Cubs Decline Option, Shota Imanaga Is Now A Free Agent

[Rcal10]

54 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Pitcher homeruns are by far the flukiest thing in baseball.  Like in Taillon’s three seasons here he's had two separate half-season long stretches of giving up dong after dong.  He's come out fine on the other end both times.

Shota is probably more Jameson Taillon at this point than 2024 Shota, and it's fair to be disappointed in that, but it's totally worth paying 1/$22M for that.

Unless the Cubs plan is to not have any long term contracts on the books after this year I don’t see why it is a good idea to have offered Imanaga $22M. They could have used that money plus the money they didn’t spend on Kittredge and signed a TOR starter instead of Shota. Which is why I fear the Cubs are not going to do anything that will give them a players who has 3 or more years left on a contract. Which really narrows the FA buying and even the trade market a little. In a vacuum signing Shota for a year at $22M is fine, decent pitcher and great teammate. Maybe he did have physical issues the last half of the year that caused him to pitch poorly. Sure, $22M is too much, but not crazy, if he gets back to 24’ production.  No such thing as a bad 1 year deal. But giving him that money with what we all know is a limited budget does concern me regarding their plans. Guess we will see how it works out.🤷 But I am not expecting any big moves that would come with a guy having 3 years or more on a contract without options. I think this offers shows the Cubs hand. 

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

I am sure people will tell me I am reading too much into this, but I think offering Shota $22M for one year is a sign of things to come this off season. I think they will be very careful on offering any contract beyond one year. If they do it will have an opt out or option after next year. I don’t expect much from them this off season. Maybe a trade for a guy with one year left, plus maybe a team option. I think they are going to roll with the EXCUSE of a possible lock out making it hard for them to do business this year because of what the new CBA will be. And I think most of us knows it won’t affect the way the Cubs do business once there is a new CBA. It may alter other teams plans. The very high or very low spenders, but there will not be anything there that would hurt the Cubs, even if they did sign guys to multi year deals. This is a convenient time for a possible lock out for the Cubs. It gives them a built in excuse not to go hard after multi year contracts for free agents. WHICH SUCKS.!

I wouldn't be surprised at all if that turns out to be the case. Ricketts is cheap as heck so paying 70m to players for nothing if there's a work stoppage for 2 months of the season next year is probably something he wants to avoid.

Shota on 1 yr would be good for them for that reason.  Could be a weird offseason.  Could be a lot of 1 year deals made among many teams.

 

[Stratos]

5 hours ago, Bertz said:

Pitcher homeruns are by far the flukiest thing in baseball.  Like in Taillon’s three seasons here he's had two separate half-season long stretches of giving up dong after dong.  He's come out fine on the other end both times.

Shota is probably more Jameson Taillon at this point than 2024 Shota, and it's fair to be disappointed in that, but it's totally worth paying 1/$22M for that.

I dunno.  Pitchers will go through hot and cold periods like hitters do,  but they're both below average SP at this point and not significantly different than Colin Rea.  Shota was bad last year, is that worth 22m?  Major league worst GB% and below average K/9 is a recipe for giving up a lot of HR.  He had significant declines on both of those stats  His fastball was terrible, around a .580 xSLG on it.  He was touching 89 mph at times.  Unless they think they can improve the K/9 and/or GB% he's going to suck next year too.  It's just as likely the velo drops even more due to aging unless they put him on a velo program and he's wasn't on one before.

Any pitcher throwing 91mph living up in the zone with a fb even with tons of carry like his isn't going to get a lot of whiffs, they're going to get a lot of flyballs and HR.  His fb isn't fooling anyone so he might want to try keeping the fb down in the zone a lot more despite the carry on it.

[TarzanJoeWallis]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

I wouldn't be surprised at all if that turns out to be the case. Ricketts is cheap as heck so paying 70m to players for nothing if there's a work stoppage for 2 months of the season next year is probably something he wants to avoid.

Shota on 1 yr would be good for them for that reason.  Could be a weird offseason.  Could be a lot of 1 year deals made among many teams.

 

Players don’t get paid during a lockout. 

[Rcal10]

5 minutes ago, TarzanJoeWallis said:

Players don’t get paid during a lockout. 

Unless they build that into their contract. Also, I am not sure when a lock out ends if that isn’t negotiated as well. TBH, if the owners lock them out and they want to play, they should get paid. They can always play using the old CBA until a new one is in affect. It isn’t their fault of the owners can’t come to an agreement within their own ranks to present to the players. 

[Stratos]

44 minutes ago, TarzanJoeWallis said:

Players don’t get paid during a lockout. 

