Jason Ross

In the Heyman podcast where he mentioned the Cubs as Okamoto-suitors, he guessed the Cubs would make one big deal this off-season and that prediction was Imai. It's probably just speculation but Heyman is also close to Boras. So TIFWIW

Also, another incredibly cheap contract. Either the Cubs are just not spending anything at all this off-season or they're saving this money for something specific and expensive.

Yep! This is another one of those "guys who just get outs" that you can drop into the 6th/7th inning mix. Nothing special, but another cheap contract that allows you to remain flexible financially for whatever else you want to do. Feels like equally a move you'd be hard pressed to be excited about or upset about.

Image courtesy of Arianna Grainey-Imagn Images On Tuesday, the Chicago Cubs agreed to a contract with right handed reliever Jacob Webb, formerly of the Texas Rangers. The contact, as reported by Patrick Mooney, is a one-year deal with an option for 2027. Jacob Webb had a successful 2025 season with the Texas Rangers, as the 32-year old posted a 3.00 ERA over 66 innings. Webb features a fastball that sits around 93-mph while featuring a changeup and a sweeper. The reliever saw his K% drop from around 24% to 21% last year but still gets a lot of weak contact and forces hitters to get under the ball. One thing the pitcher does well; he gets pop-outs, inducing 21 of them last season. Webb did a great job of limiting damage across all three of his offerings last season, with xwOBA's on his three major offerings all under the .300 level with a .291 on the fastball, a .265 on his changeup, and a .257 on his sweeper. Because of his changeup, Webb actually had reverse splits last year, limiting lefties to a .243 wOBA in total (and has a better wOBA against LHH over his career). While the team has not added a "major" reliever to their bullpen, the Cubs have added a handful of useful arms between Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, Caleb Thielbar and now Jacob Webb to help stabilize their pen. Webb likely won't settle into a back-end role, but could help to stabilize the middle-innings and could give the Cubs more match-up-options with his reverse splits. As well, Webb represents another contract that should not break the bank at $1,500,000, allowing the Cubs the flexibility this offseason on who or what their "big additions" could be. Tatsuya Imai or Alex Bregman both remain more-than-in-play from a salary standpoint after this contract. What do you think of the addition of Jacob Webb? Do you think he will help bring stability into the middle-innings? Sound off in the comments below! View full article

I have a hard time believing the team is under some impression than Imai is signing a short term deal. That doesn't pass a sniff test. Either they have always been mostly out on him, and all of the reporting that they've been interested in him has been wrong, or that the team is actually interested in him on a longer deal. No one has thought Imai was signing a short term contract. His agent is Boras. Also of note; the Cubs were seemingly less excited about a short term deal with King. Any short term contract with Imai would obviously be opt out heavy and the Cubs basically punted that option per Sharma and Mooney around the WM. Kaplan has connections to Crane Kenney but he also doesn't break news often about the Cubs. So hard to tell whether this is something we should place a lot of belief on or not a lot of belief in.

Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs have agreed to a split-level contract with free agent catcher Christian Bethancourt, which would pay the player $1,600,000 if he is on the major league roster. The catcher spent his most recent season in the Toronto Blue Jays' system, appearing in 58 games with their Triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons, where he struggled with a 42 wRC+. Despite his struggles in 2025, Bethancourt had a successful stint with the Chicago Cubs the year prior, after being acquired from the Miami Marlins. He would go on to post a .281/.305/.509 line, smashing three home runs and finishing with a 125 wRC+ in 59 plate appearances. Bethancourt is not being signed with an eye toward starting with the major league club, as the team projects to have Carson Kelly and Miguel Amaya (as he returns from injury) man the backstop. However, as we saw with Amaya last year, you can never count out a rash of injuries at the position, which will strengthen the organization's depth there. This contract will allow the Cubs to stash their new signing in Iowa and have him serve as a "break glass in case of emergency" type of player. It's true that the club also has top prospect Moises Ballesteros available at the position, but he's still a work-in-progress defensively. He may be able to make a lot of strides over the winter, or he may still need work. With as many as 40-man spots on the team, they can afford this kind of luxury, having a few different options to choose from. If everything goes to plan, you'd hope you'll never need him, but having someone capable of playing the position is always important, as the team has learned in previous seasons. What do you think of Christian Bethancourt? Do you think he's a good addition as a third- or fourth-option at the position organizationally? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

