@kagami

imanaga is one of the more interesting qualifying offer stories this offseason - cubs declined an option for 3 years at $57.75m - imanaga declined his player option for 1 year at $15.25m - cubs tender a $22.05m qualifying offer and imanaga accepts what’s more interesting is what this tells us about the cubs, imanaga, and his market - the cubs preferred financial flexibility and likely worried about imanaga’s regression this year - imanaga likely didn’t have a strong market (partially due to the qualifying offer) and accepted a 1 year qualifying offer to allow him to prove he’s as good as is 2024 season some big red flags for imanaga this year - a ~1 mph velo drop on his fastball which was already well below league average - declines in both his whiff, strikeout, and chase rates - an increase in his average exit velo if imanaga can find some of his extra velo from his rookie year, he could likely turn his “prove it” deal into a multi-year deal next offseason. for now, he managed to take home $6.8m more than his player option this year. https://x.com/mlb/status/1990889842016702643?s=46&t=dGdml54Bn5gAjlxSoZTivg

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