OK thanks, then the only reason they might care is based on the unknown of a new CBA re: salary caps, taxes etc. This really should even affect them

[Bertz]

4 hours ago, Stratos said:

I dunno.  Pitchers will go through hot and cold periods like hitters do,  but they're both below average SP at this point and not significantly different than Colin Rea.  Shota was bad last year, is that worth 22m?  Major league worst GB% and below average K/9 is a recipe for giving up a lot of HR.  He had significant declines on both of those stats  His fastball was terrible, around a .580 xSLG on it.  He was touching 89 mph at times.  Unless they think they can improve the K/9 and/or GB% he's going to suck next year too.  It's just as likely the velo drops even more due to aging unless they put him on a velo program and he's wasn't on one before.

Any pitcher throwing 91mph living up in the zone with a fb even with tons of carry like his isn't going to get a lot of whiffs, they're going to get a lot of flyballs and HR.  His fb isn't fooling anyone so he might want to try keeping the fb down in the zone a lot more despite the carry on it.

I guess a few random things:

- As someone who focuses primarily on peripherals I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth, but Shota did put up an above average ERA and an xERA that was nearly average (45th percentile).  "Shota was bad last year" feels strong

- Shota's contact numbers against didn't decline nearly enough to explain his drop in strikeouts.  He has some positive regression coming in that department, which actually already started in the second half (he was back up to nearly 23%)

- Shota's fastball still graded out as a plus pitch this year because of the unicorn movement profile.  Stuff+ of 102 (100 average) and PitchingBot Stuff grade of 52 (50 average).  Also with the extreme rise he gets you very much do not want him throwing his fastball down more

- It's likely at least some of Shota's loss of velo is due to the hamstring injury he had.  His velo was 91.8 in '24, 91.2 this year before the hammy injury (in the cold of April no less), and 90.7 after the injury

- 1/$22M just isn't a big commitment.  Zac Gallen had a messier year than Shota and got a QO.  Last winter a busted Walker Buehler got $22M because of two good playoff starts.  We can't be like "the Cubs should act like a big market team!" and then quibble when they pay $22M for a pillow contract

- We'll see what the other projections systems spit out, but Steamer has Shota worth 2.3 WAR next year.  I'd absolutely pay $22M for that

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

I guess a few random things:

- As someone who focuses primarily on peripherals I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth, but Shota did put up an above average ERA and an xERA that was nearly average (45th percentile).  "Shota was bad last year" feels strong

ERA is irrelevant in evaluating Shota because he had the best defense in the MLB behind him and was an extreme flyball pitcher in a park where the wind blew in a lot (which could change next year).  His xERA, FIP, and xFIP were all below average.  But fair enough, he wasn't "bad" this year so much as "not good" or "below-average".  He put up a 0.9 fWAR.

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

- Shota's contact numbers against didn't decline nearly enough to explain his drop in strikeouts.  He has some positive regression coming in that department, which actually already started in the second half (he was back up to nearly 23%)

I can't speak to the contact #'s regression, but he also had a .219 BABIP which is also likely to regress towards the mean, especially if you don't factor the defense behind him.

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

- Shota's fastball still graded out as a plus pitch this year because of the unicorn movement profile.  Stuff+ of 102 (100 average) and PitchingBot Stuff grade of 52 (50 average).  Also with the extreme rise he gets you very much do not want him throwing his fastball down more

His fastball got pummeled.  A fastball that generated high exit velos and barrel rates, a league-worst GB%, and had a xSLG of .580 and high xwoba isn't a plus pitch, or even an average pitch.  If he's forced to continue to pitch up in the zone because of his FB shape it's going to keep getting barreled and slugged.

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

- It's likely at least some of Shota's loss of velo is due to the hamstring injury he had.  His velo was 91.8 in '24, 91.2 this year before the hammy injury (in the cold of April no less), and 90.7 after the injury

It's possible, but also just as likely it dropped due to more age regression.

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

- We'll see what the other projections systems spit out, but Steamer has Shota worth 2.3 WAR next year.  I'd absolutely pay $22M for that

I don't think paying 22m for 2.3 WAR is a particularly good deal, even on a 1-yr.  In fact under those projections (which seem sensible) he'd be among the team leaders in most inefficient contract in WAR per million spent.

