International free agent Tatsuya Imai has taken a clear stance against joining the Los Angeles Dodgers this offseason, and made another comment regarding the World Series champions on Tuesday.
“With the number of pitchers they already have, they don’t need me,” Imai said.
Earlier in the offseason, Imai said he didn’t want to join a team with Japanese players and that beating the Dodgers to win a World Series would be “the most valuable thing in my life.”
Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy responded to the Japanese right-hander’s comments on the “Foul Territory” podcast earlier in December.
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“I mean, to be honest, it’s no different than any other starting pitcher out there — they all want to take us down,” Muncy said. “I haven’t looked into this guy at all. I don’t know what his stuff is. I’m sure he’s amazing, as we’ve seen a lot of Japanese pitchers come over and be extremely good — including the guys on our staff.
“So I’m sure he’s very talented. Every pitcher not on our team is saying the same thing: they want to take us down, they want to be the one to beat us. That’s what makes it fun to play for the Dodgers — you’re going to get everyone’s best every single night.”
Imai is one of the top international free agents available at the moment, and is one of three big names crossing over from Japan — the others being Kazuma Okamoto and Munetaka Murakami.
The 27-year-old has played nine professional seasons in Japan, and has a career ERA of 3.07. He broke out over the past handful of years, recording an ERA below 3.00 in each of the last three seasons. His best season of the three came in 2025, where he had a 1.92 ERA through 163.2 innings and 178 strikeouts.
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Imai has been heavily linked to big-market teams across MLB, and an exciting showdown with the Dodgers is bound to come at some point in 2026.
Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
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One Response
His agent should tell him to shut up. Look, no problem that he doesn’t want to play in Dodger Blue, but making comments like this is a stupid marketing ploy. Generally, agents want to drive up their players’ signing prices by indicating as many teams as possible are into signing the guy, to hopefully create a bigger bidding war. Coming out and saying that you have no desire to play for the team with the deepest pockets isn’t a great strategy here.