It would seem that when everyone zigs, it becomes doubly important to remember to zag.
If you took a poll of baseball writers, front office executives and the most rabid fans, there is a certain unanimity when it comes to identifying the best of the best at every position. We're all well aware of the desirability of folks like Shoehei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Aaron Nola, Josh Hader and others.
Somewhat further down the list you get to some of the solid but not rolls-right-off-the-tongue players who could contribute quite a bit to your plans to return to contention. This group would include guys like Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez and as yet unmarketed former Met Seth Lugo. Any of these guys could certainly help a club who currently only has two proven starting pitchers.
The zagging referenced earlier is about a name that hits some of the lists but is largely overlooked when it comes to media frenzy and fan attention. This past weekend the Yokohama DeNa Baystars announced that southpaw pitcher Shota Imanaga will indeed be posted to the MLB free agent list.
Who, you might ask, is Shota Imanaga?
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Well, given that the Mets are now down another lefty starting pitcher when David Peterson went under the knife, perhaps it's time to spread your focus overseas for replacement resources. When you gaze at the numbers you may start to ask me for a napkin to mop up the fine line of drool that appears on your lips.
Most people are only studying the years Imanaga spent in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, but he also put in some time overseas in Australia where he excelled as well. We will consider the entire spectrum of his professional career and begin to realize that this 30-year-old lefty is someone who most certainly should be on the "zag" radar.
Over the course of 8 seasons playing ball he's 74-55 with a 2.96 ERA over 192 games. That span included 13 complete games as well, a rarity in modern baseball now that we have grown accustomed to most starts lasting just 5-6 innings with a cautiously tiered system of support relievers taking over to finish out the remainder of the 9 innings required to win.
Dig a little deeper and you see he's averaged better than a strikeout per inning pitched while maintaining excellent control. Look no further than his WHIP numbers and see that for his 8 seasons he's allowing 1.076 runners per inning pitched and less than one home run per 9 innings. Those are indeed very solid numbers to ask of your number 3-5 pitcher.
In 2023 he had a 2.66 ERA over 159 IP with 188 strikeouts and a walk rate of 1.4 per 9 IP. It hardly seems like he's lost anything after crossing into his age 30 season.
Estimates are that he would be looking for an $85 million contract for a period of five years. If you average that out, you're looking at $17 million per season. While that's not exactly pocket change, that's well under half of what you paid for each of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander while receiving probably 80-90% of their production. That's a good value in anyone's book.
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If he can deliver in the USA close to what he did in Japan then we'll all become ZAGNUTS.
8 comments:
If he zags while opposing hitters zig, we ought to go get him. We sure need to add 3 more Japanese platers this off season: (not Jordan, but the other) Yamamoto, the Shohei Kid, and the Zagger. I will then order Citi rolls from our local Japanese restaurant daily. What a season that would be.
Morning all and, particularly, you Reese.
I'm glad you did a piece on this guy. The only hole I could find on him is his lack of producing these kind of numbers stateside.
A 1.076 career WHIP is unbelievable.
A weird analogy came to mind, but remember during the strike season when the Mets signed and started pitcher Rick Reed? No one expected much from him but he rapidly proved he was better than what was anticipated. His return to baseball across the picket lines had to do with financing medical issues for his family, so I am not going to debate the pros and cons of players honoring a strike. All I know is he was a good one. Not great, but very good when the Mets needed it most.
Perhaps Imanaga can be that type of lower level signing that turns into 3-5 years of quality when the team really benefits from it.
I do wonder what Stearns thinks of the future of our minor leagues starter prospects.
Tom, you cannot add Ohtani; forget it. Not only is he costing you your second and fifth round pick, but also will cost the Mets $1MM is draft pool money. You basically punt this year’s crop while adding a stick that is reaching 30 y.o. this year. He may still be a good player, but any QO addition needs to be done with a lump in the Mets’ throat.
If he is truly like Rick Reed, then go get Imanaga. Except this time, please let him pitch game 6.
I happen to believe that Lucas Giolito could use a reboot with the team his family has rooted for all their lives
Jordan???
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