{"id":502286,"date":"2026-01-02T02:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/502286\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:10:15","slug":"japanese-star-tatsuya-imai-makes-mlb-decision-report-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/502286\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Star Tatsuya Imai Makes MLB Decision: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/content\/2025-01-17-japanese-phenom-roki-sasaki-makes-mlb-free-agency-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Japanese pitcher<\/a> Tatsuya Imai has reportedly agreed to a three-year contract with the Houston Astros, sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/47472235\/tatsuya-imai-deal-astros-worth-60m-sources-say\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ESPN<\/a>&#8216;s Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers on Thursday (January 1).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Star Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai and the Houston Astros are in agreement on a free agent contract, sources tell ESPN,&#8221; Passan wrote on his X account.<\/p>\n<p>Imai&#8217;s contract will include an opt-out clause for every year of the deal and will be third-largest for a Japanese pitcher behind only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/content\/2025-11-01-los-angeles-dodgers-win-back-to-back-world-series-championships\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>&#8216;s 12-year, $325 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers signed in 2024 and Masahiro Tanaka&#8217;s seven-year, $155 million deal to join the New York Yankees in 2014, according to Rogers. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tatsuya Imai&#8217;s deal with Houston is for 3 years with opt outs every year, sources tell ESPN. When terms are announced, it&#8217;ll be the largest AAV for a Japanese pitcher coming over outside of Yamamoto and Masahiro Tanaka in 2014,&#8221; Rogers wrote on his X account.<\/p>\n<p>Imai, 27, entered the posting system in November and his agent quickly compared him to Yamamoto, the 2025 World Series MVP, during the MLB general managers meetings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Certainly, he&#8217;s done everything Yamamoto&#8217;s done,&#8221; Boras said via ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>Imai went 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA and 178 strikeouts to 45 walks in 163.6 innings for the Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan, which included eight innings of a combined no-hitter against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in April, as well as recording 17 strikeouts against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in June, breaking eventual former MLB pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka&#8217;s single-game Lions franchise record of 16 set in 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Imai has reportedly agreed to a three-year contract with the Houston Astros, sources with knowledge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,350,2372,17239,5924,20020,19,4,65290,2353,2352,27577,4658,313],"class_list":["post-502286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-baseball","tag-free-agent","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-jeff-passan","tag-jesse-rogers","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-nippon-baseball-league","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb","tag-sources","tag-tatsuya-imai","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115823078517139030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}