{"id":355449,"date":"2025-11-04T17:06:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355449\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T17:06:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:06:13","slug":"imanaga-becomes-eligible-for-free-agency-after-cubs-pitcher-turn-down-options-ap-source-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355449\/","title":{"rendered":"Imanaga becomes eligible for free agency after Cubs, pitcher turn down options, AP source says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHICAGO \u2014 Left-hander Shota Imanaga became eligible for free agency when the Chicago Cubs declined an option to keep his contract by guaranteeing $57 million for the 2026-28 seasons and he turned down a $15.25 million option for 2026, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p>The person spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the team had not announced the decisions.<\/p>\n<p>[Imanaga agreed in January 2024 to a contract guaranteeing $53 million](https:\/\/r $24,000,000 -2027; $15,000,000-2028.&gt;). He wound up earning $23.25 million over two seasons, including a $250,000 escalator for 2025 by finishing fourth in 2024 NL Cy Young Award voting.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago had to decide this week whether to exercise its option for $20.25 million each in 2026 and &#8217;27 and $17.25 million in 2028, figures that increase by $250,000 each because of the escalator.<\/p>\n<p>Once the team declined, he had the decision on a 2026 option. If he had exercised that option, it would have triggered club options for $24.25 million in 2027 and $15.25 million in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>The Cubs could still extend Imanaga <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mlb-qualifying-offers-02b63d96df7277bb199300204acaf83b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a qualifying offer<\/a> of $22,025,000 for 2026. If he declines and signs with another team before the amateur draft, the Cubs would receive a draft pick as compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Imanaga, 32, was an All-Star in 2024, when he went 15-3 with a 2.91 ERA, finishing fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting.<\/p>\n<p>He was 9-8 with a 3.73 ERA in 25 starts this year, when he was sidelined between May 24 and June 26 by a strained left hamstring.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP MLB: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Left-hander Shota Imanaga became eligible for free agency when the Chicago Cubs declined an option to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[64,419,418,421,420,425,1266,50,422,423,62,399,314,67,132,68,424,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-355449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-classifieds","11":"tag-homes","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-local","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-radio","17":"tag-salt-lake","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-television","20":"tag-traffic","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-utah","25":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115492525482580200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355449","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=355449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}