Yankees Should Prioritize Signing Japanese Phenom

Firstly, the Yankees should know how vital it is to have backup starting pitching. Last season, Cole, Schmidt, and Luis Gil all missed either most of or the entire year, leading to young guys like Warren and Schlittler stepping up to take their spots in the rotation. Cole, Rodon, and Schmidt won’t even be ready to start 2026, so there is already an open spot in New York’s rotation to start the year.

Lacking Internationally

But, perhaps most importantly, the Yankees have not signed a player out of Japan since Masahiro Tanaka in 2014. The Yankees had a solid history of bringing in Japanese players, with Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki, and Tanaka all donning the pinstripes in the late 2000s to early 2010s. But since signing Tanaka, the Los Angeles Dodgers have become the league’s juggernaut of Japanese talent, winning the sweepstakes for Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto all within the past three years. The landscape of MLB’s free agency is changing, and the Yankees clearly have not caught on to the fact that they’ll have to compete with the Dodgers in the international market if they want a chance to evenly match up against them.

Imai, unlike many of his predecessors, might not be joining the Dodgers. Rather, he has stated that he wants to “take them down”, implying that he would prefer to join a competitive team that could stack up well against Los Angeles. Teams like the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants have also been named as the top suitors for Imai, but the Yankees would arguably be the best place for him to go, as long as both parties are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

Making a huge move like signing Imai would benefit the Yankees in more ways than one: it would not only solidify arguably the league’s deepest starting rotation, but it would also send a message to the league that the Yankees are not going to lie down and let their rapidly closing World Series window slip away from them.