During this off-season, the amount of talent coming to the MLB from the NPB was incredibly impressive. With the headliner Yoshinobu Yamamoto reaching an agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers to become the highest paid pitcher in MLB history, many people have had their eyes opened to the sheer amount of talent that Japan produces. With many people calling Yoshinobu Yamamoto a “can’t miss” opportunity, the value that Shota Imanaga was bringing to the table was flying incredibly under the radar. The Chicago Cubs took the chance to sign Imanaga to a 4-year, $53 million dollar deal. This comes out to about $13.25 million a year, and what I believe to be the best value signing this off-season. With any NPB player who turns to the MLB however, there is a lot of risk surrounding what they’ll do in the States. In this article, I’ll be breaking down some key things Shota needs to do to be successful in this upcoming year, and a look at what we could expect to see.

Before we get into the breakdown, I want to give an extra special thank you to Lance Brozdowski and his breakdown on Youtube, as the data be presented was incredibly valuable while writing this article. With Shota coming from the NPB, his data is much harder to get your hands on, so it was incredibly valuable.

Imanaga’s Unique Fastball

Shota’s most unique and arguably best quality is his 4-seam fastball and it’s movement. Shota possesses the unique ability to get elite ride on his fastball, and consistently throw it for strikes. According to a few sources I’ve seen speak about Imanaga’s analytics, he tends to throw his fastball for a strike around 74% of the time, which is well above the Major League average. However, just because he throws his fastball for strikes most of the time doesn’t automatically mean it will be successful.

Shota’s fastball is mostly perceived as elite by most measurements, and I’d definitely have to agree with this assessment. Shota’s fastball will likely preform as a top 10 4-seamer in the MLB during this upcoming season, and it’s especially encouraging given his performance with the World Baseball Classic Ball which is similar to the MLB balls he’ll be using this season. He averaged around 20 inches of induced vertical break on his fastball which would put him on par with some of the best spinners in the league, especially when you pair it with his horizontal break which averaged around 8 inches of arm side movement. The velocity won’t completely overpower hitters as it was only thrown to about 92.5 MPH on average, but when paired with it’s elite vertical break, the pitch will definitely play up. His fastball is even more unique when you consider how rare it is from left-handed pitchers, especially from his arm angle. According to his research, Lance Brozdowski pinpointed Alex Vesia and Nestor Cortez as the only two similar shapes paired with the arm angle in the MLB. As he pointed out in his breakdown, Lance noticed that his arm angle still isn’t completely the same, making it even more unique.

During the World Baseball Classic final in Miami, we really got the first chance to see how his fastball looked under the Statcast tracking system, and it was just as advertised. It generated the best stuff+ in the tournament with a measurement of 130, along with a 113 location+. In addition, his fastball generated a 37% whiff rate, which is incredible. His overall WBC numbers consisted of a 130 stuff+, 110 location+, 122 pitching+, 20.2% SwStr%, 36.7% whiff%, 36% CSW%, 72% Z-Swing%, 33.3% O-Swing%, and a 36.1% Z-Whiff%.

These kind of specs on a fastball are almost unheard of, especially from his arm angle. His fastball being thrown from a low release point of 5.6 ft will make it very difficult for hitters to get ahold of. This release point and arm angle paired with the shape is mainly what makes it so unique. It presents a brand new look at hitting a pitch that typically doesn’t have a ton of variation. With more differences pitch-to-pitch in the NPB, the separation from his fastball and the rest of his pitches is pretty large, making it stand out even more. When it comes to Shota Imanaga, you’re getting very good fastball shape, from a uncommon release point, which will make it incredibly hard to be picked up. There may be better fastballs in the MLB, but you won’t find a fastball quite like Shota’s. His unique shape and release point alone makes him worth the risk.

Managing His Arsenal

Before I wrote this article, I went back and rewatched his 2 innings of action in the World Baseball Classic final in Miami against team USA. Team USA featured some of the MLB’s best hitters, so this was incredibly important to me to gauge how hitters in the MLB may handle Imanaga. The main thing I noticed when rewatching this start is something that others have expressed concern with as well, how his fastball preforms low and in to righties. Again when referencing Lance Brozdowski’s breakdown of his fastball, he throws his fastball a lot on the inner part of the plate to right-handed hitters. The concern that arose to me, especially after his home run allowed to Trea Turner, was that due to the swing paths in MLB, this pitch feels extremely ineffective in this location. With a lot of MLB swings being built for fly balls, this is relatively hittable in this area. This is especially concerning due to the fact that his elite IVB will lose some of it’s effectiveness in this part of the zone. Where it seemed more effective? In the top half of the zone. Given his elite IVB, his fastball up will appear to rise way more than his fastball low, making it a much harder pitch to hit. Even if it’s hit, it’ll be much harder to get barrel to as opposed to a fastball similar to the one thrown to Trea Turner which moves right into his barrel. This is even more evident when taking a look at some of his NPB metrics we do have access to, which show his fastball preforming worse against righties. A pretty concerning 15.7% ground ball rate, .370 xwOBAcon, and just overall worse metrics against righties. Again, this seems to be a pretty popular concern among analysts. More fastballs in the top half of the zone would make Shota much more effective. You can see in the two videos below how much more effective Imanaga’s fastball is up in the zone vs low in the zone.

