[WSJ] The Yankees, Cubs, and Phillies are among suitors for Tatsuya Imai, with meetings in America expected to begin as soon as this week.
[WSJ] The Yankees, Cubs, and Phillies are among suitors for Tatsuya Imai, with meetings in America expected to begin as soon as this week.
11 comments
Please god
Just meeting with his backup schools before signing with the Dodgers
When are we gonna see the “the cubs found the market for Imai too steep and backed out” tweet next?
Or the “Cubs offered the second most amount of money” tweet? That’s a good one too.
The Cubs are probably in a good spot with Imai, at least, as good as one can hope. The Dodgers don’t seem to be in on the top of the SP pitching group, and the Cubs have a need. There are some more recent studies (Chris Langolin, formerly of Driveline had a great article about Imai) showcasing just how good he is and can be as we project him to MLB.
My hope is they can win this one and that Hoyer decides he’s the guy. The Cubs have gone 7 years with Swanson and aging curves on pitching right now (even with the concerns of TJS) are better than hitters.
Do the thing Yu Darvish
Just based on our budget level under the CBT we should be able to easily outbid these teams. Just comes down to how stingy Jed and co want to be.
Old Scrooge ricketts needs to make this happen. We need another top of the rotation SP going into 2026. We have what, $40m of payroll flexibility. That means we have 1 big stud player we can sign. In my opinion, Imai is the guy to get. It ricketts was a real owner we would have signed the quadfecta of cease, Imai, Tucker and bregman, but tom needs to sell the team to someone who cares about winning for that to ever happen.
If there’s any bidding war the Cubs should try to get into and win, I think it’s this one. Imai’s stuff projects to translate really well and he’s a relatively young right handed top of the rotation talent with a lot of strikeout potential that will help the Cubs keep a foothold in the Japanese market when they eventually transition away from Shota and Seiya.
Imai has said something to effect of him not needing fellow Japanese players on the team for him to succeed and if that’s really a sticking point for him, then Jed and co need to sell him on the infrastructure that they’ve built out with Shota and Seiya and convince him that he’s the new star that can shine as the Cubs will make their way towards the end of the Shota/Seiya era at some point during Imai’s contract
If a team other than the Cubs is interested, it’s likely not happening.
The Hawks game tactic might not work as well as it did on Shota with Bedard out. Take him to a Bears game instead
The Dodgers run out of deferred contracts?