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

- 1/$22M just isn't a big commitment.  Zac Gallen had a messier year than Shota and got a QO.  Last winter a busted Walker Buehler got $22M because of two good playoff starts.  We can't be like "the Cubs should act like a big market team!" and then quibble when they pay $22M for a pillow contract

If we didn't already have SP like Taillon, Rea, Assad, Brown etc i'd be ok with the 1/22m.  But at this point we need to do better with our SP.  One of our SP will inevitably get hurt so Rea/Assad will likely get plenty of starts and I don't really want a rotation with Taillon/Shota/Rea (or Assad) in it again.  Cubs rotation ranked 17th this year according to Fangraphs, which isn't nearly good enough.  Eating 22m of our "not-big-market" budget for an average SP on a team with a bunch of average SP isn't good IMO.  Put that money towards an above-average pitcher/player, maybe even a very good one.

[Bertz]

6 hours ago, Stratos said:

ERA is irrelevant in evaluating Shota because he had the best defense in the MLB behind him and was an extreme flyball pitcher in a park where the wind blew in a lot (which could change next year).  His xERA, FIP, and xFIP were all below average.  But fair enough, he wasn't "bad" this year so much as "not good" or "below-average".  He put up a 0.9 fWAR.

I can't speak to the contact #'s regression, but he also had a .219 BABIP which is also likely to regress towards the mean, especially if you don't factor the defense behind him.

His fastball got pummeled.  A fastball that generated high exit velos and barrel rates, a league-worst GB%, and had a xSLG of .580 and high xwoba isn't a plus pitch, or even an average pitch.  If he's forced to continue to pitch up in the zone because of his FB shape it's going to keep getting barreled and slugged.

It's possible, but also just as likely it dropped due to more age regression.

I don't think paying 22m for 2.3 WAR is a particularly good deal, even on a 1-yr.  In fact under those projections (which seem sensible) he'd be among the team leaders in most inefficient contract in WAR per million spent.

If we didn't already have SP like Taillon, Rea, Assad, Brown etc i'd be ok with the 1/22m.  But at this point we need to do better with our SP.  One of our SP will inevitably get hurt so Rea/Assad will likely get plenty of starts and I don't really want a rotation with Taillon/Shota/Rea (or Assad) in it again.  Cubs rotation ranked 17th this year according to Fangraphs, which isn't nearly good enough.  Eating 22m of our "not-big-market" budget for an average SP on a team with a bunch of average SP isn't good IMO.  Put that money towards an above-average pitcher/player, maybe even a very good one.

If you think $22M for one year for 2.3 WAR is a bad deal there's just a fundamental disconnect here that's not going to be crossed.

[Rcal10]

57 minutes ago, Bertz said:

If you think $22M for one year for 2.3 WAR is a bad deal there's just a fundamental disconnect here that's not going to be crossed.

Even assuming 2.3WAR is fine for $22M, I wish they would spend the money on a better pitcher or a bat. Even if they had to add to that number, if the Cubs plan is to go about business as usual and just stay a little below the LT line, I think they could have used that money better. 

[CubinNY]

16 hours ago, TarzanJoeWallis said:

Players don’t get paid during a lockout. 

That is true, but they don’t get paid until the season starts. And the owners rake in ST, especially the Ricketts. It’s a frequency game for them. They need dates to make money. They are in the hole for a good portion of the season. So any work stoppage that goes into the season is harder on the owners than the players. The owners are rotten fucks who are swimming in pools of cash they don’t want to share with the players. But they need games to be played in order for that to happen. 

[Bertz]

2 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Even assuming 2.3WAR is fine for $22M, I wish they would spend the money on a better pitcher or a bat. Even if they had to add to that number, if the Cubs plan is to go about business as usual and just stay a little below the LT line, I think they could have used that money better. 

Right that's the disconnect.  There's a "is Shota worth $22M" question and a "would you rather spend that money elsewhere" question.  I think the answer to the former is yes, or at least close enough to yes to not be worth sweating.  The latter's more of a judgment call.  But if we're arguing the former while the subtext is a disagreement on the latter I don't think it's gonna go anywhere.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Right that's the disconnect.  There's a "is Shota worth $22M" question and a "would you rather spend that money elsewhere" question.  I think the answer to the former is yes, or at least close enough to yes to not be worth sweating.  The latter's more of a judgment call.  But if we're arguing the former while the subtext is a disagreement on the latter I don't think it's gonna go anywhere.

