Josh covered this topic in After Dark last week but I thought I’d weigh in on Shōta Imanaga’s deal myself, as we don’t have much Cubs news these days and are awaiting the World Series to begin three days from now, Friday evening in Toronto.
The Cubs left-hander from Japan signed a complicated deal with the Cubs before the 2024 season. He had a spectacularly good year in his first season in Chicago. The second… not so much. Imanaga suffered a hamstring injury in May, threw reasonably well for a while after that but from late July on, was pretty bad. Beginning July 25, when he got hammered by the White Sox for seven runs and three home runs in five innings, through the end of the season, Imanaga posted a 5.17 ERA in 12 starts, allowing 20 (!) home runs in 69.1 innings.
Yeah, that’s pretty bad. But clearly, the left-hander still has talent and just turned 32, so there’s reason to believe that he can fix whatever went wrong during the second half of 2025 and have some good years going forward.
Here are the choices the Cubs have.
First, the Cubs have a three-year club option that would pay Imanaga a total of $57 million — $20 million in 2026 and 2027 and $17 million in 2028. This doesn’t seem unreasonable if Imanaga’s the 2024/first half of 2025 guy.
The second choice goes to Imanaga. He can exercise a $15 million player option for 2026. If he does that, the Cubs then have a $42 million club option for 2027 and 2028 that breaks down this way: $24 million in 2027, $18 million in 2028. But if the Cubs then decline that team option, Imanaga would have another $15 million player option for 2027.
The third possibility here would be for both player and team to decline their options. Imanaga would then become a free agent, and the Cubs could make him a qualifying offer for 2026, which would be $22.025 million. If Imanaga declined that and went to free agency, the Cubs would get draft pick compensation if he left.
Like I said… it’s complicated.
What would I do if I were Jed Hoyer? I’d pick up the club option. Those numbers are not unreasonable for a pitcher of Imanaga’s abilities and they’d have trouble replacing him for that price. Yes, there were major issues with home runs in the second half of 2025, but I don’t think that’s unfixable. It’s possible that Imanaga was not 100 percent recovered from the hamstring injury he suffered in May. (You might remember that Imanaga had actually hurt that hamstring once before the one in Milwaukee that put him out for six weeks, in his start immediately before that in Pittsburgh.
The baseball ops people don’t make decisions based on this, but Imanaga is also valuable for the Cubs from a marketing standpoint, being one of the more popular players on the team. I see his jersey all the time in the stands at Wrigley Field, perhaps second only to Pete Crow-Armstrong in popularity. Also, the Cubs have made a point about recruiting Japanese players to Wrigley Field and letting Imanaga go would not send the right message if they want to continue doing that.
For that reason I think the Cubs will pick up Imanaga’s option. What would you do?
