A Golden Opportunity for the Blue Jays — Quietly Moving In on a Japanese Ace?

A Golden Opportunity for the Blue Jays — Quietly Moving In on a Japanese Ace?

Hello everybody and welcome into Blue Jays today where we always have something to say about the Toronto Blue Jays. Coming to you from the sports interaction studio, I’m your host Nicholas Ple and I’m your host Adam Pedal and the Blue Jays have got a golden opportunity to dip into the Japanese market and specifically with Tetsia Ei. There’s some reports out there that that man could be looking for a team other than the LA Dodgers. And in fact, he said he would like to beat the LA Dodgers. And as well, there’s some pretty fun and interesting reports going on with some special advertising by the Blue Jays in Japan. Before we get into it though, make sure to hit that like button and smash that subscribe button. Also, hit that hype button if you are able to. Let’s immediately get over to the report right here. This is, you know, quoted by Johnboy Media, but this came out uh via TV as shy. This one comes out here and says, this is uh Emi coming out and saying I want to take them down. Talking about the LA Dodgers. Playing together with players like Otani, Yamamoto, Suzaki, and others. Of course, it sounds fun, but beating them, beating a team like that and becoming world champions would be the most valuable thing in my life, which is obviously u you know contradictory to what we used to believe where, oh, all these players want to just go over to play in the West Coast, especially with the Dodgers. It’s nice to see somebody actually wants to take down those Dodgers for once. Sure, man. I mean, like he’s right. You know, if you are, let’s say you are a Japanese player and you’re talking about right now, first off, the the greatest player of all time ever in Choani and obviously that makes him the greatest Japanese player of all time, too, right? So, you got him, you got Yamamoto, who is a budding star and could be in there in that conversation as well when it’s all said and done. and Sasaki, who we know is also going to be in that conversation in a few years time. If you could be the one guy from Japan to go and beat all those guys, hell, I mean, like, that’s one hell of a story right there, right? And the accolade that you’d have for doing that. It’s almost like, you know, an additional World Series just on top of all of that. So, I get where he’s coming from. I was obviously thinking that it’d be a lot easier for him if he just said, you know what, let’s join him because we’re probably going to win a shitload together. And I’m sure that the LA Dodgers would love to add somebody else to their roster from Japan who is very talented like Tatia. But hey, if you don’t want to join them and you do really want to beat them, I would argue that the best chance of doing so would be the Toronto Blue Jays because we were only two outs away from beating them. That’s right. Right. Obviously, uh maybe ourselves and I hope other third parties kind of look at the Blue Jays. It’s like, well, what team could beat the Dodgers in the World Series? Well, you know, the Toronto Blue Jays, an American League team that could be facing them in the World Series, right? And here’s another interesting tidbit from Emi. He came out and said that he would not only prefer to beat the Dodgers, he said that in that last quote, but he would prefer to be on a team without a Japanese player on it. And this is a this isn’t the first time a Sorry. Ryan Garcia says, “Two comments that bode very well for me.” That’s a joke because you have to beat the Dodgers first. All right, you’re forgetting about 0.1. I know that we lost too, but still we made a we a hell of a lot closer than you did. To his credit though, Yankees don’t have a Japanese player on it. That’s it. You know, they don’t. And they are a big, you know, market team and they’re very, you know, popular and whatnot and known around the world. But also the Toronto Blue Jays, you know, they went to the World Series last year. They were there on the national stage. Like, let’s not forget like, you know, over in Japan, they were watching the World Series as well because of, you know, all the great players over there on the Dodgers. But they got to see what the Blue Jays were all about. And Emi, if he wants to beat the Dodgers and he was watching that, well, you know, the Toronto Blue Jays don’t have a Japanese player on it. So, he would immediately become the star from Japan on representing the Toronto Blue Jays. Sure. Yeah. I mean, and I think that the arguments that Ryan is here trying to make for the Yankees, which I don’t necessarily agree with. Uh, but you could definitely make those arguments, I think, even stronger for the Toronto Blue Jays. Now, Tatsia, if you’re not familiar with his game, he is very good at baseball, or at least has been over there in the NPB. The most