Plenty of teams seem to be circling on Tatsuya Imai, but that has not materialized into any formal offers.
One of the top pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball, the Scott Boras-represented righty made waves already by declaring he wouldn’t play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are among the teams that have been linked to Imai. So too have the Boston Red Sox.
Friday represents the deadline for the 27-year-old to sign with an MLB team this season. He’s in the United States meeting with teams via Zoom, but he told “Udo Times” in Japan that he has yet to receive a formal offer.
“Apparently, there actually aren’t many concrete options on the table yet,” Imai said, via The New York Post, citing a transcription from X user @NekoSuke5_5_2. “And it seems that having teams show interest and receiving a formal offer are completely different things.”
Imai doesn’t carry the name recognition that Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki did when they were posted, but he still figures to be a solid addition for the middle of a rotation.
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The 27-year-old has a 3.15 ERA in 159 NPB appearances, and is coming off a 2025 campaign in which he went 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA in 24 appearances.
The Red Sox have addressed the rotation already with the Sonny Gray trade, but room for improvement remains. If another deal — be it a trade for someone like Joe Ryan or signing a starter in the Framber Valdez tier — for someone with an MLB track record isn’t attainable, Imai represents a very intriguing alternative.