As for the rest of his pitches, Imanaga’s arsenal plays pretty well in the NPB. The only concerning pitch as a whole is his curveball. Although he doesn’t use it very often, he doesn’t get many swinging strikes, whiffs, or out of zone swings. His stuff+ on this pitch is also pretty concerning as it sits around 87, with a location+ of just 79. The rest of his pitches preformed pretty well, but they were definitely much better against lefties. His best slider plays really well against lefties, and his splitter seems to be his best non-fastball against righties. When it comes to how you’ll likely see Imanaga attack hitters in the MLB, it’ll probably be a little different than in Japan, but still similar. If I had to guess, against righties, you’ll see more fastballs in the top of the zone, and splitters in the lower middle part of the zone. Against lefties, I’d expect to see a lot of fastballs on the inner half of the plate, and sliders on the outer half of the plate. He’ll mix in a little bit of everything, but I think these will be the main combinations you’ll see.

In order for Imanaga to be successful in the MLB, he needs to stick to his strengths in his arsenal, and adjust his location tendencies with his fastball. More fastballs in the top of the zone, less curveballs, and more mixing of his off-speed should lead him on a path to success given the data we’ve been able to see.

Limiting Fly Balls and Adjusting to the New Offensive Approach

It’s been widely publicized that one of the main differences from the NPB to MLB is the amount of home runs. Major League Baseball is more focused on the long ball, and they’re far more common than in Nippon Professional Baseball. A strong concern with Shota’s data is that he’s largely a fly ball pitcher, and he had a home run problem in the NPB. This is very concerning due to the fact that this isn’t common for the NPB as I previously stated. So, if Shota is historically a flyball pitcher who allows a lot of home runs in a league where this isn’t common, how will he fare in a league where home runs are much more common?

This is one of the things I’m mainly concerned with when it comes to Imanaga, especially due to the fact that he signed to play in the Windy City. Suddenly, his fly ball problem could become even more of a home run problem. We previously touched on how his fastball location could be contributing to his home runs and large fly ball rates, so I think his adjusted, high fastball locations could definitely help this problem. But, if he doesn’t adjust to the leaguewide offensive environment, he could really struggle.

Another thing to keep in mind between NPB and MLB is the difference in approaches at the plate. Not only are home runs way more common in the MLB, but so are strikeouts. Imanaga will likely see a surge in strikeouts, similarly to how Kodai Senga posted almost a 30% K% in his first season. He’ll likely have to trust his sweeper/slider more than ever also, as that’s also the main breaking ball used in MLB. If Imanaga’s sweeper, and splitter can continue to play closely to how they did in Japan, you’ll likely see his whiff rates explode. His splitter especially could be pretty valuable to inducing more ground balls and limiting fly balls as well.

To summarize what Imanaga will need to do to adjust to the new leaguewide offense, he’ll have to limit fly balls by trusting his fastball high in the zone, use his sweeper and splitter to get a lot of whiffs in the high strikeout MLB enviorment, limit hard hit fly balls especially in Wriggly Field, and he’ll likely have to use his splitter to induce more ground balls. If Imanaga can do all of this effectively, I don’t see how he won’t succeed, as this is the perfect model to a successful start in the big leagues. If all goes well, you could see Imanaga become this year’s version of Kodai Senga, just from the left-handed side.

Conclusion

Shota Imanaga is one of the best value signings that was made this off-season, and his AAV of just $13.25 million a year is a great value deal for a pitcher of Imanaga’s caliber. Obviously, he has some steps to take before we can confidently expect him to be one of the best pitchers in the MLB, but I definitely thinks it’s possible. With his raw potential, unique qualities, and more, if he can adjust to the new leaguewide environment, we could be looking at one of the best lefties in the game. I’m very excited to see what he can actually do in 2024, but on paper this is a great move.

Special Thanks

I want to again give a special thank you to Lance Brozdowski for publicizing some of his thoughts and data he had on Imanaga, and for helping my understanding of Imanaga and his qualities. If you would like to see a more in depth look on Imanaga as a pitcher, and where I got some of my numbers from, please make sure to check out his full breakdown on Youtube.