Shota Imanaga’s rookie season could not have played out much better.
The 31-year-old lefty dazzled as one of the best starters in baseball, ranking third in the National League with a 2.91 ERA and first with a 6.21 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 173⅓ innings. Imanaga’s performance earned him a fourth-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year voting and fifth for the NL Cy Young Award — making him the first Cubs rookie to earn Cy Young votes since the award debuted in 1956, according to MLB.com.
Yet Imanaga isn’t satisfied.
“The fastball up in the zone, that’s a difficult skill obviously,” Imanaga told the Tribune through interpreter Edwin Stanberry at the end of the season. “Like, it worked for me, but there’ve been countless occasions where it wasn’t working.
“If I leave that fastball in the middle of the zone, the hitters over here, they’re going to hit it out of the park. So that’s still a topic that I want to continue to work on.”
There were questions about how Imanaga’s best attributes would play in the majors. He proved capable of consistently delivering on two keys to his success: his dynamic fastball/splitter combination and elite command of his repertoire.
Imanaga was proud of his 4% walk rate, which ranked second among NL starters and fourth in the majors. That was a focal point in Japan and he emphasized it this year.
“I don’t know if it’s just a Japanese baseball teaching — it might be the same here — but over there, they say a high amount of walks lead to runs,” Imanaga said. “And so for me, it’s not necessarily that giving up a walk is bad. It’s just once that happens, I want to switch my mindset to prevent the run.
“So I think for me, not putting so much pressure on the walk and making it a negative thing, but if it does happen, shifting my mind to, ‘OK, let’s keep the guy on first and keep it from scoring.’”
Imanaga allowed only four of the 28 batters he walked in 2024 to score, including one that was a byproduct of a Cubs error, and none until August. He credits a shift in his mindset since joining the Cubs.
“It’s something I got better once I got to MLB,” Imanaga said. “I wasn’t as good at it when I was in Japan. I used to, if I give up a walk, give up a home run, give up a hit — any of those situations — I would think about it on the mound, like, ‘OK, why did I do that? Why did I throw that pitch?’
“I’ve gotten a lot better here where I can do that. I can do all the self-reflection after the game, but then in the moment, just continue to attack hitters, continue to keep the game going.”
Imanaga’s ability to make a smooth transition from Japan to the majors went beyond his execution on the mound. It can be tough to fully anticipate when adjusting to a new culture and league and all that entails.
“You think about a guy coming over here, you assume that there’s going to be transition issues that lead to inconsistency or maybe a slow start or fatigue at the end,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said at the end of the season. “The totality of what he’s done is actually, to me, probably the most surprising thing.”
Two factors aided Imanaga’s transition: His efforts to speak English to his teammates did not go unnoticed or unappreciated within the clubhouse, and having an interpreter with Stanberry’s baseball background assisted in the exchange and implementation of concepts.
Imanaga downplayed his grasp of English, conveying with a smile, “I think everybody overestimates how much I can speak.” He estimated his grasp of the language is between 0.1% and 0.5% and said most of that he learned in middle school in Japan.
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For Imanaga, the important part is not necessarily understanding or trying to tell everybody how he feels. Rather, it’s the attitude of putting in the effort to communicate with his teammates and coaches.
“That’s helped a lot, building connections with my teammates,” Imanaga said. “I’m very appreciative of that.”
Imanaga wants to learn more English, specifically small talk. He picked up a few words and phrases over the eight months of the season. Within those nuances of native speakers, Imanaga’s favorite is “How you doing?” as the more casual version of “How are you?”
Stanberry’s presence as Imanaga’s interpreter and go-between with the coaching staff, in particular, has been incredibly valuable. The 28-year-old is a former catcher who played three seasons at Division II Hawaii Hilo.
Imanaga said Stanberry’s baseball background definitely helps. Instead of directly translating what coaches are saying or what Imanaga is trying to say, Imanaga appreciates that Stanberry will interpret the concept in a way that’s a lot easier for each side to understand through the language barrier.
Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy equates Stanberry to having another pitching coach for Imanaga.
“He knows what to look for, he knows how to translate and the best thing is he’s not translating word for word,” Hottovy told the Tribune. “He’s translating concepts and I think that’s the big difference. His ability to translate what we’re trying to say versus what we’re actually saying because it could be lost in translation.
“Edwin does a fantastic job with that. That duo of those two guys together has been really fun to work with.”
Perhaps the most exciting part of Imanaga’s 2024 performance for him and the Cubs is that he can get better.
Home runs were expected to be an issue for Imanaga as a fly-ball pitcher, and it proved true despite his benefiting from the second-most pitcher-friendly home ballpark this year. He surrendered 27 home runs and had the sixth-highest homers per nine innings (1.40) among starters.
Imanaga wants to lessen the hard contact he allows; he finished in the middle of the pack in hard-hit rate, tied for 31st among 57 qualified starters. He also pointed to his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which ranked 26th at 3.72, as something he wants to lower in 2025.
Throwing harder will be part of the offseason plan. The goal this year was to get Imanaga through his first big-league season, build his workload and stay healthy. He conveyed to Hottovy and the Cubs he wants to regain velocity and throw more innings.
“Now he’s got a better understanding of what to expect for a full season, and then how can we continue to build off that?” Hottovy said. “We know he’s got the other complementary pitches. Now he just wants to push the threshold in terms of what his stuff looks like over the course of the year, velo-wise, and then obviously mix the other things in as we need to.”
