MESA, Ariz. \u2014 There was a real possibility Shota Imanaga\u2019s last moments in a Chicago Cubs uniform would be one of heartbreak.<\/p>\n
Imanaga had to watch the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 victory celebration from the bullpen at American Family Field, the season ending without getting a chance to pitch in the decisive Game 5 of the National League Division Series. His complicated contract situation added a layer of uncertainty over the offseason. Imanaga, affected by a left hamstring strain that cost him seven weeks during the regular season and left his mechanics out of whack, was not guaranteed to be back and have a chance to redeem a bad NLDS Game 2 start.<\/p>\n
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Everything ultimately worked out for both sides when Imanaga accepted the Cubs\u2019 qualifying offer rather than rejecting it to seek a multiyear contract with another major league team. He begins spring training with a clear vision of what must change this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t really much uneasiness,\u201d Imanaga said Thursday of his offseason through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. \u201cI was focused on, OK, what do I need to do, what I need to practice, and then just focusing on that. \u2026 I felt like I made the best choice talking with my agent, obviously with a one-year contract versus a multiyear for me, you\u2019ve got to look at it one year at a time and doing what you can for the team and doing your best each year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cubs are thrilled Imanaga is back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited for Shota to have an outstanding season,\u201d manager Craig Counsell said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to respond to the things that happened at the end of the year, and he wasn\u2019t happy with how he pitched. That\u2019s what great competitors do, they respond to things like that. And he will absolutely respond, I\u2019m very confident in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Imanaga\u2019s determination to put an inconsistent 2025 season behind him has the 32-year-old prioritizing staying around the team for spring training rather than again competing in the World Baseball Classic. Team Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata said through an interpreter in December that he would be \u201cobviously disappointed\u201d if Imanaga opted out of pitching for his country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking to everybody around me, getting everybody\u2019s opinion, we thought that making your own adjustments, practicing here in Arizona probably for the best,\u201d Imanaga said of his decision.<\/p>\n
How Imanaga and the Cubs get him looking more like the version that posted a 2.91 ERA over 173 1\/3 innings in 29 starts during his debut season in 2024 has been a focal point the last few months. The Cubs believe Imanaga wasn\u2019t far off during the second half from recapturing the type of command and effectiveness he displayed the season prior, but those minor tweaks became different to harness while also being in compete mode each time he took the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted more, he thinks there\u2019s more in there, there\u2019s more to prove, and you can tell by the way he\u2019s coming to spring training that he feels that way,\u201d pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said, \u201cbecause he\u2019s in such a great place from where he was at the end of the year last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Imanaga spent the offseason rebuilding his lower-body strength, which had never fully returned following the hamstring injury he suffered in early May. Good command typically comes from consistent pitch shapes, which can be affected by lower-body ailments, Hottovy noted. So when Imanaga didn\u2019t have the fastball shape he wanted during the second half, he kept searching for it. That required altering delivery cues and his sight lines, and the adjustment didn\u2019t happen quickly.<\/p>\n
The injury affected Imanaga\u2019s drive leg in his delivery, creating lack of stability and even trust in his movements.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might sit a little deeper because you don\u2019t want to overextend the hamstring and it actually might look like you\u2019re creating more force, but in reality, you\u2019re creating it to get out of it faster instead of holding it down the mound,\u201d Hottovy explained. \u201cAnd I think for him, his delivery does have a lot of depth in terms of how he gets in his back leg, but his strength comes from holding that position and then rotating hard late.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was having to affect how he was rotating, which was then affecting how his arm path was, and he knew he was trying to get his arm path up a little bit and a slightly higher arm-release point, but he just couldn\u2019t do it, and he couldn\u2019t figure out why he wasn\u2019t able to support his trunk that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
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With an offseason of work to correct those issues behind him, Imanaga\u2019s next step during camp is honing his pitch mix with a three-pronged approach: refining his sweeper, tweaking his sinker grip and reintegrating the cutter into his pitch mix.<\/p>\n
The lefty\u2019s sweeper took a step forward last year, and the Cubs want to see that pitch take the next step of its iteration this year: maintaining that pitch shape but now within his natural delivery and arm path versus the manipulated version in 2025. Hottovy also wants Imanaga to utilize his curveball more. Curveballs accounted for just 2% of his pitch usage last season, but two of the three that were put in play resulted in a hit. Hottovy envisions the pitch helping Imanaga\u2019s fastball-splitter combination to right-handed hitters. Adjusting his sinker grip will help Imanaga add velocity to the pitch. And in bringing back Imanaga\u2019s cutter, which had been de-emphasized after coming over from Japan, the Cubs want to figure out how to best deploy it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s opening up the arsenal quite a bit,\u201d Hottovy said. \u201cWhat that means, though, for him is still making sure we get the heater-split dialed in, the sweeper off that arm path and then just kind of open up the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imanaga is determined to keep his attention on this season. He isn\u2019t worried about trying to recapture his old self.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI feel like there\u2019s times where if you\u2019re chasing a specific version of you from a different year, you can go into a downward spiral,\u201d Imanaga said. \u201cSo instead of focusing on what I had in the past, I\u2019m focused on trying to be a better version of what I am right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MESA, Ariz. \u2014 There was a real possibility Shota Imanaga\u2019s last moments in a Chicago Cubs uniform would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[146,145,5,24,59,4,770,151,6961],"class_list":{"0":"post-571520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arsenal","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-shota-imanaga","15":"tag-spring-training","16":"tag-tommy-hottovy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116067069233366592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571520","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=571520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}