{"id":355185,"date":"2025-11-04T14:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T14:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355185\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T14:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T14:33:12","slug":"how-why-cubs-weird-contract-decision-turned-shota-imanaga-into-a-free-agent-after-3-28-era-across-2-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355185\/","title":{"rendered":"How, why Cubs’ weird contract decision turned Shota Imanaga into a free agent after 3.28 ERA across 2 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

How, why Cubs’ weird contract decision turned Shota Imanaga into a free agent after 3.28 ERA across 2 seasons<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Cubs<\/a> may have overplayed their hand.<\/p>\n

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And the result is that Japanese left-handed pitcher Shota Imanaga, who has a 3.28 ERA through his first two seasons with the Cubs, is now a surprise free agent.<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers<\/a> broke the news on Tuesday morning, and it’s a tad complicated sequence of contract dominos.<\/p>\n

The Cubs had originally signed Imanaga to a four-year contract, of which he’s through two seasons.<\/p>\n

Built into the contract was an option for Chicago, after the second season, to decide to tack a fifth year onto the end of the deal.<\/p>\n

The Cubs, according to Rogers, chose to reject that chance at a fifth year.<\/p>\n

But that aspect of the contract was tied to another: If the Cubs rejected a fifth year, the 2026 season became a $15 million player option campaign for Imanaga, rather than a standard contract year. And he declined the newly created player option.<\/p>\n

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If the Cubs had added the fifth year on to Imanaga’s contract, he wouldn’t have had a route to free agency right now. But in their rejection of it, they opened the door, and Imanaga walked out.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>Mets named best free agent fit for Yankees’ 30-year old star<\/a><\/p>\n

So Imanaga is a free agent, rather than being under Cubs control for either the next two or three seasons.<\/p>\n

He put up a 2.91 ERA with a 15-3 record in 2024.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Imanaga had a 9-8 mark with a 3.73 ERA and 117 strikeouts in 144.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n

He may not be overpowering, but he’s clearly a valuable member of a starting rotation. Now, if the Cubs want to keep him around, they’ll have to negotiate a new contract with him.<\/p>\n

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And the rest of MLB, which surely wasn’t planning on Imanaga hitting the open market, can start putting their hats into the ring, too.<\/p>\n

More MLB rumors:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How, why Cubs’ weird contract decision turned Shota Imanaga into a free agent after 3.28 ERA across 2…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1271,20645,31301,124544,3685,1266,5435,62,67,132,68,2386],"class_list":{"0":"post-355185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-chicago-cubs","9":"tag-era","10":"tag-free-agent","11":"tag-jesse-rogers","12":"tag-mets","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-shota-imanaga","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115491923846285946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}