The Los Angeles Dodgers have targeted the biggest stars who began their professional careers in Japan, and have reaped the benefits with Shohei Ohtani winning consecutive National League MVPs and Yoshinobu Yamamoto earning the most recent World Series MVP award after his heroic performance against the Toronto Blue Jays. Even Roki Sasaki became a key postseason reliever after a rocky start to his major-league career.<\/p>\n
So it seems close to inevitable that Tatsuya Imai, the No. 10 free agent on The Athletic\u2019s Big Board<\/a> who got posted on Nov. 18<\/a>, would end up in L.A., right?<\/p>\n Not so fast, according to what Imai said in an interview with Daisuke Matsuzaka on the show, \u201cHodo Station.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, I\u2019d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki,\u201d Imai told the former Boston Red Sox and New York Mets starter, \u201cBut winning against a team like that and becoming a World Champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I\u2019d rather take them down.\u201d<\/p>\n Imai, 28, just had a dominant season in Japan with a 1.92 ERA over 163 2\/3 innings with 178 strikeouts, five complete games and three shutouts for the Saitama Seibu Lions. However, he isn\u2019t known for the same kind of overpowering stuff that Yamamoto possesses. Yet his moxie and seeming willingness to carve his own path in the majors could sound enticing to several other teams in the market for starting pitching.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there were another Japanese player on the same team, I could just ask them about anything, right?\u201d Imai said. \u201cBut that\u2019s actually not what I\u2019m looking for. In a way, I want to experience that sense of survival. When I come face-to-face with cultural differences, I want to see how I can overcome them on my own \u2014 that\u2019s part of what I\u2019m excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n One team that comes to mind as a potential destination for a guy who\u2019d like nothing better than to knock out the Dodgers\u2019 trio of fellow countrymen is the San Francisco Giants, a possibility referenced by The Athletic\u2019s Grant Brisbee<\/a>:<\/p>\n They need someone to get outs and eat innings now, but they\u2019d also like a side of \u201chigher ceiling.\u201d The best part is probably that Imai would be an extremely easy sell to Giants fans at the box office. If he has one competitive bone in his body, he would look at the team that employs some of the best Japanese players of all-time and want to join their direct rival, just to beat them. Think of the Dodgers series alone.<\/p>\n This all applies to the Padres, too, but they\u2019re in the\u00a0middle of a potential sale<\/a>, and they have their own free agents to worry about. We don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll be in a lot of bidding wars this offseason.<\/p>\n