{"id":567950,"date":"2026-02-12T10:04:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/567950\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:04:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:04:53","slug":"2026-chicago-cubs-player-profiles-shota-imanaga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/567950\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Chicago Cubs player profiles: Sh\u014dta Imanaga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In this edition, we look at the Cubs\u2019 Japanese southpaw.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=1025X1734621&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fplayer%2Fshota-imanaga-684007\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sh\u014dta Imanaga<\/a>, the \u2018throwing philosopher\u2019, has been with the Cubs for two interesting seasons now. It\u2019s impossible to say whether Sh\u014dta, the crafty lefty with fool-me stuff is going to start a given game, or if his alter ego \u2018Mike\u2019 will take the ball for as long as it stays in the park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Imanaga was an All-Star in that splendid rookie campaign, going 15-3, 2.91, allowing 1.4 HR\/9, with a strikeout an inning. in 2025, Mike took the ball far too often, and the erstwhile Ace went a thoroughly disappointing 9-8, 3.73, allowed 1.9 HR\/9 and struck out 7.3 men per nine-inning stint. The difference was solo homers, more or less. He threw less of them in 2025. 3.0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/i\/imanash01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bWAR<\/a>, 1.5 bWar, consecutive years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/shota-imanaga\/33829\/stats\/pitching\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">prediction systems<\/a> see him as even more average than that, with ERAs in the low 4s and win totals of 8 or 9. At that point, I can see the Cubs cutting their losses with Imanaga and just putting Jordan Wicks out there, since that\u2019s what you get from him and he\u2019s way cheaper. Or say Jaxon Wiggins is armed and ready. Something like that. Something Cub.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Might happen before the All-Star Game. You never know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">He\u2019s gonna be okay but I suspect he is going to wear a different uniform next year. He\u2019s 32 and has pitched a lot of innings. Mike is going to show up a few times. But good Sh\u014dta is very good indeed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The stats above are kind of misleading. I remember 2025 as much worse than that. I recall Mike had really bad timing, at least. He needs to pitch in a cavern. Sh\u014dta doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this edition, we look at the Cubs\u2019 Japanese southpaw. Sh\u014dta Imanaga, the \u2018throwing philosopher\u2019, has been with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,70392,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-567950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-player-profiles","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116057101007620545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567950","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=567950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}