I really like a sophisticated contract. I really like any excuse to make use of the phrase byzantine actually, so as soon as we’re into stair-step incentive clauses, cascading conditional extensions, and the finer factors of Main League Baseball’s collective bargaining settlement, I’m having essentially the most convoluted form of enjoyable conceivable. Right now, I’m going to take you step-by-step by means of the advanced world of Shota Imanaga’s present contract state of affairs. As you seemingly know, the Cubs provided him a qualifying provide on Thursday. All we’re going to do right here is break down as merely as we are able to how he bought to that time and what it means. We’re not going to go away something out. To be clear, Imanaga’s contract state of affairs isn’t wherever close to essentially the most advanced one, besides, it’s dizzying. We’re going to lose ourselves within the minutia. For enjoyable.
I additionally love the logistics. I really like following a series of what occurs when and why so exactly that you could’t assist however be overwhelmed by the absurdity of the state of affairs. And even earlier than you dive in, free agent contracts are inherently absurd. They’re iron-clad agreements negotiated throughout the framework of an already-negotiated-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life CBA. They’re insured, and in recent times their conditionality has exploded to the purpose the place they comprise as many branches as a choose-your-own-adventure novel. However ultimately, they simply boil all the way down to determining how a lot any individual’s going to receives a commission at their job. They only occur to be agreements about how a lot essentially the most obscenely rich individuals in your entire world are going to pay people who find themselves about to develop into generationally rich. Nearly nobody concerned will ever have to fret about cash for the remainder of their lives. The individuals who actually need the frilly safeguards within the CBA and uniform participant contracts are those who don’t make thousands and thousands of {dollars}. However that is nonetheless a job; a high-pressure, high-stakes job negotiated between bitter rivals, and one aspect has a historical past of monetary malfeasance that dates again to the nineteenth century. After all, legal professionals must be concerned. Every part must be spelled out, and my goodness is it spelled out.
The small print within the CBA are there for excellent causes, however they’re mind-bogglingly particular. The title on the PDF calls it the essential settlement, and like several primary doc, it’s 426 pages lengthy. I simply scrolled to a random web page within the center, and the subject at hand was who precisely will get photocopies of crew monetary paperwork in order that the gamers can decide whether or not the homeowners are literally following the principles of the essential settlement. We’re 209 pages in, and we’re nonetheless speaking concerning the logistics of the doc itself.
One part stipulates what occurs if a participant will get known as up for the Nationwide Guard. One other explains that each one visiting clubhouses should comprise a hydroculator. The final web page is a full-page desk that establishes an agreed-upon determine for the way lengthy it takes to fly from each metropolis within the league to each different metropolis within the league. Did you could have a blast watching the swing-off that determined this yr’s All-Star Recreation? Properly, its format was codified within the CBA, which brings to the thoughts’s eye two groups of legal professionals, red-eyed, ties loosed and collars mangled, monologuing 12 Offended Males-style in a convention room strewn with stale donuts and half-empty espresso cups about whether or not every participant actually wants limitless pitches for his or her three swings when 10 pitches ought to actually be sufficient to cowl it.
Right here’s a good-faith provide: I’ll personally bake a batch of cookies and mail them to the primary FanGraphs reader who reaches out to me with some type of honest-to-goodness proof that they’ve learn your entire CBA. (Cookie number of your selecting, however please remember that my macaron recreation is rusty.)
So let’s get into this one contract. How arduous may it’s?
We’ll be counting on Cot’s Baseball Contracts for the main points. When Imanaga came to visit from the Yokohama DeNa Baystars of NPB in January 2024, he signed a four-year take care of a restricted no-trade clause. Sounds easy sufficient, however that’s simply the conference for reporting contracts, primarily based on what number of years the participant may get in the event that they did all the things of their energy to stay round. Solely the primary two years had been assured to occur, with two or three potential years added on by choices that we’ll get to later. Additionally, Imanaga got here by means of the posting system, which meant the Cubs paid his previous membership, Yokohama, a $9.825 million posting payment. Then he bought a $1 million signing bonus. So let’s begin there. The precise annual salaries had been staggered. The Cubs agreed to pay $9 million for the 2024 season and $13 million for the 2025 season. That’s the easy half.
