When the news broke that Seibu Lions ace Tatsuya Imai was posted, many Major League fans had one question: Would he also want to join the Dodgers? After all, not only is Los Angeles arguably the closest flight back to Japan, but he’d be able to join fellow countrymen Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and Roki Sasaki to help L.A. push for a third consecutive World Series championship next year.
Have no fear, fans of baseball’s 29 other teams: Imai has no interest in forming a Miami Heat-esque superteam in Los Angeles. If anything, he wants to show off his skills and take those three down.
Speaking with Daisuke Matsuzaka on the show, “Hodo Station,” Imai revealed a bit of a competitive edge.
“Of course, I’d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki,” Imai told the former Major League pitcher and two-time World Baseball Classic champion, “but winning against a team like that and becoming a World Champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I’d rather take them down.”
Coming off a remarkable Sawamura Award-winning season — the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young Award – during which Imai recorded a 1.92 ERA over 163 2/3 innings with 178 strikeouts, it appears that he is actually looking forward to a new challenge in the Major Leagues.
“If there were another Japanese player on the same team, I could just ask them about anything, right?” Imai said. “But that’s actually not what I’m looking for. In a way, I want to experience that sense of survival. When I come face-to-face with cultural differences, I want to see how I can overcome them on my own — that’s part of what I’m excited about.”
Though Imai stands a relatively slight 5-foot-11, and 154 pounds, the pitcher has drawn comparisons to Mets starter Kodai Senga and can get his fastball up into the mid-90s. After NPB batters hit just .189 against his heater in 2025, according to One Point Zero Two (essentially Japanese baseball’s Fangraphs), he’s looking to lean on it once again in the Major Leagues — no matter how big the batters are.
“[My best pitch is] probably my fastball,” Imai said. “The key is not aiming low. I’m always trying to throw it up in the zone—about mask-high for the catcher when he sets up normally.”
He went on to explain that throwing the pitch up in the zone — a current trend in the big leagues, too — is a necessary tactic given his relatively short stature and low release point.
“In MLB, the average height for a hitter is higher than in Japan, so I focus on throwing a rising, high fastball from that low release—almost like I’m driving it upward from below. I’m very conscious about not throwing downhill from over the top,” said Imai.
Of course, there’s one specific player he wants to test himself against: Who else but Ohtani?
“I really want to see how much my fastball holds up against him —to test myself by throwing it to him,” Imai said.
While the right-hander had been a solid contributor ever since he debuted in the NPB in 2018 as a 20-year-old, Imai broke out in 2025 by upping his strikeout rate, cutting his walk rate to a career-best and giving up fewer home runs than ever before. Beyond capturing the attention of big league clubs, Samurai Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata took notice as well. Ibata mentioned him as a player he wants to see on the national team at this spring’s World Baseball Classic.
“He was great before,” Ibata said, “but he’s picked it up another notch. I’m very, very excited.”
