Baseball

“I want to beat the Dodgers”: Japan’s Tatsuya Imai doesn’t want to go to L.A
Charles-Alexis Brisebois
“I want to beat the Dodgers”: Japan’s Tatsuya Imai doesn’t want to go to L.A
Credit: Pinstripe Alley

The Los Angeles Dodgers control the Japanese market in terms of baseball. They're popular there because of the presence of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki.

They're also popular because they're good and they'll play games in Asia once in a while.

It's easy to think that Japanese people coming into MLB want to play for the Dodgers. It's a big club that has money, has players from Japan, is on the West Coast…. and wins games in October.

What more could you ask for?

Not everyone, however. Tatsuya Imai, the Japanese pitcher who will sign his first MLB contract in the next few weeks, is still choosing his team.

And he doesn't want to play with a team that already has a Japanese player.

But it goes even further: the gunner doesn't want to go to the Dodgers either… in order to beat them. He wants to bring them down to earth and beat them to win a ring.

In his eyes, that would be the most significant thing in his life.

We know that some players from Japan like it better to be in a club where there are no other guys from the country. Sometimes that's part of the culture there, which is different from North America.

And we know that not all players want to play in markets like L.A.

However, it's curious to hear Imai make such a statement, considering that cutting yourself off from a potential team in the middle of the autonomy process is not the best negotiating tactic. But at least it's clear.

Note that the Yankees' name often comes up in the Imai file.

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This content was created with the help of AI.

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