Article: NEWS: Cubs Sign Starting Pitcher Shota Imanaga

[Matthew Trueblood]

Jed Hoyer's long winter's nap is over. He's up, and the team now has another left-handed starter to pair with their incumbent ace atop the rotation.

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

Shortly before the end of his posting window, Shota Imanaga has agreed to a deal to join the Cubs and help lead their rotation. Imanaga, 30, is not big or hard-throwing by modern standards, but he has good strikeout stuff and has been one of the best pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball for the last half-decade. USA Today's Bob Nightengale reported it first.

This is a great way for the team to escape their winter doldrums. Imanaga is not a perfect pitcher. He'll run into some trouble with home runs, and he'll need to tweak his approach to adapt to MLB hitters and their superior power. There are also some lingering whispers about his shoulder, which kept his price tag south of the nine-figure megadeal he and his representation envisioned when the posting period began. Still, he's a terrific second starter in the short term, alongside Justin Steele and (the Cubs will hope) half a step ahead of Jameson Taillon and Kyle Hendricks, among others.

We've broken it down a bit in the past, but let's pause to use some TruMedia tools to examine his arsenal in greater depth. Imanaga has a high-spin, high-riding fastball and a splitter on which he kills spin gorgeously, and which doesn't involve much of a change in spin axis. It can be devastating.

As most Japanese starters do, Imanaga also maintains a deep arsenal beyond the fastball-splitter pairing. He merely tinkers with a sinker and cutter, but he has both a sweepy slider and a curveball, which let him change speeds, eye levels, and looks to continue racking up whiffs when hitters try to sit on the heat and the splitter.

Without question, he'll be a fly-ball pitcher, and that could lead to some inflated home-run totals as he comes Stateside. Health is the other major question mark. He's come in just shy of 160 innings in each of the last two seasons, and now there's a tangible reason to believe that his arm might need ongoing maintenance. Still, he's a material upgrade for a rotation that badly needed one, and gives the Cubs more options (just as he removes some of Cubs fans' agita) for the balance of the offseason.

For now, maintain a soupçon of caution. The deal won't be official until a physical scheduled for tomorrow, and there are some concerns in that realm that could still nullify the arrangement. The Cubs have already done some due diligence on that front, though, and it's unlikely that the final examination will result in a derailment.

UPDATE: Jon Morosi says the deal will have an AAV in the $15-million range. That tracks, especially given the late changes in his market, but underscores the potential upside of this deal. If Imanaga is even a steady fourth starter in the vein of (pre-2023) Taillon, he's well worth $15 million per year, and this deal will not stretch to five guaranteed years. If his stuff plays the way the Cubs hope, he's a bargain, and crucially, the deal only costs them cash. The posting fee doesn't count against their competitive-balance tax payroll calculation, and they don't lose a draft pick. These are ancillary but important reasons why the fit here is so good.

How does this move work for you, as a first strike of the offseason? Are you excited about Imanaga, or worried about how his game will translate to MLB?

 

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[Bertz]

I'm really excited for this move.  I've been stumping for Imanaga and/or Glasnow basically all offseason.  And if you had told me Imanaga was only going to get $15M per year I would have been that much more obnoxious about it.  I'll also mention for like the 18th time that the projection systems actually think he's better than Yamamoto on a per-inning basis.

The lack of groundballs and the resulting dongs are going to keep him from being elite, but he throws A TON of strikes and misses A TON of bats.  Unless you're giving up a Lance Lynn-esque number of homers that's still going to lead to strong production. 

It also sounds like there might be some low-hanging fruit from a pitch design standpoint.  I'm hoping that lack of familiarity gives him a strong 1st half season, and they can make whatever repertoire tweaks to keep the ball in the park in time for his second go around the league.

[CubbyBlue2008]

17 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I'm really excited for this move.  I've been stumping for Imanaga and/or Glasnow basically all offseason.  And if you had told me Imanaga was only going to get $15M per year I would have been that much more obnoxious about it.  I'll also mention for like the 18th time that the projection systems actually think he's better than Yamamoto on a per-inning basis.

The lack of groundballs and the resulting dongs are going to keep him from being elite, but he throws A TON of strikes and misses A TON of bats.  Unless you're giving up a Lance Lynn-esque number of homers that's still going to lead to strong production. 

It also sounds like there might be some low-hanging fruit from a pitch design standpoint.  I'm hoping that lack of familiarity gives him a strong 1st half season, and they can make whatever repertoire tweaks to keep the ball in the park in time for his second go around the league.

I’ve read the Cubs feel confident they can tweak his pitch mix and fastball placement to get the home run rate down.