Houston Astros Sign Japanese RHP Tatsuya Imai

The Tatsuya Imai sweepstakes has come to a close.

The right-hander and the Houston Astros have agreed to a $54 million, three-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Thursday. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been announced.

Imai gets a $2 million signing bonus and salaries of $16 million this year and $18 million in each of the final two seasons. He can earn an additional $3 million in performance bonuses this year: $1 million each for 80, 90 and 100 innings.

His 2027 and 2028 salaries would escalate by the amount of performance bonuses earned in 2026, which could raise the deal's value to $63 million over three years. Imai can opt out after the 2026 and 2027 seasons.

Under the posting agreement between Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball, a deal must be finalized by 5 p.m. EST Friday.

The Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres were among the teams that had been linked to signing Imai throughout the offseason, with the Astros coming seemingly out of nowhere to get a deal done.

The 27-year-old Imai pitched eight seasons in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league and nine seasons professionally altogether for the Saitama Seibu Lions. Across a combined 187 career appearances, Imai recorded a 3.07 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 1,045 strikeouts over 1,077.2 innings pitched. Last season, Imai posted a career-best ERA (1.92) and WHIP (0.89).

FOX Sports MLB analyst Rowan Kavner ranked Imai as the 17th-best free agent available this offseason, saying that, "He’s not a particularly big guy, but teams who just watched Yoshinobu Yamamoto win World Series MVP honors might not be scared off by that. Imai continues to get better every year, seeing his strikeout rate rise and his walk rate decline precipitously."

He joins an Astros team that finished second in the American League West in 2025 and missed the postseason, failing to even secure a wild card. While they still have ace Hunter Brown in the rotation, their other top starter from '25, Framber Valdez remains a free agent, and might command a significant long-term contract.

Imai receives the third-highest average annual value for a Japanese pitcher entering Major League Baseball behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto's $27.08 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers in a deal that started in 2024 and Masahiro Tanaka's $22.14 million with the New York Yankees in a contract that ran from 2014-20.

Under MLB’s posting agreement with NPB, Seibu will get a posting fee of $9.675 million from the Astros and a supplemental fee of 15% of any earned bonuses, salary escalators and exercised options.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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