Angels Must Make Offers To These Japanese Stars In Free Agency

With the 2026 Major League Baseball season wrapped up, it’s time for everyone’s favorite time of year – when the offseason rumors and predictions hot stove heats up.

It’s a lot of fun for fans of teams that know their team is good and/or has an owner or president of baseball operations that loves to spend big in the winter, but not as fun for fanbases that know their team won’t be named in wild predictions or have an owner that loves to bring in big-name players.

For Los Angeles Angels fans, they’ve experienced the latter and it’s resulted in poor finishes on a yearly basis. Thankfully for them, Arte Moreno sold the franchise to notable owner Stan Kroenke, who owns multiple sports franchises that have won many championships and go the extra mile to pull off big moves.

Kroenke is expected to take over during the first quarter of 2027, which is prime offseason time. I believe that he will be the owner fans have been waiting for, and they will finally be listed under free agents as a top landing spot.

So with that being said, there are three free agents that I think the Angels should make big offers to and try to address some big issues that have plagued the franchise for far too long.

3B/OF Teruaki Sato

Sato has posted huge numbers in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB), including back-to-back 100-RBI seasons with 39 or more home runs and 34 or more doubles. In 2026, Sato slashed .306/.383/.609 (.991 OPS) in his age-27 season while playing most of his games at third base.

He isn’t great defensively (18 errors at 3B, two errors in the outfield) and his arm isn’t the strongest, but the Angels need to generate way more offense and can work around his defensive miscues. Sato will be a popular name, so the Angels would have to entice him with more than just money.

LHSP Shota Imanaga

Imanaga is a flyball pitcher and gives up his fair share of home runs (tied-second with 35 allowed), which plagued LA’s pitching staff, but he doesn’t walk batters – a huge issue for the Halos. The former Chicago Cub went 11-10 with a 3.77 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 174 strikeouts (9.0 K/9) to just 37 walks across 174.1 innings pitched.

He was an All-Star for the Cubs in 2024 after he posted a 15-3 record with a 2.91 ERA and 1.02 WHIP while posting 174 punchouts to just 28 walks. Imanaga struggled a bit this season and lost trust late in the year, but when he’s on, he’s hard to beat with his nasty splitter.

RHSP Kaima Taira

Taira will be posted to MLB like Sato and is the top pitcher coming over from Japan this offseason. He has been outstanding in his young career, posting a career ERA of 1.78 in eight NPB seasons over 592 innings pitched. Taira is an interesting player to look at because of his size and lack of experience (never pitched more than 150 innings and typically hovered around 55 innings), but the talent is there.

He sits between 94 and 97 mph on his fastball with six or seven additional plus-pitches, including a splitter like Imanaga.

The Angels would be wise to go after some of the best Japanese players in the world, and they’ve done it before with Shohei Ohtani.