LAS VEGAS — As Major League Baseball’s general manager meetings got underway Tuesday at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said he isn’t closing the door on left-hander Shota Imanaga returning next season.

That could come in the form of Imanaga accepting the Cubs’ $22.025 million qualifying offer or the two sides negotiating a new multi-year deal after the team declined his three-year, $57 million club option. Imanaga, who subsequently turned down his $15 million player option for 2026, has until Nov. 18 to choose whether to take the qualifying offer.

“He was amazing for us as a pitcher, as a teammate, and I don’t want to close that door completely by any stretch,” Hoyer said Tuesday. “But ultimately we didn’t think that the club option was the right value, he didn’t think that the player option was the right value, and that happens.

“Clearly we made him a qualifying offer, and there’s nothing that prohibits us from still talking to him, so I don’t want to close that door.”

Regardless of Imanaga’s future with the Cubs, Hoyer made clear the organization will prioritize pitching this offseason.

How much money Hoyer and his department will have to work with to improve a 92-win roster — and how that compares to their 2025 payroll — isn’t fully clear. Hoyer said Tuesday the Cubs have had meetings and made some progress on their 2026 baseball operations budget. They aren’t at the final number yet, “but I’ve got a good sense of where we’ll be.” Hoyer wouldn’t reveal whether that figure will be in a similar range to the past.

The Cubs’ Collective Balance Tax payroll for 2025 came in around $230.8 million, according to Cot’s Contracts, which was roughly $11 million under the CBT threshold and ranked 11th in the majors.

“I think we’re going to have an active offseason — take that for what it’s worth,” Hoyer said. “A look at our depth chart, I think we’re in pretty good position on the position player side. On the pitching side, we’re thinner, and so I think that’s going to be our focus.

“I expect to explore trades. I expect to explore free agency, both at the top of the market, but then also looking at minor-league free agency.”

The biggest unknown on the offensive side is what the Cubs will do to try to replace Kyle Tucker’s presence in the lineup. Although the Cubs won’t outright say he won’t be back, the long-term big contract Tucker is expected to land in free agency rules out a return to Chicago. The Cubs are prepared to consider their internal options to fill that spot.

“Certainly we can look to get better offensively, but I feel like from an offensive standpoint, we could kind of play a game tomorrow if we needed to, we have players at every position, whether you move Seiya (Suzuki) back in the outfield, we have all those spots,” Hoyer said. “And so will we look to move things around, will we look to add? Of course, but the level of urgency is not nearly as high as on the pitching side.

“We’ll look at a lot of different angles offensively. We can get better. We should try to get better. But if the status quo is in a pretty good position, I think pitching-wise we need to make additions.”

Asked if re-signing Tucker will be a priority for the Cubs, Hoyer said, “He’s a great player. I think we had a really good experience with him and obviously we’ll be talking to (his agent).”

Part of the Cubs’ pitching focus will be essentially building a new bullpen.

Among the go-to high-leverage options used by manager Craig Counsell this year, only Daniel Palencia returns. Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz and Caleb Thielbar are free agents, while Andrew Kittredge was traded back to the Baltimore Orioles. Hoyer described the decision to move Kittredge rather than pick up his $9 million club option or pay the $1 million buyout a “close call” and pointed to the timing of that decision as playing a role in not bringing him back.

“Doing that decision then versus potentially later on in the offseason … you save the buyout by trading him back there and then now we could redeploy that money elsewhere,” Hoyer said. “Andrew was great for us, really impressive. I mean, he came in after the deadline. It’s hard to do that, and he hit the ground running and got so many big outs for us.”

The GM meetings continue through Thursday.