Tatsuya Imai is officially headed to the 713.
The Japanese star pitcher Imai has decided to sign with the Houston Astros in free agency, according to multiple reports on Thursday. Imai, a righty, makes the leap to Major League Baseball after spending the last nine seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He also becomes the first Japanese free agent to sign with the Astros since infielder Kazuo Matsui back in 2007.
Shortly after the news broke, Chandler Rome of The Athletic shared the interesting details about Imai’s new contract with the Astros. Imai’s deal is for three years and $54 million. It also has an additional $3 million per season in incentives for innings pitched, bringing its max value to $63 million.
On top of that, Rome adds that Imai’s contract contains opt-outs after every season. Additionally, Imai is getting the third-highest average annual value (AAV) ever for a Japanese-born pitcher (behind only Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Masahiro Tanaka).
Imai, 27, was a three-time NPB All-Star for the Saitama Seibu Lions. Last season for Seibu, Imai went 10-5 with a glowing 1.92 ERA, a 0.89 WHIP, and 172 strikeouts over 24 total appearances (spanning 163.2 innings pitched).
A little over a month ago, Imai explained why he was not interested in signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are MLB’s marquee team right now for Japanese star talent. Now Imai has decided to sign with a big-time Dodgers enemy in the Astros, who thus land a new star pitcher amid the expected departure of multi-time All-Star Framber Valdez in free agency.
