Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Tuesday night gave us a rare evening of excellent starting pitching for not one, but two emerging Japanese superstar pitchers. On this night, the start dates for both Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga lined up directly, so baseball fans were treated a double dose of Japan’s finest. But at night’s end, baseball talking heads were all a flutter. Who really got the better deal between these two, the Cubs with Imanaga or the Dodgers with Yamamoto? Of course, it’s very early in the contracts of both these players, but let’s open up the hood and see who’s leading the race at this point.
Pedigree: Advantage Yamamoto
Though past performance is not a guarantee of future results, as they say, it’s useful to look at what these two arms did in Japan prior to moving across the Pacific. In that department, Yamamoto is clearly the leader.
At just 25 years old, Yamamoto has a resume unlike any other Japanese player. In seven seasons in NPB, he posted a gaudy 1.82 ERA. and 0.92 WHIP in just under 1,000 innings pitched. He made five All-Star teams, tossed four no-hitters, won three Japanese Pitching Triple Crowns, two Sawamura Awards (NPB’s Cy Young), and two MVPs. In his final start in Game 6 of the Japan Series, Yamamoto was nearly unhittable. He threw a gargantuan 138-pitch, 14-strikeout complete game, giving up only one run and keeping his Orix Buffaloes in the series.
At 30, Imanaga is a bit older, a veteran of eight seasons of pro ball in Japan. During that time the lefty has accumulated some solid stats pitching for the Yokohama Bay Stars: 3.18 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, over 1,000 strikeouts. He pitched with Japan in their successful run at the WBC as well, where he posted a 3.00 ERA in three appearances. He’s not going to overpower anybody; his fastball is low to mid 90s, but he has a devastating changeup and keeps opposing hitters off-balance.
Given the age difference and the difference in accomplishment, it was not surprising that Yamamoto was viewed as the prize of this season’s offseason for pitchers. He snagged a gargantuan 300-million-dollar, ten-year contract. Imanaga didn’t exactly fly under the radar, but he signed a comparatively smaller deal, one for four years at $50 million with the Cubs, which puts right about on a par with teammates Drew Smyly and Nico Hoerner. Good, but not a bank-breaker like Yamamoto.
Start in MLB: Slight advantage Imanaga
We all know that Shota Imanaga is off to an incredible start on the North Side, but there is a lot distance between the two pitchers than at first glance. The reason for this lies in one simple truth: the disastrous single inning of work that was Yamamoto’s debut in Seoul. Take away that one five-run trainwreck and Yamamoto’s ERA drops from a solid 2.79 to an outstanding 1.76. And as one can see from the stats below, the other numbers for the two pitchers are very comparable.
The two pitchers’ last outings were practically idential. Yamamoto dominated the Marlins for eight innings to pick up his fourth win of the season. The only blemishes to his night were a solo home to Jazz Chisolm, Jr. on the first pitch of the ballgame, and a late inning solo shot to Bryan De La Cruz when the game was out of reach and he was just pumping strikes. The final line: 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K. Similarly, only the long ball ruined a clean scorecard for Imanaga in his last start against the Padres. Jurickson Profar broke up the shutout with a two-run blast off a tiring Imanaga in the top of the eighth inning. His line for the day was just as impressive as Yamamoto’s: 8.0 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K.
So far, Imanaga has 2.1 bWAR, and Yamamoto is at 0.9. In the history of the integration era, which dates back to 1947, Tigers righty Mark Fidrych, who debuted in 1976, had the highest bWAR among rookie pitchers at 9.6, according to Stathead. He finished second in Cy Young voting. So both pitchers are considerably off that pace, but are having outstanding seasons nevertheless.
The question really is one of bang for your buck. At this point, Imanaga is looking like a better deal for the Cubs, though Yamamoto is very much living up to the preseason hype that got him the larger contract with the Dodgers. What will the numbers look like by season’s end? And do either of these pitchers deserve to be recognized in the Rookie of the Year voting, given they’ve got a combined 15 years of professional experience behind them? That might be a question for another post, but as it is now, when either of them take the mound, it’s must-see TV.