The escalator clauses come subsequent. If Imanaga had received the Rookie of the 12 months in 2024, the Cubs would have added $250,000 to his 2025 contract. Cy Younger Award escalators had the identical construction, however they saved going. If Imanaga received a Cy Younger at any level throughout the size of the contract, then his wage in all future seasons (together with any choice years) would improve by $1 million. If he completed second or third, it could improve by half one million. If he completed within the high 10, then it could improve by $250,000. The final one occurred. Imanaga completed fifth within the 2024 NL Cy Younger voting, including 1 / 4 million {dollars} to his 2025 contract and any potential future seasons.
These escalators have another difficult side, as a result of not all the cash would go to Imanaga. He would get 85% of all escalator cash, however Yokohama would get the opposite 15%. So when he completed fifth within the Cy Younger voting, he truly added $425,000 to his 2025 contract, whereas the opposite $75,000 went to the BayStars. Put all that collectively, and simply in these first two years of the deal, there have been seven other ways the contract may’ve gone. Imanaga may’ve gotten no bonuses, or he may’ve gotten any mixture of the 2024 Rookie of the 12 months and Cy Younger bonuses, all of which might’ve affected his pay for 2025 and past.
Subsequent come the choices. Possibly you’ve seen that the reporting about Imanaga’s state of affairs during the last couple days has come beneath oddly anodyne headlines. The one I noticed most frequently was impressively passive: “Shota Imanaga Turns into Free Agent,” like there was a chrysalis concerned or one thing.
Why so bland? As a result of each the participant and the crew had a say. After the 2025 season, the Cubs had an choice to carry Imanaga again for 3 years and $57 million. The construction of the crew choice was solely somewhat bit difficult, within the sense that it was a bit front-loaded. Imanaga would have gotten $20 million in each 2026 and 2027, then $17 million in 2028. Going from $13 million in 2025 to $20 million in 2026 is an awfully large bounce, and it could’ve been locked in as a result of if the Cubs had exercised the choice, Imanaga’s no-trade clause would have gone from restricted to full. To take a fast detour into, you understand, baseball, the graph under reveals you why the Cubs might have been hesitant to join three extra years at a considerably larger worth level. In line with the spirit of the train, I made it additional busy, so I’ll clarify it a bit within the subsequent paragraph.
The darkish blue ERA- line makes it appear to be Imanaga is a steal at any worth. The man put up a 2.91 ERA final yr, then 3.73 this yr for a mixed whole of three.28. That’s unbelievable, regardless of some regression to the imply. However the different three traces are worrisome. His FIP has been rising ever since his sizzling begin in 2024 as a result of his strikeout price has been dropping. His groundball price plummeted this yr. Though it’s not on this chart, he misplaced greater than a tick of velocity on his fastball, dropping it to 90.8 mph. Even among the many cohort of left-handed starters who threw a minimum of 1,000 pitches, that put him in simply the nineteenth percentile. These are actual causes for concern, particularly for a pitcher who can be in his age-34 season on the finish of the deal.
Fortunately for Imanaga, he had an insurance coverage plan in his again pocket within the type of a participant choice for the 2026 season. Had he triggered it, he may’ve stayed in Chicago and made $15 million. If the graph I confirmed you was so ugly, why didn’t he take it and get that assured pay elevate? For starters, not all of that $15 million would have gone to him. Identical to the escalator cash, 15% of all choice cash over any a part of the deal would’ve gone again to the BayStars. In different phrases, had he exercised this selection, Imanaga truly would have gotten a pay minimize from the $13.2125 million he made in 2025 (because of the fifth-place Cy Younger end) to $12.9625 million (which is 85% of $15 million and that $250,000 bonus).
