{"id":297899,"date":"2025-11-21T17:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297899\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T17:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:13:17","slug":"tatsuya-imai-called-super-athlete-by-mlb-scout-how-does-sp-compare-to-yamamoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297899\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatsuya Imai Called ‘Super Athlete’ by MLB Scout, How Does SP Compare to Yamamoto?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After being posted<\/a> by the Seibu Lions this week, Tatsuya Imai is expected to receive a lot of attention from MLB teams with his 45-day negotiating window officially open. <\/p>\n

Speaking to The Athletic’s Will Sammon, Katie Woo and Patrick Mooney<\/a>, one National League talent evaluator described Imai as a “super athlete” and compared him favorably to Yoshinobu Yamamoto. <\/p>\n

“He is not a real physical guy, but he’s a super athlete,” the evaluator said. “I don’t think he has quite the stuff Yamamoto has, but it’s in the same ballpark.”<\/p>\n

There are some physical similarities between Imai and Yamamoto that stand out if you want to compare them. <\/p>\n

Before Yamamoto signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, ESPN’s Jeff Passan<\/a> noted he was going to be “among the smallest starting pitchers” in MLB at 5’10” and 176 pounds. <\/p>\n

Imai’s weight varies depending on which source you use. Baseball Reference has him listed<\/a> at 154 pounds. The NPB website lists<\/a> him as being 80kg, which is roughly 176 pounds. <\/p>\n

Control has been an issue for Imai in a way that it never was for Yamamoto during his NPB career. Imai has averaged<\/a> 4.4 walks per nine innings in eight seasons, though that rate has declined in each of the past five years to a career-low 2.5 over in 24 games this season (163.2 innings). <\/p>\n

Yamamoto, by comparison, averaged 2.1 walks per nine innings during his seven seasons in NPB. <\/p>\n

FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan<\/a> noted Imai could “find another gear” working with MLB coaches because his current delivery isn’t necessarily taking “full advantage of his special athleticism” right now. <\/p>\n

MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi<\/a> cited Kodai Senga’s profile as more closely aligned with what Imai can do with his mid-90s fastball\/slider combo. He will also mix in splitters, especially to left-handed hitters. <\/p>\n

It’s hard for anyone right now to stand with Yamamoto because of what he did throughout the playoffs, especially the World Series, for the Dodgers. The fact that Imai can even generate the comparison does speak well to him potentially landing a lucrative MLB contract before his posting window closes on Jan. 2 at 5 p.m. ET. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being posted by the Seibu Lions this week, Tatsuya Imai is expected to receive a lot of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-297899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}