While Tatsuya Imai has yet to decide on a team and will be meeting with teams this upcoming week, we know the Yankees are among teams seriously interested in his services.
Teams such as the Blue Jays and Mets are considered interested in his services as well, with the Giants being a team considered as arguably the favorite for his services.
San Francisco may not be as interested as initially perceived, as Buster Olney of ESPN reports that they’ve inquired more on the middle of the starting pitching market, indication that they won’t be paying top dollar for Imai.
While they aren’t ruled out or non-factors in the Tatsuya Imai sweepstakes, their lack of activity at the top of the free agent market could keep the Yankees in the lead for his services.
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The Yankees Could Have a Clearer Path To Signing Tatsuya Imai
As the Winter Meetings draw closer, top free agents will start finding homes as their agents communicate with teams interested in acquiring them.
Tatsuya Imai is expected to be a name who teams inquire at a high price with Scott Boras being his agent, and the Yankees are among teams showing very real interest in the right-hander’s services.
His four-seamer sat around 95.5 MPH this past season while having a low arm angle, which makes the fastball extremely effective at the top of the zone.
Furthermore, he has a wrong-way slider and a nasty splitter that allows him to miss a ton of bats, as this past season he struck out over 27% of batters faced.
The Yankees could need rotation help badly with both Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon on the shelf to start the year due to elbow surgery.
Teams value the projectability of someone like Imai who can develop more weapons to compliment the strong foundation he has with the fastball, breaking ball, and offspeed stuff.
While the organization has become unhappy with their lack of signings from Japan, they aren’t just forcing this for the sake of saying they’ve acquired a foreign-born player.
Players such as Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki, and Masataka Yoshida all didn’t sign with the Dodgers, but the Yankees weren’t super involved in the sweepstakes for them.
I don’t expect them to be aggressive in pursuit of Munetaka Murakami either despite years of smoke about how he’d be the perfect first baseman for the team.
The Yankees like Imai’s stuff and competitive nature, but in these meetings they’ll get to learn more about the player and see if they like or love what he can bring to the table.