown, nah, you know what? We’re not. We just wanted him for one year. Yeah, that that’s going to turn out to be a rental. And Todd Father pitching is going to be the focus for this team. So, here’s my thing. Going back to Immanaga, I mean, you’re not asking him to be your one coming up next year. He should be your three or your four, right? Presumably, they should land one of the names that I mentioned in terms of the A or B tier of free agent starting pitching, right? And then Kate Horton looked brilliant last year, especially in the second half as a rookie. He should slot in nicely in that rotation. Justin Steel is going to come back at some point this year. Matthew Boyd had a really nice season for them. Like there are some notable names in there. Tyion is a backend guy. They actually have some depth. They definitely need a guy that’s a playoff starter in my mind. So hopefully they set their sights on that. And then yeah, they’re probably going to still have to pick a bat. Kyle Tucker didn’t have his best year, but he still had a banger year and you’re losing him. Yeah. And he’s he could be looking, you know, from reading all the articles and, you know, talking with a couple, he can be looking for a big payday. I know he’s second half was nah, but this dude can hit. He can play, but you know, back to your point about pitching, I know a lot of teams that need pitching. And listen, when you have depth, that’s one thing. That’s that’s good. Okay, depth is good. You can put guys in here and there, but you need you need like a Freed. You need uh you know, one of those top dogs that is going to be there the whole time, you know, like uh you know, Dylan CE or you know, just a guy that’s like, “Ah, we got to face him again.” It’s not like, “All right, we got this guy.” Okay. Yeah, you could put in whomever you want. If you got depth, that’s good. But you need one or two dogs and Scott, they got to want to come to Chicago, too. So, you’re going to have to get spice everything up. So, I’m not saying it’s a bad city to play in, but you know, between a couple other cities, I don’t know what guys are going to do again. So, you put the offer, least you could do is put the offer out there to some guys, but they also have to say yes and come over. So, it’s it’s a tricky tricky side of the business that, you know, most don’t understand. We we have a resident Cubs fan in the FT chat many days, Mike G, who asks great questions and he’s dialed. First off, he said consensus on Twitter and more importantly among Cubs beat members is that this wasn’t a credible report. Okay. Um well, we’re bringing it up. And then he also brought up Shota’s numbers specifically with first inning issues. This is what I wanted to ask you guys. So Sha was awesome in 2024, really good still in 2025. This is Mike G writing. Second through eighth inning RRA 301. First inning RA 720. said seems something that can reasonably be fixed. There’s a lot of guys that have that. Yeah. The be some of the best pitchers some of the best pitchers their worst innings are the first innings. And I’m not saying he’s a sai young candidate or you know if he hadn’t had those first innings he would have been. But the first inning is when you get to some guys because then they settle in, they get in the rhythm of the game and it’s a lot tougher because you’re starting to feel your pitches out. Can that be changed? Obviously, he’s got to look at. To me, the more glaring thing with Shota was the home runs. All of a sudden, those balls that he was getting, the swings and misses or the popups to then be able to get the finish pitch were going out of the ballpark. To me, that’s the biggest thing. Does he did that lack of did that loss in velocity create a little bit less deception where guys were now squaring it up? because to me that’s the overall glaring whether it happens in the first inning like in the playoffs or if it happens partway through like it shows me he’s either not fully healthy or he’s going to have a consistent dip in velocity and you know he’s going to have to learn to be able to pitch to different locations because that velocity is not getting that swing and miss or foul tip on the heater that he wants. Mhm. And as to if the the report’s true or not, we’re never going to know. But I mean, we at least know that they didn’t love Shota enough to give him that club option that they had. And then, you know, Shota didn’t take on his lower player option. He took on this qualifying offer. So, we we’ll never know. I mean, we only only the owner really knows. Tom Ricketts.

Todd Frazier, Erik Kratz, and Scott Braun break down the Chicago Cubs offseason after a surprising report that the team was stunned Shota Imanaga accepted the qualifying offer. The crew debates what this means for Chicago’s spending plans, payroll strategy, and pursuit of top pitching targets like Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Ranger Suarez, and Zac Gallen. They also look at how Imanaga fits into the Cubs rotation alongside Justin Steele, Cade Horton, and the rest of their pitching depth. Plus they respond to Cubs fan reactions, evaluate the credibility of the report, and dive into Imanaga’s first inning struggles and home run issues. A full, honest, AJ-free discussion on where the Chicago Cubs stand heading into 2026.

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