{"id":382987,"date":"2026-01-02T06:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382987\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:24:08","slug":"cubs-notes-imai-okamoto-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382987\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Notes: Imai, Okamoto – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tatsuya Imai<\/a> came off the board this afternoon. He agreed to terms with the Astros on a three-year, $54MM guarantee<\/a> with opt-outs after the first two seasons. It was both a surprise landing spot and contract, as the NPB right-hander had generally been expected to pull a nine-figure deal that probably would have priced him out of Houston.<\/p>\n

The Cubs were among the teams most commonly speculated as a fit for Imai over his 45-day posting window. Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic<\/a> wrote last month that Chicago was involved but reluctant to make a long-term commitment that valued him as a top-of-the-rotation arm. The rest of the market evidently shared that trepidation.<\/p>\n

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com<\/a> writes that the Cubs appear to have been the top competition to Houston by the end of the signing period. Both Feinsand and Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> suggest that neither the Yankees nor Mets were heavily involved. The Yankees may be more focused on the lineup \u2014 they reportedly have an offer out<\/a> to\u00a0Cody Bellinger<\/a> \u2014 while previous reporting has indicated the Mets aren\u2019t eager to make a long-term investment in a free agent starter. Imai apparently was not going to be an exception, as Feinsand writes that the Mets weren\u2019t convinced he\u2019d be a top-of-the-rotation starter.<\/p>\n

An upper mid-rotation starter has been the Cubs\u2019 biggest need all offseason. They\u2019ve yet to make any moves in the rotation aside from declining their option on and then retaining Shota Imanaga<\/a> via the qualifying offer. They\u2019re still lacking a high-end complement to\u00a0Cade Horton<\/a> at the top of the staff, at least until\u00a0Justin Steele<\/a> returns from April\u2019s elbow surgery.<\/p>\n

Imanaga had a terrible final few weeks as his home run rate spiked. Matthew Boyd<\/a> was excellent in the first half but appeared to wear down as the season went along. His 179 2\/3 innings pitched were 101 more than he\u2019d thrown in any MLB season since 2019. Boyd took a 2.34 earned run average into the All-Star Break but allowed a 4.63 mark over his final 12 appearances. His strikeout rate dropped more than four percentage points in the second half. He\u2019s headed into his age-35 season.\u00a0Jameson Taillon<\/a>,\u00a0Colin Rea<\/a> and\u00a0Javier Assad<\/a> profile as back-end or swing options.<\/p>\n

The Cubs could still pursue any of\u00a0Framber Valdez<\/a>,\u00a0Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> or\u00a0Zac Gallen<\/a> if they want to add a starter via free agency. Teams have set significant asking prices in talks involving starting pitching, though the likes of MacKenzie Gore<\/a> or\u00a0Kris Bubic<\/a> remain trade candidates.<\/p>\n

RosterResource<\/a> calculates Chicago\u2019s luxury tax projection around $210MM. That leaves them almost $35MM below the base threshold and $21MM shy of their season-ending mark from 2025. They should have some payroll flexibility. If they don\u2019t like the value on any available starting pitchers, they could potentially turn their attention to the offense as a way to replace some of the production lost from Kyle Tucker<\/a> (whom they\u2019re not expected to re-sign).<\/p>\n

The Cubs have been loosely linked to third basemen, in particular. Reports have tied them to\u00a0Alex Bregman<\/a> and\u00a0Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a>, though president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer gave a firm vote of confidence to in-house third baseman\u00a0Matt Shaw<\/a>. This evening, Heyman listed<\/a> the Cubs among a number of teams that have shown some interest in NPB star Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>. The right-handed hitting corner infielder has until Sunday afternoon to sign.<\/p>\n

Okamoto has been also been tied to the Padres, Pirates, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Angels this offseason. Most of those teams make more sense as landing spots than the Cubs, who have Shaw and\u00a0Michael Busch<\/a> at the corners. Plugging Okamoto in at designated hitter would block the path to at-bats for young hitters\u00a0Mois\u00e9s Ballesteros<\/a> and\u00a0Owen Caissie<\/a>. Okamoto could take at-bats against lefty pitching from Busch but would have a cleaner path to everyday playing time with a team like Pittsburgh (at third base) or San Diego (at first base).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tatsuya Imai came off the board this afternoon. He agreed to terms with the Astros on a three-year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,133041,462,82,125474],"class_list":{"0":"post-382987","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-kazuma-okamoto","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tatsuya-imai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382987","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=382987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}