recent season that he had, 2025, guy had an RA of 1.95 and a whip under.9. That is phenomenal. Now, obviously, it’s a slightly different caliber of play over there, but the NPB is getting a lot closer to the to the caliber of MLB, right? like, you know, the the worst NPB guy isn’t horrendously far off, I think, from the worst MLB guy. It is still a step up, and there is obviously still a a big transition there, but hell, you watch Japan beat the United States of America in the most recent World Baseball Classic. So, the caliber over there is really good. And when you see somebody have an erra under two and a whip under.9, there is obviously something to that. Yeah, absolutely. Right. and Emi, you know, very similar age for to Yamamoto when he came over here or when he’s going to come over here initially. And when I look over at Yamamoto when he first left um, you know, Japan and the MPB back in 2023, he had an RA of 1.2 or 1.21. It was very, very good. But, you know, you could see that, you know, after a couple seasons after getting acclimated to the big leagues, that RA last year sat at 2.49. So, you can you can kind of, you know, chalk it up like one to one and a half year plus. um you know in addition to what they were doing in Japan obviously it’s not um you know exact for everybody but if you look at I’s case that’s a quality pitcher coming over here. Sure. Yeah. And I know it it doesn’t it doesn’t just equate like that. Obviously there’s a lot of variables in there but people are referring to Tatia as being a number two or number three in the rotation. Keep in mind this is all speculation. God only knows what happens, right? He comes over here. Maybe he just never has it. That’s possible. or potentially like he just blossoms and he and he’s really really good. We had Bob Nightingale on here and he was he was careful with his words but he was saying he reminds me a lot of Yamamoto and could be like Yamamoto. Said he’s not Yamamoto but could be. Right. So there’s certainly a lot of upside there with somebody like Tatia. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re going to have to pay him, you know, a lot of money and you’re not going to pay him Yamamona money because of what you’re just saying right there, but you are going to have to pay him a decent amount of money. A lot of people projecting Emi as a six-year $150 million deal. And when you look over at last year’s free agent market and comparing him to some other pitchers, like that’s not too far off from what Max Freed got. So you’re paying him to be a top of the rotation established guy. And you know, rightfully so. The stuff does prove it. And one of the concerns was this guy was going to be walking a lot of dudes. Well, he actually has improved upon that a lot. Yeah. I I don’t understand that criticism at all. You have a whip under.9. Yeah, like in his in his entire, you know, career in the MPB, he had a 4.4 walks per nine, but the last two years it’s dropped down from 3.6 and then last year to 2.5. Now, with all that being said, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but we do know one thing. The Blue Jays, apparently, it looks like they might be influencing the market over there in Japan. Now, we don’t know exactly who was behind this. I don’t I think you said to me before this, it wasn’t the Toronto Blue J. So, here’s here’s the the story here, right? There was a big big boxing match in Japan, uh, right? And in the corners of the boxing ring and and throughout the entire I guess area, stadium, whatever that was on TV, you saw the Blue Jays logo all over the place, right? So, we got some pictures right here. You can see it on the ground, right? And then and then you can see it uh, you know, in in the corner right there, the entire thing. You got the name, you got the logo, you got everything right there. That’s crazy. And and some people on social media were commenting on this and saying that this this is really cool, right? because we are now trying to integrate that market. Now, it came out afterwards. This is actually unpaid advertisement. So, the Toronto Blue Jays did not pay for this. I assume that they had to, you know, okay it obviously. I assume that, you know, the the the owners or the creators of this this boxing match or whoever organized this would have had to go to the Blue Jays representatives, get their okay, and I think that the Jays were aware of this. But, it’s good to hear that, you know, we’re getting our logo out there. We’re getting our name out there. I certainly don’t see a Cincinnati Reds or a Chicago White Sox logo in there and I doubt that there is any. Right. We want to enter that market. Well, I think it’s very very cool the Japanese uh culture over there where it’s like baseball’s massive, right? And they’ve been following the Dodgers and then you’re seeing this new emerging storyline of the Toronto Blue Jays and the way they