[Rome] The Astros are in agreement with Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai on a three-year contract, source tells @TheAthletic. The deal maxes out at $63 million and contains opt outs after every season.

40 comments

  1. Obviously this isn’t an Astros subreddit, I was just surprised that the Cubs didn’t opt into doing this contract. I really don’t think it’s a case of the Ricketts being cheap here. This is very doable

  3. The Cubs are not interested in ANY EXPENSIVE free agent. They are only “bidding”, using this term extremely lightly, because they want to go to the fan base and say, “oh man, we missed again, but look we are making attempts to bring players in.” Cubs ownership does not care to put a winner on the field cuz they can make plenty of money by paying their players shit and selling out wrigley every day regardless.

  4. I have said this the last couple years. This team will never spend money like the big city organization they are. If that’s the case then play the kids. Milwaukee does it every year. Give our young guys opportunities to play. I want to see Wiggins up sooner than later. I want to see every young guy that has big league potential getting opportunities to help the club.

  5. It’s actually far worse than anyone ever expected. They are not going to sign anyone. Didn’t even resign Keller. It’s absolutely unreal. Not building off of last year is an offense that warrants being chased out.

  6. Cubs didn’t have 63 Million to add a pitcher but don’t worry, Ricketts knows you still have $15 for a beer, gotta break-even somehow

  7. I know it got hand waived away but I truly wonder how much not wanting to play with another Japanese star affected this signing.

    Obviously Jed and the team bungled and fumbled and yadda yadda yadda but I haven’t seen the Astros mentioned in the Imai sweepstakes at all. Hell I saw the White Sox in over them.

  9. That’s certainly a reasonable contract and I would not have been upset had it been the Cubs. That said, MLB teams apparently aren’t over the moon for this dude.

  10. Massive market team yet the cheap ass owners will never spend money to be a competitive top market team like they can be. 3rd largest metro behind LA and NY and we only sign shitty washed 30 year olds on bargain bin contracts.

  11. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Ricketts only bought the Cubs to develop real estate

  13. This certainly came out of nowhere. All the “insiders” saying it was down to the Yankees and Cubs but also the Phillies and even the White Sox were wrong.

  14. Love everyone in here blaming ownership when he literally said he didn’t want to play with other Japanese players. I’m starting to think people don’t realize we can’t just kidnap players and make them sign contracts

  15. The amount of people in this sub that consistently have melt downs when a player signs somewhere else as if you didn’t get a toy on Christmas is pathetic. You aren’t as smart as you think you are. Let the offseason play out for fucks sake.

  17. This could easily end up only a one year deal for Houston where if he’s good he leaves and chases the bag on a big long deal. Let’s be real if the Cubs signed him to this deal structure and he was good, he’d have only been here for 2026

  18. I’m almost more insulted that Jed couldn’t beat this than when he openly didn’t even bother trying with Yamamoto, since that might’ve been Tom telling him no.

    I really don’t see him giving up a draft pick for Framber, Gallen, or Suarez, so that leaves, what, Giolito? Bassitt? Martinez? A trade? The options to add an impact starting pitcher are fairly thin, now. Not gone, but thin.

  19. maybe we’ll get framber valdez, ranger suarez, zac gallen or zack littell. that plus a reliever like jalen beeks and im happy

  21. Fuck me.

    I can see this going the same way as the summer, where we basically don’t sign anyone of impact where we needed it.

  22. I dont know what anybody expected as soon as Shota took the QO we werent going to get a bigger FA for the rotation. Theyre clearly happy with where we are at in that department not saying theyre right but its thw truth.

  25. God forbid this team push the chips in fully when we’re competitive. Unreal amount of mid in this organization. Just frothing at the mouth to replace in the aggregate and cut payroll.

    ![gif](giphy|xFnM1NeZZtvvUlVV5E)

  27. Hey I saw a rumor we’re interested in signing Walker Buehler.

    Totally serious about competing. /s

  28. Hoyer won’t do 1 yr opt outs, and no team was willing to give this unknown pitcher the bag (which is what Boras wanted.) But we’re in win now mode, Hoyer needs to suck it up and do 1 yr opt outs. It wasn’t a crazy high #.

  30. Last year gave me a little bit of hope, but once again I will not give a shit about the cubs & give them no money or time until they prove they are serious about winning

  31. To me it’s not so much that the Cubs didn’t sign him as it is that he probably won’t be the TOR starter we all thought he was. There’s still a couple months left in the off-season, let’s wait until we see how it pans out before tar and feathering Jed. ( Or Ricketts, the owner who got us our first title in 108 years.)

  33. This clearly isn’t what people want to hear, because it’s a lot more fun to yell about the cubs being cheap, but this is clearly a reflection of how the league feels about Imai and less of a reflection on the cubs.

    The Cubs, Yankees, and Phillies ALL could have easily matched or exceeded this contract. This is exactly the kind of contract that the cubs tend to favor. The fact that none of the larger market teams took a competitive swing for either Murakami or Imai says much more about how front offices think they’ll translate to the MLB than it does about teams being cheap.

    Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki have skewed the ways that we view Japanese prospects. These teams are modeling Imai’s pitches and Murakami’s swings in ways that go so far beyond what anyone on Reddit could scout.

    Now if the Cubs don’t add any legitimate starting pitching, we can all bitch about that at the end of the offseason. The reality here is that the league doesn’t believe in these players, so we probably shouldn’t make overarching conclusions about the offseason based on one middle of the road signing

  34. Imai may not have wanted to play in the cold weather. The fact he chose a dome, sheltered environment appears to confirm consistent warm & dry temperatures.

  36. Damn. McCaskey really is the best sports team owner in Chicago. Never thought that day would come but sadly it has

  37. I’ll just go ahead and delete marquee app off my tv, because I will not spend a dime watching the group they plan to put on the field at this point

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