NEW YORK — Ask a Chicago Cub about Shota Imanaga and his eyes widen.
It is a look of admiration, appreciation, affection, reverence, confusion, surprise. And also gratitude, gratitude that Imanaga pitched for his club and not for another. That’s because just a month into this new season, the 30-year-old Japanese rookie has established himself as one of the sport’s most unique and dominant pitchers.
On Wednesday in Queens, Imanaga showed his best self once again, destroying the New York Mets in seven scoreless innings. He struck out seven and walked one on just 87 pitches. At no point did the Cubs lefty seem the least bit perturbed. At the Met he reached third base against him.
And the visitors needed everything from their starter. Chicago escaped with a 1-0 victory after Pete Alonso was sent off at home to end the game while trying to score on a sacrifice fly.
Imanaga’s performance on Wednesday was a continuation of a brilliant start to his big league career. After eight seasons as one of the top pitchers in Japan’s top league NPB, the former Yokohama Baystars ace decided to make the trans-Pacific leap last winter, and the Cubs signed him to a four-year, $53 million contract. , plus a fee of US$9.825 million to the Baystars, to secure his services.
So far, it looks like a phenomenal investment.
In his first six starts as a major leaguer, the Japanese pitcher allowed just three earned runs in 34 2/3 innings. His ERA is 0.78, the lowest in MLB. He recorded one strikeout per inning. And he made it all seem disconcertingly easy. The Cubs, currently without injured ace Justin Steele, have won all six of Imanaga’s starts.
Imanaga’s electric outing against the Mets was even more impressive considering his fastball velocity was a mile per hour smoother than his season average. That the stocky left-hander was able to navigate without his usual zipper shows his magnificent command, his dastardly splitter and his steady poise. Above all, it further confirms that it is the shape – not the speed – of Imanaga’s heater that makes the throw, and Imanaga himself, a total unicorn.
Cubs catcher Yan Gomes compared him to a pitching machine.
“You know the first few times you try to land an Iron Mike?” he said. “And you can’t get there? Do you get under it, dirtying it back up? [Imanaga’s fastball] It’s the same thing. It just gets there faster than you think.”
Gravity pushes everything toward the earth, including fastballs. As a sphere moves towards the base, gravity pushes it downward along its journey. However, the speed and axis of spin of a fastball can fight the wrath of gravity, causing a phenomenon known as “walking” or “loading.” A carry heater is effective, especially at the top of the strike zone, because it stays on plane and drops much less than the hitter expects. And when an “in-plane” fastball comes from a lower release point, it amplifies this growing effect.
Imanaga’s fastball, which he throws about 58% of the time, is a clear example of this. The average speed on their heater is 92.3 mph, which is in the 23rd percentile league-wide. Still, Imanaga’s four-seam fastball ranked as the most valuable pitch in the sport, according to Baseball Savant’s run value metric. As a group, MLB hitters have a .245 batting average and a .410 slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs; opponents are hitting .137 and hitting .233 against Imanaga’s special heater.
“We really like his fastball format,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told the media before Wednesday’s game. “I thought he did a great job playing the high/low game, with fastballs up and splitters down.”
While Imanaga’s fastball form was instrumental in his early success, there is much more to it than that. He commands the field superbly, positioning him at the top of the zone for scored hits and just above for strikes. Meanwhile, his split-finger fastball frustrated both left-handed and right-handed bats, falling under barrels at 84 mph. He threw the seam four or the splitter 87% of the time.
His posture is also unmistakably impressive.
When Alonso hit a dribbler into the no man’s land between first base and the pitcher’s mound to lead off the seventh, Imanaga took control. As he ran toward the ball, the left-hander motioned Michael Busch, an inexperienced first baseman with just 17 professional games there before this season, back to the plate. In one motion, he picked up the rock and handed it to Busch to retrieve.
The moment stuck with captain Craig Counsell after the game when he mentioned the spontaneous play in his post-game scrum.
“That’s just awareness, court awareness — if you can say that in baseball,” he said. “But it was a very smart move. And he showed that several times, as well as a great jump shot.
Several Cubs spoke to Yahoo Sports about Imanaga’s obvious comfort on the field. His experience pitching in Japan, in huge moments for nearly a decade, prepared him for the move stateside. The game doesn’t go his way. He feels comfortable in big moments. Not once this season has he looked exhausted.
When asked what it was like to launch in New York for the first time, Imanaga, through an interpreter, casually mentioned that he thought it was cool that the view from his hotel room reminded him of Spider-Man. The launch environment in the Big Apple clearly had no impact on him. He climbed bigger mountains and swam in deeper waters.
“He’s been a great player for, like, 10 years, basically,” Gomes said.
Physically, Imanaga is not built like the traditional ace. He’s listed at 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, but he’s probably a little smaller and certainly a little heavier. His uniform doesn’t really fit his body; it fits well on the shoulders, but the sleeves hang down to the elbows, like a three-quarter raglan shirt. One scout affectionately referred to his body as “stocky.” He doesn’t light up a radar or lean on a deep arsenal of secondary offerings.
It all seems unimposing—that is, until the fastball bounces out of his hand, passes you, and lands in the catcher’s glove.
