The Chicago White Sox were connected to Tatsuya Imai in free agency, but his command issues, early IL stint, and trouble adjusting to the MLB lifestyle are making that contract look like a bullet dodged.
There was a point during the offseason when the Chicago White Sox appeared to be in play to sign Japanese free agent starting pitcher Tatsuya Imai.
The White Sox had already made a surprise splash by bringing in Munetaka Murakami on a two-year, $34 million deal, and reports out of Yahoo! Japan pointed to the possibility of the team double-dipping on Japanese stars.
Super agent Scott Boras made public comments that several interested teams had hesitated to make formal long-term offers, which pushed Imai to explore shorter deals to establish his value. That was very similar to what had just happened with Murakami, and many White Sox fans began to wonder if Chris Getz could swoop in and do it again.
I always felt like the White Sox’s reported interest was somewhat overstated, especially because I figured Imai would come with a price tag that far exceeded what the Sox gave Murakami. It ultimately turned into a three-year, $54 million contract with an opt-out after the first year—a very player-friendly deal in terms of leverage. Still, the AAV felt like a bargain for a starting pitcher who posted a 1.92 ERA in Japan last season.
As it turns out, the White Sox may have dodged a bullet by not signing Imai.
On April 4, Imai tossed 5.2 shutout innings with nine strikeouts for the Astros, looking every bit like the pitcher Houston thought it was getting. But in his other two starts combined, he has thrown just three innings, allowing seven earned runs and issuing seven walks.
In his most recent outing, he didn’t make it out of the first inning, throwing 37 pitches while recording just one out. Imai's ERA now sits at 7.27, and Houston has placed him on the 15-day injured list with right arm fatigue.
I’m not sure what’s worse—needing an IL stint in mid-April with five months still to play, or the explanation behind it. Imai believes his arm fatigue is tied to struggles adjusting to the American lifestyle.
“Just not able to adjust to the American lifestyle, other than baseball. Baseball and outside of baseball. That’s probably the reason,” he said through a translator earlier this week.
“For example, the travel is different from Japan. The timing when the players eat. In Japan, when they get back to the hotel, they eat their dinner. Here, the players eat at the stadium.” (via Chandler Rome)
Far be it from me to comment on the lifestyle differences between being a professional baseball player in Japan and the United States, but it certainly doesn’t seem like a great sign that a starting pitcher is struggling on the mound because of routine differences like meal timing.
I had concerns about the White Sox starting pitching entering the 2026 season, and those concerns still exist. Shane Smith’s early struggles and subsequent demotion to Triple-A have only made the team’s need for innings more apparent. But even with those issues, it’s hard not to view this as a situation where Chicago may have dodged a bullet.
The last thing the White Sox, a team that doesn’t spend heavily in free agency, needed was to commit significant money to someone like Tatsuya Imai only to have him struggling and on the injured list three weeks into the season.