I wasn’t going to write this one at first. A short, long-haired kid with electric stuff? Forget it. That sort of pitcher would never work in San Francisco.
The idea started to grow on me, though. What if the Bay Area could learn to tolerate a short, long-haired kid with electric stuff? What if everyone could learn to love him? It’s so crazy that it just might work.
Tatsuya Imai wasn’t a name you were thinking about a month ago. You’ll probably think about him 80 times a day at the peak of the Winter Meetings, though. And while it’s both unfair and inaccurate to compare the 27-year-old right-hander to Tim Lincecum, it’s entirely fair to suggest that Imai could be something special in his own right.
Other teams will want him, of course. Let’s take a look at Imai’s free agent case.
Why the Giants would want Tatsuya Imai
To get outs, silly.
No, seriously, keep this in mind. The Giants are likely to spend money and/or trade prospects to get at least two starters, and they’ll all be different shapes and sizes. Some of them might even throw with their left hand (the “Devil’s Hand”). But for all their differences, they’ll all be tasked with the same goal: Get outs. They don’t have to be strikeouts. Get them on the ground, in the air or by a court order. Just get ’em. There will be external factors to consider later, and we’ll get to those. The outs are the most important part, though.
Imai has been getting outs in Japan for the Seibu Lions by missing bats, but he’s also been getting them on the ground. That’s the ideal combination for almost every team, but it’s especially helpful for a team like the Giants that’s already made a long-term commitment to a pitcher with that profile. They’ll want to keep employing infielders who convert grounders into outs, and they’re doing a swell job so far. Imai would help in that context.
It’s the stuff that’ll make him rich, though. And here’s where any possible Lincecum comparisons go down the garbage disposal: Where Lincecum stretched toward the plate and released his pitches closer to where a 6-foot-6 pitcher might, Imai’s delivery is short and compact.
A 14-pitch at-bat is a strange video to use in support of a bat-missing pitcher, but it’s both fun and informational. You really get to see Imai’s assortment of pitches (sinker, slider, change), and you also get to see him hump up to about 97.5 mph on the final pitch, which looks to be a front-door sinker.
When he finally gets the out, Imai screams and stares into the void. This is exactly what you want your starting pitchers to do. You want them to throw 97.5-mph front-door sinkers, scream, stare into the void, sit down and do it all again next inning.
The best explanation of why the Giants would want Imai comes from FanGraphs’ scouting report on him:
The 27-year-old Imai has steadily improved as a strike-thrower and innings-eater each of the last three years, and his fastball was still sitting in the mid-90s at the end of 2025 even though he’d worked 160-plus innings for the second consecutive season. Imai’s delivery arguably doesn’t take full advantage of his special athleticism and flexibility, and he might find another gear in MLB. He has the stuff of a good mid-rotation starter and is in his prime.
Yep, that’s what the Giants need. They need someone to get outs and eat innings now, but they’d also like a side of “higher ceiling.” 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.
This all applies to the Padres, too, but they’re in the middle of a potential sale, and they have their own free agents to worry about. We don’t know if they’ll be in a lot of bidding wars this offseason. Also, I heard San Diego is an awful place to live (constant rain, spiders the size of corgis). So if you’re reading this, Tatsuya, it’s best to avoid the area entirely.
Why the Giants wouldn’t want Imai
Remember all of the concerns about Lincecum before he was drafted, that his frame would never hold up to the rigors of starting pitching? They turned out to be pretty danged accurate. Nobody was suggesting that his hip would eventually be undoing, but it was clear that he needed to maximize a complicated Rube Goldberg delivery to reach his highest velocities. Just one kink in the kinetic chain has so many ripple effects for a pitcher like that.
Lincecum will forever be one of the most beloved players in Giants franchise history because of the years where he was able to outrun that monster. It eventually caught up to him, but Giants fans have zero regrets. It was all so beautiful when it worked.
Imai is already the same age that Lincecum was when he stopped being an All-Star, though. Size will always be a concern for starting pitchers under six feet tall. While Imai isn’t as skinny as his listed 154 pounds suggests — he’s built more like one of those wrestling kids that spit a lot in high school — his frame will be the top concern for every team. As a short man, I’m not happy about it either. It’s just the durned physics of the situation. There’s less mass to convert into energy. It’s harder for a smaller pitcher to maintain a fastball that sits 95 and touches 97.
And if that turns into sitting 92 and touching 95, just how effective would Imai be? That’s a rhetorical question without an answer yet. Maybe he’s just fine and enjoys an effective, lengthy second act. But the Giants wouldn’t be paying for the pitches that Imai has thrown. They’d be paying for the ones he will throw. A team could be paying for the first half of Marcus Stroman’s career while getting the second half.
And, to be clear, Imai will get paid to be at the top of a rotation for the next five, six or even seven years. He isn’t as highly regarded as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was when he came to the majors, so don’t get too wild with your projections, but Kodai Senga isn’t the worst comparison, in terms of possible effectiveness. Your mileage may vary as to if that kind of pitcher qualifies for an ace-like contract.
Everyone wants a young, hard-throwing pitcher on an upward trajectory. Imai’s command used to be a serious concern, but it’s gotten progressively better over the last four seasons. And for all that doom and gloom about his size, he is pretty good at the moment, and he might be getting better. Sonny Gray might also be a Giants target this offseason, and he’s held up just fine with a similar frame. All of this could have fit in the last section, too, but it’s here to underscore how much it’s going to cost the Giants to secure Imai’s services. Signing him would almost certainly be the biggest contract of their offseason. The money might be substantial enough to make it their only big contract of the offseason.
If the only half-decent free-agent bets on the market are top-tier aces and former top-tier aces looking to bounce back, it’s hard to suggest that Imai is either one of them just yet. He could be an ace in the majors, alright. An organization will have to be really, really sure about it. At least one of them will be, and they’ll have a checkbook too.
Verdict
So tempting. So, so, so tempting. Imai is similar to Kyle Tucker, in that it’s easy to focus on money and contract length, which means you’re not focusing on the good baseball that would likely happen right away. The difference there is that the Giants need a starting pitcher more than an outfielder right now, and they’d improve instantly exactly where they need the most help in 2026. Leave the seasons after that to the accountants, owners and futurists.
Imai is still unlikely to be worth his contract by the end of it. It will affect future payrolls, regardless of your opinion on how much the Giants should spend. There are other pitchers with a chance to be as effective, but who don’t come with that same level of risk. If he’s the only pitcher who will take the Giants’ money — or if he’s a noble, virtuous man who wants to challenge himself against the Dodgers, specifically — then get excited for the short-term outlook.
My guess is that he’ll be too expensive and too popular for the Giants. That might be for the best. Even if you can hear the roar of the Friday night crowd, as they get to their feet, with Imai taking a deep breath and getting ready to throw a two-strike pitch to Shohei Ohtani, we have to be practical here.
Wait …
Giants free-agent profiles for the 2025-26 offseason