Making Sense of Why Astros' Tatsuya Imai Didn't Get an MLB Mega Deal

Coming to Major League Baseball was supposed to make Tatsuya Imai a millionaire many times over—perhaps even 100 times over, according to some projections.

It was mission accomplished for the 27-year-old right-hander on Thursday, but not quite to the degree that was expected. With the end of his posting window bearing down, Imai joined the Houston Astros on a three-year, $54 million contract laden with incentives and opt-outs.

Like Munetaka Murakami's two-year, $34 million deal with the Chicago White Sox, this seems to be a case of a Japanese star choosing to bet on himself in defiance of a chilly market. To make sense of it, one must start with what Imai and Murakami have in common.

MLB Teams Weren't Sold on Imai

The Seibu Lions posted Imai hot off a four-year run in which he followed sub-3.00 ERAs in 2022, 2023 and 2024 with a sub-2.00 ERA in 2025. He even dramatically improved his walk rate last year, resulting in a career-best 3.96 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

All the usual suspects were supposed to be in on Imai. In tandem with their prediction for a six-year, $150 million contract, MLB Trade Rumors labeled the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs as fits for the righty.

According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, however, neither New York club was ever seriously in on Imai. Which makes sense, as the Yankees don't necessarily need another starter, while the Mets need more of a proven arm than Imai's.

The Cubs were in on Imai, per Heyman and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, but evidently didn't make him an offer he liked. They're now in position to pivot to someone else, such as Framber Valdez or Ranger Suárez.

As to why Imai's market wasn't stronger, there's been some buzz on X that he wasn't as hyped within MLB as he was in public. As an example, here's ESPN's Buster Olney:

After Murakami fell about $150 million short of expectations for his contract, it was easy to point out the primary culprits. The power is there in spades, yes, but he also has major swing-and-miss issues and no real home on defense. Not many players can succeed in MLB with such a volatile profile.

For his part, Imai's profile is interesting but not ironclad. He has a five-pitch mix headlined by a 99 mph fastball and a plus slider, but he's also undersized (5'11", 154 pounds) and had a career walk rate of 4.4 per nine innings in Japan. And at 27 years old, he isn't so much a project as a guy who likely is who he is.

The NBP-to-MLB Pipeline Is in a Weird Spot

This was meant to be a big offseason for Japanese players coming over from NPB. In addition to Murakami and Imai, slugging third baseman Kazuma Okamoto and right-hander Kona Takahashi are still looking for work in MLB.

You can hardly blame these guys for wanting to come to North America now. Major League Baseball is the pinnacle of the sport. And lately, the money's been good. Just since 2022, there's been quite the run on Japanese-born players collecting big contracts from MLB teams:

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers: 12 years, $325 million
• Masataka Yoshida, Boston Red Sox: 5 years, $90 million
• Seiya Suzuki, Chicago Cubs: 5 years, $85 million
• Kodai Senga, New York Mets: 5 years, $75 million
• Shota Imanaga, Chicago Cubs: 5 years, $53.25 million
• Yuki Matsui, San Diego Padres: 5 years, $28 million
• Tomoyuki Sugano, Baltimore Orioles: 1 year, $13 million

The actual returns on these deals, however, are a mixed bag.

The Dodgers surely have no qualms about Yamamoto, and Suzuki has settled in as one of the Cubs' top hitters. Otherwise, Senga and Imanaga have become headaches for their teams, while Yoshida, Matsui and Sugano are closer to being busts.

Further, it's harder than ever to project transitions from NPB to MLB. Scheduling and lifestyle differences remain major hurdles, and there are now also differences in rules and offensive environments. There's no pitch clock in Japan, and NPB is in a dead ball era marked by an OPS decrease from .716 in 2019 to just .655 last year.

As those things make it especially hard to evaluate pitchers, Imai scoring a $53 million contract was hardly the worst-case scenario. Takahashi has it worse, as he reportedly could go back to Japan after his posting window closes on Sunday.

The Free-Agent Market Is in a Weird Place, Too

There's also the fact that the entire free-agent market has been acting strangely, defying expectations in both lucrative and less lucrative ways.

On the one hand, Dylan Cease, Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber and certainly Devin Williams and Jorge Polanco beat expectations. But in addition to Murakami and Imai, Edwin Díaz and Michael King didn't do as well as expected, and Imanaga, Trent Grisham, Gleyber Torres and Brandon Woodruff said "no" to the open market altogether by accepting qualifying offers.

All free-agent markets are unpredictable, but it's hardly surprising that this one is taking it to an extreme. Major League Baseball is in a no man's land between the collapse of regional sports networks and a post-2026 labor fight that could rewrite the league's financial rules. Maybe there won't be a salary cap, but something drastic is in order.

The only thing that is certain is that there's a lot of uncertainty. As Olney alluded to, that might not change until after a new collective bargaining agreement is in place, at which point both Murakami and Imai could be in a position to cash in.

For the time being, they can pin their disappointing contracts on bad timing. The best revenge they can take now is by proving that MLB teams have already missed their shot to sign them at a relative discount.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.