I like an advanced contract. I 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 probably the most convoluted form of enjoyable conceivable. Right this moment, I’m going to take you step-by-step by the complicated world of Shota Imanaga’s present contract state of affairs. As you doubtless know, the Cubs provided him a qualifying supply on Thursday. All we’re going to do right here is break down as merely as we are able to how he acquired 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 probably the most complicated one, besides, it’s dizzying. We’re going to lose ourselves within the minutia. For enjoyable.
I additionally love the logistics. I like following a sequence of what occurs when and why so exactly that you would be able to’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 inside 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 in the long run, they only boil right down to determining how a lot someone’s going to receives a commission at their job. They simply occur to be agreements about how a lot probably the most obscenely rich individuals in your complete world are going to pay people who find themselves about to turn out to be generationally rich. Virtually nobody concerned will ever have to fret about cash for the remainder of their lives. The individuals who really want the frilly safeguards within the CBA and uniform participant contracts are those who don’t make tens of millions 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 economic malfeasance that dates again to the nineteenth century. In fact, legal professionals need to be concerned. All the things must be spelled out, and my goodness is it spelled out.
The main points within the CBA are there for excellent causes, however they’re mind-bogglingly particular. The title on the PDF calls it the fundamental settlement, and like several fundamental 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 group monetary paperwork in order that the gamers can decide whether or not the house owners are literally following the foundations of the fundamental settlement. We’re 209 pages in, and we’re nonetheless speaking in regards to the logistics of the doc itself.
One part stipulates what occurs if a participant will get referred to as up for the Nationwide Guard. One other explains that every one visiting clubhouses should comprise a hydroculator. The final web page is a full-page desk that establishes an agreed-upon determine for a way lengthy it takes to fly from each metropolis within the league to each different metropolis within the league. Did you’ve got 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 supply: 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 complete CBA. (Cookie number of your selecting, however please remember that my macaron sport is rusty.)
So let’s get into this one contract. How onerous might it’s?
We’ll be counting on Cot’s Baseball Contracts for the small print. When Imanaga came visiting from the Yokohama DeNa Baystars of NPB in January 2024, he signed a four-year cope with 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 might get in the event that they did every little thing of their energy to stay round. Solely the primary two years had been assured to occur, with two or three attainable years added on by choices that we’ll get to later. Additionally, Imanaga got here by the posting system, which meant the Cubs paid his outdated membership, Yokohama, a $9.825 million posting price. Then he acquired 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 simple half.
The escalator clauses come subsequent. If Imanaga had gained 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 stored going. If Imanaga gained a Cy Younger at any level in the course of the size of the contract, then his wage in all future seasons (together with any possibility years) would enhance by $1 million. If he completed second or third, it might enhance by half one million. If he completed within the high 10, then it might enhance 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 attainable future seasons.
These escalators have yet one more 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 alternative ways the contract might’ve gone. Imanaga might’ve gotten no bonuses, or he might’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. Perhaps you’ve seen that the reporting about Imanaga’s state of affairs over the past 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 group 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 group possibility was solely a bit of 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 massive soar, and it might’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 beneath reveals you why the Cubs could have been hesitant to enroll in three extra years at a considerably larger value level. Consistent 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 value. The man put up a 2.91 ERA final yr, then 3.73 this yr for a mixed complete of three.28. That’s incredible, regardless of some regression to the imply. However the different three traces are worrisome. His FIP has been rising ever since his scorching begin in 2024 as a result of his strikeout charge has been dropping. His groundball charge 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 at the least 1,000 pitches, that put him in simply the nineteenth percentile. These are actual causes for concern, particularly for a pitcher who could 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 possibility for the 2026 season. Had he triggered it, he might’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. Similar to the escalator cash, 15% of all possibility 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 reduce 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 might exit and discover a higher, longer-term deal. No matter what FIP mentioned, he was nonetheless in a position to hold the ball within the yard properly sufficient to run a strong ERA in 2025. And there’s purpose to anticipate his numbers to bounce again in 2026. Imanaga suffered a hamstring pressure in Might, and his strikeout charge, groundball charge, and velocity all rebounded a bit of bit on the finish of the season. He is likely to be again to his outdated self when he’s absolutely wholesome, and he’s a artful lefty with an extended monitor file of success. It is sensible for him to guess on himself whereas he’s nonetheless in his early 30s.
By declining that possibility, Imanaga precluded an entire different department of the contract. Had he exercised it and performed for the Cubs in 2026, then they might have had an possibility 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 possibility, they add as much as three years and $57 million, the identical as the primary possibility the Cubs declined.) And if they’d declined that possibility, then he would have had one remaining participant possibility, as soon as once more for $15 million, for the 2027 season. (As we established earlier, Imanaga would have solely acquired 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.) If 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 most likely proper!
With that department pruned earlier than it had the prospect to exist, Imanaga’s contract state of affairs is lastly clear, proper? In fact not, as a result of we’re again to the qualifying supply! As specified by attachment 45 of the CBA on web page 311, the qualifying supply 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 prospect 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 might see it as a very light pillow contract. He will get that well-paid yr to show himself, however with out the necessity to alter to an entire new group and metropolis.
I’m not 100% positive 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 opportunity of taking, rejecting, or not getting a QO on the finish of every state of affairs, and 4 completely different award-escalator prospects for every particular person season, this contract might have performed out 3,383 alternative ways. That features every little thing from the simplest – Imanaga pitches two seasons, doesn’t get any awards votes, and leaves with out a QO – to probably the most elaborate. That one entails 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 possibility, so he workouts 2026 participant possibility, then the Cubs decide up their possibility for 2027 and 2028 and he accepts the QO in 2029. It earns him someplace within the neighborhood of $122 million over six years, quite than the 2 years and $23.2125 million he’s earned thus far (not together with his 2025 postseason share and 2024 All-Star stipend). What my coronary heart actually needs is for Imanaga to just accept the QO, then pitch so properly 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 attainable.
I understand that this was most likely a troublesome learn on a Friday afternoon. Main league contracts are extremely difficult for excellent causes, and though I might change about one million issues in regards to the present system if I had been in command of it, I don’t assume the current proliferation of choices and incentive clauses is essentially a foul factor. It’s logical for each side to search for safety blankets in case of damage or underperformance. It’s affordable to have a system the place you’ve got your base pay after which bonuses should you carry out rather well, particularly in a job like this one. However though it’s affordable 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 formulation for calculating how a lot meal cash gamers get on highway journeys. Imanaga’s state of affairs has performed out in probably the most simple means attainable, with not one of the varied possibility eventualities coming to fruition, nevertheless it’s nonetheless too difficult for a headline that sounds prefer it was written by a human being. So let’s hold it going.
