{"id":502381,"date":"2026-01-02T04:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T04:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/502381\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T04:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T04:12:14","slug":"baseball-right-hander-imai-agrees-to-3-yr-deal-with-astros-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/502381\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball: Right-hander Imai agrees to 3-yr deal with Astros: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThis supplied photo shows Tatsuya Imai of the Seibu Lions. (Kyodo) <\/p>\n


\n NEW YORK (Kyodo) — Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai has agreed to a three-year, $54 million deal with the Houston Astros, MLB.com reported Thursday citing a source. \n<\/p>\n


\n The 27-year-old joined the Lions in 2017 out of high school as their top draft pick and posted double-digit wins for the past three seasons, leading the Pacific League with 187 strikeouts in 2024. \n<\/p>\n


\n Imai could earn $3 million in incentives if he throws 100 innings in 2026, which would also trigger his base salary to be raised to $21 million in the following two years, the report said. \n<\/p>\n


\n He had longer-term deals with lower average annual values from other clubs but chose the Astros on the shorter-term, higher-AAV deal with opt-outs, it added. \n<\/p>\n


\n Imai posted a 10-5 record in 2025 with the Lions, with his 1.92 ERA and 178 strikeouts ranking among the PL’s best in both categories. He went 58-45 with a 3.15 ERA and 907 strikeouts over 963-2\/3 innings in Nippon Professional Baseball. \n<\/p>\n


\n An NPB player can move to the majors either as a free agent or posted player, in which his NPB club receives a release fee from his new MLB team based on the contract amount. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This supplied photo shows Tatsuya Imai of the Seibu Lions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2372,2370,2353,2352,185,2371],"class_list":["post-502381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-npb","tag-baseball","tag-japan","tag-latest-articles","tag-nippon-professional-baseball","tag-npb","tag-sports","tag-the-mainichi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115823558317075936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502381","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=502381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}