It depends. There have been projections as low as $80m and high as $200m. It's hard to determine his market right now; who is in? Yankees have been reported to be mostly out, as have the Red Sox. The Giants are acting like they don't have money. The Dodgers don't seem to be in on the top end pitching market. So it's hard to figure out who's bidding this thing up to $190m. It could happen; teams "out" might not be, for example. We will see. I think it'll end up at $22m-24m AAV over about 6.

It's a split level deal so he can accept going to Iowa. I would bet he's on the 40 man so that the Cubs don't have to kick someone off if they need him. They have a ton of space on the 40, too.

That's your Reese McGuire for the 2026 season.

If this is the case, it would clear out another team who may be in on Imai. There was a little smoke, though not a lot, about Imai/Boston, but if they're done with pitching...

Yeah, my concern is far less about the velo and far more about the breaking ball issues. If you can get this guy to hit breaking balls, there's a Joey Gallo career in him, but that feels like a tall task. The White Sox are in a great place to take the gamble though. They can't really lose.

League average fastball is around 91-92mph. Tatsuya Imai, who averages 95mph threw the second hardest fastball in NPV last year. MLB league average fastball is mid-94mph. NPB doesn't have anywhere near the velo we have in MLB. This is with a slightly smaller baseball, too.

4-5 years around the same AAV.

Fangraphs isn't a great prospect resource right now. They aren't dumb, but they are slow to update - I try not to use FG unless they're an outlier (for example, Logenhagen was the high-man on the pitcher that went for Shane Bieber at the deadline - but that's also around when FG updates things). As well, the Orioles have a super-deep system and guys like Bassalo are still on the list, even though they're MLB players now (he just still has "prospect" status due to a lack of PA). Instead of using FG's prospect rankings, use this article, also written by Logenhagen. This is a significant return for Baz. Caden Bodine had first-round-hype and fell because of signability more than talent, Slater de Brun got the highest bonus of any non-first round pick in the same draft. And there's a Comp-A pick. The Rays just essentially got three first round picks + two other prospects for a pitcher who has some cool under the hood stuff but hasn't put it all together, despite being with the Rays (a good pitching team). Don't get me wrong; I like Shane Baz! But this is considered an excellent return by the baseball community.

Yeah, this is a good reminder as well. I probably didn't give him enough credit in my post for already being pretty good.

Gore isn't a "number 2" today; it's about getting someone with his swing-and-miss ability away from Washington, who has one of the worst pitching infrastructures in baseball right now. They are pretty terrible as well from a player developmental stand point. Teams don't want what MacKenzie Gore has been, they want what they think they can fix. While not the same fix, all it took was getting Kyle Finnegan out of DC and into Detroit for him to fix a lot of his issues by simply changing his pitch mix (something many in baseball circles online had been screaming about).

Levine suggested he's met with the Cubs on air. That I can say. If you want a positive, this whole thing reminds me a lot of Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga; we had some rumblings the Cubs were interested, but really, until signing day, it was basically crickets on actual reporting from around the league. Sieya looked primed to end up in SD just hours before he penned with the Cubs, and Imanaga was living in Chicago without anything.

Gave it a listen. Not a lot of substance.

I found this phrasing interesting. "Are the Cubs closing in on a starting pitching?" is a specific type of a question (not one that is more indirection like a "signing" or a 'trade"). With where Imai is on his timeline of signing, could be telling.

Reading it back, I did too.