play baseball and it’s very tantalizing and it’s like, okay, well now that’s adding to the story. It’s adding to what is, you know, the the lore of, you know, Otani’s run over there in in LA, you know, Yamamoto and whatnot. Now you’re seeing the uh, you know, the Toronto Blue Jays get a little bit of that light and they got exposed to that and now maybe you’re creating a lot more fans over there in that market and a lot more influence because, right, if someone just approached the Blue Jays, said, “Hey, we want to put your logo on our ring.” They didn’t have to do that. It’s because they wanted to do that. So that’s just showing the influence starting to change a little bit for the Toronto Blue Jays over in Japan. Exactly. And yeah, we are stretching a little bit on this. I mean, it was one big boxy match and it, you know, but but it is right. It’s nice to see the Toronto Blue Jays try to integrate into that market more and and maybe even a little bit better the fact that they weren’t even the ones that actively, you know, started that whole integration that, you know, it was other individuals organizing that boxing match coming to the Jays and going, “Hey, we watched you in the World Series. We kind of want to get your logo out here.” Instead of the LA Dodgers, which obviously would have been a pretty easy fit right there. Point being, Toronto’s always been rumored to be in on all of these Japanese stars. And right now, you know, rather than it just be the obvious LA Dodgers, Tati is saying all the right things coming out here and having all the right numbers that he would be a good fit for the Toronto Blue Jays. So, I guess I’d ask you this then. Would you be okay with Tatia being the pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays this off season? Oh yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, again, like you mentioned, he could have upside of Yamamoto, and that’s kind of what I want. And if I want to turn over this rotation, I’m looking at a guy who’s going to be entering his prime very, very soon. Not a guy that’s already kind of halfway through his prime, 30 years old, 27 years old. Like, he will be entering his prime. So, abso freakingutely, if you know, it doesn’t pan out. We got another offseason to worry about that. I would absolutely like that because when we look over at the Blue Jays roster, you can see that like I mentioned before, we’re pretty much almost there in terms of completing the rotation. We just need to add one more guy. If you had a rotation of Kevin Gosman, Shane Bieber, I would consider as like a top three, then Treya Savage, and then throw in Tatsuya, that’s awesome. I would absolutely love that. And then Jose Burroughs being the five or Eric Lauer being the five. That’s complete for me. So, yes, I would absolutely be comfortable. I’m assuming you’d be the same way. Yeah. Uh the way that I look at it is is EA is certainly uh or EI, excuse me, is certainly not as sure of a thing as Ranger Suarez, right? He he’s just he’s just not as sure of a thing as Dylan CE or Ranger Suarez or Fambo Valdez or anything like that. But you might argue that he’s got the exact same upside, if not even higher considering he’s younger than those guys. I like the idea of getting a young starting pitcher right here and kind of turning him into a bit of a project, but a very tantalizing project at that. And if he does want to blossom into the number two in that rotation, that’s totally cool. But I do think that he’s got even upside higher than that. So sure, I am more than happy with the Toronto Blue Jays want to throw that dart right there. I would still need to see them go ahead and get an offensive player as well. You bring in Tatsi on the pitching, then you bring back Bob Bashed and we are rocking and we are rolling. Absolutely. Guys, let us know your thoughts in the comments down below about everything we talked about this in regards to Emi and as well as the sponsorship over there for the box ring. That was just honestly freaking awesome to see the Blue Jays logo being integrated into that matchup. But let us know your thoughts in the comments down below. Hit that like, smash that subscribe button. $4 a month to become a YouTube member. Shout out to thank you to all of our current YouTube members. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for watching everybody. And as always, go.

The Blue Jays have been all over the Japanese Market this winter, and the latest report coming out from Tatsuya Imai’s camp is that he doesn’t want to play for the Dodgers, in fact, he wants to beat them. With other reports as well leading experts to believe Blue Jays could be a realistic possibility. Do they Blue Jays have a chance? And would you be satisfied if Imai was the lone starter the Blue Jays acquired this winter? Let’s discuss right here on Blue Jays Today!

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