The New York Yankees are beginning to put their ideal offseason plans together, and in speaking to those with knowledge of the matter, Tatsuya Imai is near the top of that list.
Sources are telling Empire Sports Media that the Yankees will aggressively pursue RHP Tatsuya Imai, who is considered the top Japanese free agent and one of the best pitchers on the free-agent market.
He posted a 1.92 ERA across 163.2 IP for the Saitaima Seibu Lions, and the Yankees are one of the teams with a great deal of interest in the right-hander’s services.
Imai will turn 28 years old next May and is expected to sign a nine-figure contract with an MLB team this offseason, although he has yet to be posted.
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Tatsuya Imai Will Receive Heavy Interest From Yankees This Winter
Earlier this offseason we reported that the Yankees desperately wanted back in on the Japanese market, and Yankee Source had the original report of NYY having ‘strong’ interest in Imai.
We learned over the past week that New York was preparing for an aggressive pursuit of the right-hander, with the expectation being that they face steep competition from other contenders.
During the 2025 season, Tatsuya Imai struck out 27.8% of batters faced with a 7.0% walk rate, limiting home runs and doing a great job of picking up whiffs throughout the season.
Imai’s 32% Whiff% this season was the highest qualified mark for an NPB starter since the metric began being tracked in 2014, a unique trait that could translate very well in the big leagues.
The ability to miss bats in a league where hitters sell out for contact is important when trying to project future success in the big leagues, and when looking at recent starters who have come over, their SwStr% has remained unaffected:
The biggest dropoffs have vcome with Kodai Senga and Tomoyuki Sugano, in the case of Senga he saw a massive dip in this metric this past season as a 32-year-old with multiple injuries.
As for Sugano, he entered MLB as a 35-year-old, but even their SwStr% numbers decreased by between 2-3%, and in the case of Imai, he’ll come over during his age-28 season with a 15.4% SwStr%.
If Imai records a SwStr% between 13-14%, he would be one of the top swing-and-miss artists in the game, and the Yankees know he can be a whiff machine in the big leagues.
On the Fireside Yankees YouTube channel we broke down why his swing-and-miss rates could translate over from the NPB to MLB very well despite an increase in opponent difficulty.
We reported earlier in the offseason that the Yankees are ‘extremely motivated’ to get back into the NPB market after numerous misses over the last decade.
Masahiro Tanaka is the team’s most recent signing from the Nippon Baseball League, which occured after the 2013 season, and their attempts to re-enter it have left them empty-handed.
Imai is not the pitcher that Yoshinobu Yamamoto is, but he is projected to get a nine-figure contract due to his outlier swing-and-miss rates.
With a funky release point and unique slider, the Yankees could be adding a no. 2-3 starter who is just 27 years old, and they’ll be heavily involved in that free agent chase.
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