The Los Angeles Dodgers have signed three of Japan’s biggest talents over the past couple of offseasons, bringing in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani in during free agency.
This season, though, one of Japan’s top pitchers, Tatsuya Imai, has stated he wants to avoid joining the Dodgers and beat them to become a world champion.
Imai has spent the last nine seasons playing professionally in Japan, and is set to join MLB after the Saitama Seibu Lions posted him earlier in the offseason.
“Of course, I’d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki,” Imai said to former MLB starter Daisuke Matsuzaka on “Hodo Station”, “but winning against a team like that and becoming a world champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I’d rather take them down.”
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On top of avoiding the Dodgers, Imai stated he would also like to avoid teams which already have a Japanese player.
“If there were another Japanese player on the same team, I could just ask them about anything, right?” Imai said. “But that’s actually not what I’m looking for. In a way, I want to experience that sense of survival. When I come face-to-face with cultural differences, I want to see how I can overcome them on my own — that’s part of what I’m excited about.”
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The Dodgers will inevitably be one of the bigger challenges the right-hander will need to overcome, but he’s looking forward to facing his international teammates. Imai stated he wants to test himself against Ohtani.
“I really want to see how much my fastball holds up against him — to test myself by throwing it to him,” Imai said.
Imai’s not just talk, as he has been one of NPB’s best pitchers over the last several seasons. In 2025, he posted a career-low 1.92 ERA through 24 starts, spanning 163.2 innings. Across his starts, the 29-year-old struck out 178 batters.
Photo Credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
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