Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Shota Imanaga has accepted a one-year, $22.025 million qualifying offer and will return to the team for the 2026 season, according to multiple reports.
Imanaga, 32, is one of a record four MLB players to accept a qualifying offer before Tuesday’s deadline to decide if they wanted to re-up with their former teams.
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The lefty Japanese pitcher posted a 9-8 record and 3.73 ERA in 25 starts for a playoff-bound Cubs squad this past season, although he missed most of May and June with a strained left hamstring and struggled mightily in September, allowing 10 home runs across five starts during the month.
Imanaga surprisingly became a free agent earlier this month when Chicago declined its club option on his contract, and then he declined his player option. That went down less than eight months after he was the team’s Opening Day starter on the heels of his 2024 All-Star campaign, during which he also made a run at the NL Cy Young Award in his first season in the majors.
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Imanaga left Nippon Professional Baseball and signed a four-year, $53 million deal in 2024 that included a series of options. One allowed the Cubs to extend Imanaga’s contract to five years, but they declined that three-year, $57.75 million option, as reported by The Athletic.
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Then Imanaga turned down a $15.25 million player option for 2026, throwing his name into the intriguing pool of free-agent starting pitchers this offseason.
The Cubs came back with their qualifying offer that Imanaga accepted rather than vying for a longer-term contract on the open market. If he had declined the qualifying offer, any team that signed him would have been subject to losing one or more draft picks.
After signing with the Cubs in 2024, Imanaga immediately made a name for himself in Chicago and in MLB. Becoming an ace for the Cubs, he went 15-3 in 29 starts as a rookie, thanks to a 2.91 ERA and a 6.21 strikeout-to-walk ratio that led the National League.
