{"id":380638,"date":"2025-12-31T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/380638\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:17:08","slug":"the-best-fits-for-tatsuya-imai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/380638\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Fits For Tatsuya Imai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Decision time nears for Japanese right-hander\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=imai--000tat&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tatsuya Imai<\/a>. He needs to finalize a contract with an MLB team by Friday at 4:00 pm Central if he&#8217;s to make the move stateside this year. There&#8217;s no indication that he&#8217;s considering sticking with the Seibu Lions, meaning an agreement should be imminent. While there&#8217;s a little over 48 hours to make the deal official, Imai must agree to terms with enough margin to complete a standard physical.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old (28 in May) is conducting in-person meetings with interested teams in Los Angeles this week. The 5\u201911\u201d righty has been one of Japan\u2019s best pitchers over the past two seasons. He\u2019s coming off a 1.92 ERA showing with 178 strikeouts across 163 2\/3 innings. Imai has an NPB-best 27% strikeout rate since the start of 2024. He sits in the mid-90s with a promising slider. Command was an issue earlier in his career, but his strike-throwing has progressed as he has gained experience. This past season\u2019s 7% walk rate was a personal low and better than the MLB average.<\/p>\n<p>Whichever team that signs Imai will owe a release fee to the Lions. That\u2019s proportional to the contract value: 20% of the first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of all further spending. Imai isn&#8217;t expected to come close to the $325MM deal that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/y\/yamamyo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> commanded two offseasons ago. He&#8217;s a few years older and simply not as good. Yet it&#8217;s generally believed that he&#8217;ll command a nine-figure guarantee, perhaps into the $150MM range, from a team that feels he&#8217;s a mid-rotation arm.<\/p>\n<p>Which clubs are best positioned to make that investment? Salary projections are courtesy of RosterResource.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"landing-logo\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/landing-logo.png\"\/><br \/>\n  Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription<\/p>\n<p>  &#13;<br \/>\n    Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.&#13;<br \/>\n    Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.&#13;<br \/>\n    Remove ads and support our writers.&#13;<br \/>\n    Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker&#13;<\/p>\n<p>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/membership?ref=880184\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decision time nears for Japanese right-hander\u00a0Tatsuya Imai. He needs to finalize a contract with an MLB team by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,149619],"class_list":{"0":"post-380638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tatsuya-imai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}