Breaking: Surprise Team Wins Tatsuya Imai Sweepstakes

January 01, 2026


Japanese pitching sensation Tatsuya Imai starts off the new year with a big new contract to come to the major leagues. And we have a surprising winner of the sweepstakes, as the Houston Astros sign Imai to a three-year deal.

Reports say the contract maxes out at $63 million and contains an opt-out after every year. At $21M a year, it's the second-largest AAV for a Japanese pitcher, behind only the massive $325 million deal ($27M AAV) the LA Dodgers gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto a couple of years back. Of course, that's already paid off, after Yamamoto was the World Series MVP this year.

Which teams were the finalists to sign Tatsuya Imai?

Imai's posting window had a deadline of January 2nd. Big-spending teams like the New York Yankees, NY Mets, LA Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies were thought to be the finalists to land the Japanese phenom, but the more cautiously-spending Astros shocked them all. They are a team that will be losing their own ace to free agency this offseason, in Framber Valdez.

Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees and Mets, in the end, were not too seriously involved in the bidding on Imai. The Chicago Cubs, however, were among the teams in the mix, he said.

The 27-year-old Imai posted a career-best 1.92 ERA in 2025 in the NPB, with an equally minuscule 0.89 WHIP, and a vast array of pitches in his arsenal. He allowed just 101 hits in 163.2 innings, and struck out 178 batters.

In his eight seasons in Japan, Imai had a 3.15 ERA. However, he's risent to a new level in recent years. Since 2023, he has an ace-worthy 2.18 ERA with 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings.

He was posted by his Nippon Professional Baseball club, the Saitama Seibu Lions, back on November 19th, and MLB teams had a 45-day window to work out a deal. He was signed on the 44th day.

Photo: Masatokun555, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


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