Cubs' Shota Imanaga has been Japan's best major export this baseball season

When the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets each bid $300 million or more for Yoshinobu Yamamoto this past winter, they did so while believing the record offers were for the best Japanese ace available.

A month into the regular season, that assumption appears to be incorrect.

That title currently belongs to another Japanese ace, and he resides on Chicago’s North Side. That would be Shota Imanaga, who is 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA that not only is tops in the majors but almost half that of the runner-up, the Phillies’ Ranger Suarez (1.32).

The lefthanded Imanaga, 30, didn’t get anywhere near Yamamoto’s hype, let alone his ridiculous money. While free agent Yamamoto, 25, ultimately signed a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers, Imanaga — who had to be posted by the Yokohama DeNA BayStars — got a four-year, $53 million contract from the Cubs.

Imanaga was mostly considered a Plan B for teams that failed in their high-priced pursuits of Yamamoto. But the market for Imanaga never reached the anticipated fever pitch, and despite predictions that he would land $100 million, he settled for the Cubs’ incentive-laden deal that includes a fifth-year option capable of pushing the total value to $80 million.

Compared with Yamamoto’s price tag, or even the next-best free-agent pitcher, Blake Snell (two years, $62 million), Imanaga is shaping up to be the bargain of the century, even with the Cubs having to pay a pittance of a posting fee ($9.8 million) to Yokohama.

Under the posting agreement between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball, all 30 teams had a 45-day window to negotiate with Imanaga, with the fee not paid until an agreement was reached.

So how were the Cubs able to steal the May front-runner for the NL Cy Young Award, a charismatic lefty who is rapidly becoming one of the freshest, most fun new superstars in the sport? That depends on who you ask.

For Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer, it was about Chicago’s allure, the team’s positive reputation with Japanese players (current outfielder Seiya Suzuki, former ace Yu Darvish) and their confidence in Imanaga’s transition to a new league, with MLB’s less-pitcher-friendly baseballs and more stressful workloads.

Hoyer suggested the Cubs had an inside track because Imanaga already had spent months in Chicago, hosted by his Michigan Avenue-based agency, Octagon, so he got sort of an immersion course about his prospective new home. Once Imanaga was sold on the city — a major step for a player coming from Japan — ironing out the baseball economics became that much easier.

“I think it helped that he was living in Chicago,” Hoyer said this past week during the Cubs’ visit to Citi Field. “There’s certain teams out there that may have interest, but they may not be set up from a logistics standpoint, a personnel standpoint, to really be able to handle a Japanese player. And also, there’s certain cities that are appealing for a Japanese player, whether it’s Japanese culture or even the pure size of the city. I think Chicago has a lot of different things that Japanese players look for.”

New York typically has been one of those places, too. The Yankees were at the forefront of recruiting high-profile players from Japan and had great success with Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka, two of the biggest stars to make the jump to the Big Apple. The Mets have been involved with more mid-tier Japanese players in the past, but they swooped in to sign the coveted Kodai Senga to a five-year, $75 million deal that also was considered a below-market rate (because of medical concerns about his shoulder and elbow).

With all that experience, and after missing out on Yamamoto, why didn’t the Yankees and Mets strongly pivot to Imanaga? Probably for the same reason many other teams failed to engage in another bidding war. While Yamamoto’s supernatural pitching arsenal made him a can’t-miss $300 million investment, clubs were far less convinced about Imanaga’s adjustment to the majors.

Imanaga’s fastball in particular was a concern. The NPB features a lower strike zone, so pitchers are conditioned to work more in a less dangerous region of a hitter’s vision. Make a mistake down there and there’s a smaller percentage chance the ball will wind up in the seats. That’s why pitchers with high velocity plus elite command — Yamamoto’s four-seam fastball averages 95 mph — are considered to have a greater likelihood of success in the majors. Speed is a tangible concept.

For Imanaga, whose four-seamer averaged 91.2 mph in Wednesday’s win over the Mets, his skill set was harder to project coming to the United States. As one talent evaluator of an interested team explained this past week, there was some worry about Imanaga’s ability to pitch at the top of the MLB strike zone with that low-90s velo. If Imanaga couldn’t perfectly locate that pitch — with a bigger, heavier, harder-to-grip baseball — the results over here would be disastrous.

It’s been just the opposite. That same evaluator was astonished to see Imanaga’s laser precision with the fastball since his arrival, and the pitch’s effectiveness (run value) ranks in the 100th percentile, according to Baseball Savant. After Imanaga’s seven scoreless innings (three hits, one walk, seven strikeouts) against the Mets, opponents were hitting .137 with a .233 slugging percentage against the fastball.

“He had great location,” said Pete Alonso, who went 0-for-3 against Imanaga with two strikeouts and a tapper back to the mound, each time off his mid-80s splitter. “He had all of his pitches working.”

Imanaga throws that elite splitter 28.9% of the time, with a sweeper (8.3%), curveball (3.9%) and sinker (0.6%). But his fastball recalibration for the majors has been a credit to him and the Cubs’ coaching efforts.

“He’s done a great job of kind of playing the high-low game: Fastballs up and the splitters down has been really effective,” Hoyer said. “And just in general, the strike-throwing. You never know with pitchers coming from Japan — and having a different ball and a different strike zone — how the command is going to be. His command has obviously been excellent. He hasn’t walked anyone. He’s filling the strike zone. Those were two things that we were unsure how they would translate, and those two things both translated really well.”

Through Friday’s games, Imanaga’s 1.04 walks/nine innings ranked third in the majors, trailing only the Rays’ Zach Eflin (0.80) and the Mariners’ George Kirby (0.94). When I asked Cubs manager Craig Counsell if Imanaga’s rapid rise on the learning curve was the key to his success in a new league, he instead pointed to his pure ability, something the Cubs trusted from the jump.

“I think it’s a factor,” Counsell said. “But I think Shota is just a talented pitcher. I mean, you look at the walk rate that he’s got, that’s a real skill, talent, however you want to say it. That’s really impressive. I don’t know if that’s an adjustment. That’s just a talent that he has and something that he’s worked hard to be good at. That really matters.”

Counsell described Imanaga as a “growth-mindset type of person.” That’s been evident from the day of his January introduction, when he opened by quoting a few lines of “Go Cubs Go.”

After Wednesday’s win over the Mets, Imanaga was asked what it was like pitching in New York for the first time.

“The view from the hotel, I recognize it from Spider-Man,” Imanaga said through his interpreter. “So I was just like, Oh, this is where Spider-Man was.”

Imanaga’s Spidey comments immediately went viral, further endearing him to even more baseball fans beyond Wrigley. But as his popularity continues to explode, can his superhero debut on the mound keep pace?

“I think personally, there’s not much data on me,” Imanaga said. “And as they watch more video, they’re going to gather more data and they’re going to have a plan of attack against me. So once that happens, it’s making adjustments, and then I need to improve myself.”

The smart money says Imanaga is up to the task.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.