Growing Sense That Cubs Could Land Shōta Imanaga (Update: They Did)
Update: Always nice to spend 10 extra minutes editing. D’oh!
Shota Imanaga has a deal with the Cubs @BNightengale 1st
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 10, 2024
Maybe it’s just the desire for the Cubs to finally get something done, but it sure does feel like they may be the team to ink Shōta Imanaga prior to his posting window closing on Thursday. His courtship has been strange, to say the least, with most of the reports centering around teams that are out of the running. Not coincidentally, those started to come out following Jeff Passan’s report that the lefty was expected to land a deal north of $100 million.
The value-seeking Cubs appeared to be on the outside looking in when that news hit, but things have been changing over the last few days. Jon Heyman reported Tuesday morning that both the Giants and Angels “appear to be looking elsewhere,” with the Red Sox and Cubs “very much in play.” But Chris Cotillo of MassLive tweeted Monday afternoon that the Sawx were a “long shot.”
We’ve heard very little about the Cubs and Imanaga other than Heyman saying they’re still involved, but that’s been the case all along. That lack of reporting falls right in line with the way Jed Hoyer does business and this could be a situation in which his approach will finally end up paying off this winter. By that I mean they probably pitched Imanaga on the fit in Chicago and some value-adds beyond just his contract a while back, then sat back and waited to see how his market developed.
Or didn’t, as the case appears to be.
If the Cubs indeed end up agreeing with Imanaga before his window closes, it’ll mean inking their first big league contract of the offseason just ahead of Cubs Convention. Not quite as big a coup as bringing Cody Bellinger back, a possibility that I strongly believe is on the table, but still a helluva lot better than the giant nothingburger Hoyer has spent more than two months grilling up.
Imanaga would effectively become Marcus Stroman‘s replacement in the rotation by default, though there are some questions about how he’d be deployed. While the Cubs probably won’t go with a straight six-man rotation, it would make sense to keep the southpaw on his standard cadence and work around that with their other pitchers as needed. That would also make sense as a way to keep Kyle Hendricks fresh in what could be his last season on the North Side and it could give more opportunities to their prospects.
As for the stuff, Imanaga profiles as mid-rotation guy who has averaged around 11 K/9 over the last two seasons in NPB. Kyle Glaser of Baseball America called him a “soft-tossing touch-and-feel lefty” on the Foul Territory podcast, which doesn’t sound fair at all even in light of increasing velocities across the game. Imanaga sits around 92-93 mph and can touch 95+ on occasion with the fastball, then he’s got a splitter, slider, and curve.
More than the velo being well outside the range of a soft tosser, the funny thing about Glaser’s assessment is that he went on to say Imanaga’s curve is “fringy” and he doesn’t spin the slider well. That’s not really someone I’d characterize as a “touch-and-feel” guy, but what do I know?
Nothing will surprise me at this point, including Imanaga failing to reach an agreement with an MLB team and returning to Japan, but I believe the Cubs are the favorites to get him. I also believe they’ve got a lot more in the works, some of which could come to light in the next few days.
