Craig Counsell hints Cubs finally know what derailed Shota Imanaga’s 2025 season
Before the Chicago Cubs traded for Edward Cabrera or signed Alex Bregman, there was concern that Jed Hoyer and Co. would in the end show to be handcuffed by Shota Imanaga accepting the group’s qualifying supply at the beginning of the offseason. Imanaga successfully grew to become a non-factor on the Cubs’ pitching employees throughout the last month of the common season and into the playoffs.
The Cubs refused to make use of Imanaga within the pivotal Game 5 of the NLDS in opposition to the Milwaukee Brewers, and it was a second that recommended the 2 sides would head in numerous instructions as soon as the offseason began.
Instead, after early returns on the free-agent market recommended his market wasn’t robust, Imanaga took the $22,025 million the Cubs had been providing.
Some mechanically see how a lot Imanaga is making in 2026, tie it again to his struggles throughout the second half of final season, and take a look at the transfer as an entire failure. The suggestion that the Cubs grossly overvalued their market by giving him the qualifying supply.
It’s not that straightforward.
Just as it isn’t that straightforward to say that as a result of Imanaga grew to become an afterthought by the top of the 2025 season, he is incapable of trying just like the top-of-the-rotation beginning pitcher he was throughout his first 12 months and a half with the Cubs.
What Imanaga’s skeptics are blissfully ignoring is the truth that he was profitable throughout the first half of the season. Imanaga posted an ERA of two.65 by his first 68 innings pitched final 12 months. Opposing hitters had been batting underneath .200 in opposition to throughout that stretch.
The success Imanaga had throughout the opening months of the 2025 season might lend credence to the concept that his late-season struggles had been tied to his restoration from a hamstring pressure that pressured him to overlook a few month.
The timing does match up with when the season turned the wrong way up for Imanaga, and it’s what Imanaga’s camp pointed to after the season. After a daily offseason program and full well being, the Cubs appear to be echoing comparable sentiments.
Counsell informed us immediately in Mesa that Shota Imanaga’s throwing his fastball tougher, is usually a product of his hamstring being wholesome. Counsell believes the harm created some dangerous mechanical points whereas the pitcher compensated for the harm.
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) February 19, 2026
A wholesome Shota Imanaga might make the distinction for the Cubs
Had the Cubs gone by the offseason and Imanaga’s return been the biggest expenditure they made, positive, chalk one up for many who had been crucial of the transfer.
Now, with almost $30 million spent on rebuilding the bullpen, the commerce for Cabrera, and Bregman within the fold, Imanaga’s return is not the burden that some Cubs followers need you to suppose it’s.
As straightforward as it’s to say that the pitcher who seemed shell-shocked in opposition to the Brewers within the playoffs is the model of Imanaga that’s right here to say, one can recommend that every one that was wanted was for the 32-year-old to get wholesome and have an offseason program that righted his mechanical points. If that is the case, Imanaga’s deal could possibly be the steal of the offseason as soon as once more.