I am way more concerned about what the offer looks like, and how it shapes the off season. To me it looks like the Cubs are only going to look for the short term deals. Either through FA or trade I don’t see the Cubs adding anyone with any real years or salary on a contract. That is why Shota isn’t necessarily a bad signing.  But it is a bad sign of an uneventful off season. I read this decision as they aren’t going to give an significant multi year deal to anyone. They are going to use the lame excuse that the labor uncertainty after this CBA is controlling their decisions this year. As if the new CBA might end up hurting them if they had any long term contracts from this off season. And I think most of us would agree there is really no realistic scenario where the new CBA would hurt the Cubs, even if they did sign a few guys to multi year deals. If they do plan on being somewhat aggressive and offering multi year deals to FA or trade for someone regardless of how many years or how much money they make, then I don’t like the offer. It wasted decent money they could use elsewhere. 

[BKHoo]

On 11/7/2025 at 10:16 AM, Jason Ross said:

In almost every situation, there is no such thing as a bad one year deal. If Shota accepts the contract, at 1/$22m, you get a devil you know and one who really wasn't as bad as I think the last few starts made him seem. There was a 10 start run where he was more than capable of outpitching his HR issues. Then he had the last couple of starts and things went off the rails. So you probably feel comfortable if he's your fourth best SP behind Steele, a new guy, Horton and Boyd.

If he doesn't accept, you get the comp pick and you look to sign someone else. 

I’m just not sure you pay $22 mil to your number 4 starter.  His velo was down at the end of the year and there was no injury. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, BKHoo said:

I’m just not sure you pay $22 mil to your number 4 starter.  His velo was down at the end of the year and there was no injury. 

There was an injury. He came back from a hamstring injury. It could have affected his velo. But I also am not sure about spending that kind of money. 

[CubinNY]

My best guess is that the Cubs see this a no loss proposition but they think he’s going to decline 

[Stratos]

13 hours ago, Bertz said:

If you think $22M for one year for 2.3 WAR is a bad deal there's just a fundamental disconnect here that's not going to be crossed.

I didn't say it was a bad deal. I said in a bubble I'd be ok with it.

Edited November 9, 2025 by Stratos

[Outshined_One]

6 hours ago, CubinNY said:

My best guess is that the Cubs see this a no loss proposition but they think he’s going to decline 

The hard part for Shota is, what team is going to be willing to pay the draft/international bonus pool penalty to sign him if he declines?

My gut is, if he declines, he probably heads back to Japan.

[mk49]

I just found this, and some of them are questionable.  

Projecting the 13 MLB Qualifying Offer Free Agents

https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/3062/projecting-the-13-mlb-qualifying-offer-free-agents

Dylan Cease: 7yr, $210M  (This is too much or too long for Cease, and if it actually happens, no way the Cubs would pay that much for that long.)

Shota: 4yr, $75M  (I think Shota will take 2 or 3 years with $17~18M AAV, and I think there will be a team or two that offer that kind of contract.  I don't think he's going back to Japan.  Basically, he declined the player option, 2yr, $30.5M from the Cubs.  What he's looking for is at least 2yr, and a little more than $15M AAV.  I'll be really surprised if a team gives him a 4yr contract without a team option after the 1st or the 2nd year.  My guess is 2yr, $35M for Shota should be reasonable for a few teams, and he will probably take the offer.)

For Tucker, I just don't understand why some teams will offer him a 10yr contract, but I guess that's what he will probably get.

 

Edited November 9, 2025 by mk49

[mul21]

On 11/8/2025 at 3:24 PM, BKHoo said:

I’m just not sure you pay $22 mil to your number 4 starter.  His velo was down at the end of the year and there was no injury. 

What if you're paying $22.75 million to your 1 and 4 starters combined?

[Rcal10]

On 11/8/2025 at 4:38 PM, CubinNY said:

My best guess is that the Cubs see this a no loss proposition but they think he’s going to decline 

I just think they didn’t want 3 years guaranteed. I think they would be willing to work out a possible 3 year deal with him with options after each year. Maybe $17M a year each year with a $3M buy out or $17M the next year. Something like that would guarantee Shota $20M. But if he really believes in himself a 3 year deal with options is a better deal for him. After year one he is guaranteed $20M. If his option is picked up after year one he is guaranteed $37M. If he makes all 3 he gets $51M. Not the $57M guaranteed but better than 1/$22M. TBH, they can also add a 4th year with the same option. Cubs obviously wouldn’t take the 4th year, but it would then give him $54M for 3. If he is pitching well he deserves that. If not, they cut their losses. I’m. It sure the Cubs expect him to decline. But I am sure they don’t want to bet multiple years on him not declining. This is a way they can do that. And probably better than anything else he would get. If there is no bad 1 year deal and his one year offer is $22M, then I don’t see from the Cubs POV why this wouldn’t be a better option. Same with Shota, unless he knows he is cooked.