Imanaga additionally had baseball causes to assume that he may exit and discover a higher, longer-term deal. No matter what FIP mentioned, he was nonetheless capable of maintain the ball within the yard nicely sufficient to run a stable ERA in 2025. And there’s motive to anticipate his numbers to bounce again in 2026. Imanaga suffered a hamstring pressure in Might, and his strikeout price, groundball price, and velocity all rebounded somewhat bit on the finish of the season. He could be again to his previous self when he’s totally wholesome, and he’s a artful lefty with a protracted monitor document of success. It is smart for him to guess on himself whereas he’s nonetheless in his early 30s.
By declining that choice, Imanaga precluded an entire different department of the contract. Had he exercised it and performed for the Cubs in 2026, then they’d have had an choice for the 2027 and 2028 seasons, paying him $24 million within the first yr and $18 million within the second yr. (If these quantity strike you as odd, good eye. They give the impression of being bizarre, however mixed with that first participant choice, they add as much as three years and $57 million, the identical as the primary choice the Cubs declined.) And if that they had declined that choice, then he would have had one remaining participant choice, as soon as once more for $15 million, for the 2027 season. (As we established earlier, Imanaga would have solely obtained 85% of all of the figures I simply talked about, and people numbers are all contingent on Cy Younger Awards, so at this level, we are able to add $250,000 to all of them in our heads.) Once you mix the 2 participant choices, by leaving, Imanaga is popping down a assured two years and $25.925 million within the perception that he can get a greater deal in free company. He’s in all probability proper!
With that department pruned earlier than it had the possibility to exist, Imanaga’s contract state of affairs is lastly clear, proper? After all not, as a result of we’re again to the qualifying provide! As specified by attachment 45 of the CBA on web page 311, the qualifying provide is well worth the common wage of the league’s 125 highest-paid gamers, which for the 2026 season comes out to $22.025 million. If Imanaga accepts, he’ll be getting an enormous pay elevate, however he’ll even be forgoing the possibility to check free company for an additional yr. It appears unlikely, however there’s all the time an opportunity that after a disappointing, injury-affected season, he may see it as a very mild pillow contract. He will get that well-paid yr to show himself, however with out the necessity to alter to an entire new crew and metropolis.
I’m not 100% certain on my math right here, primarily as a result of holy God is these items convoluted, however I calculate that between all the choice eventualities, the potential for taking, rejecting, or not getting a QO on the finish of every state of affairs, and 4 totally different award-escalator potentialities for every particular person season, this contract may have performed out 3,383 other ways. That features all the things from the simplest – Imanaga pitches two seasons, doesn’t get any awards votes, and leaves with no QO – to essentially the most elaborate. That one includes Imanaga pitching six seasons for the Cubs. He wins the Rookie of the 12 months in 2024 and the Cy Younger yearly. The Cubs decline their three-year choice, so he workouts 2026 participant choice, then the Cubs choose up their choice for 2027 and 2028 and he accepts the QO in 2029. It earns him someplace within the neighborhood of $122 million over six years, reasonably than the 2 years and $23.2125 million he’s earned up to now (not together with his 2025 postseason share and 2024 All-Star stipend). What my coronary heart actually desires is for Imanaga to just accept the QO, then pitch so nicely in 2026 that the Cubs are determined to get him to signal an extension earlier than the season is out, simply to maintain this organized chaos going for so long as potential.
I notice that this was in all probability a tricky learn on a Friday afternoon. Main league contracts are extremely difficult for excellent causes, and though I’d change about one million issues concerning the present system if I had been answerable for it, I don’t assume the current proliferation of choices and incentive clauses is essentially a foul factor. It’s logical for either side to search for safety blankets in case of damage or underperformance. It’s cheap to have a system the place you could have your base pay after which bonuses should you carry out very well, particularly in a job like this one. However though it’s cheap and logical, diving into the specifics of only one contract illustrates simply how absurd the entire state of affairs is, and that’s earlier than we get into the method for calculating how a lot meal cash gamers get on highway journeys. Imanaga’s state of affairs has performed out in essentially the most easy manner potential, with not one of the varied choice eventualities coming to fruition, but it surely’s nonetheless too difficult for a headline that sounds prefer it was written by a human being. So let’s maintain it going.
