Hi friends-
Some housekeeping before we dive in:
Our book club selection for May/June is Jane Leavy’s “Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy.” We will meet over zoom to discuss it on Monday, July 1st from 5:30-6:30 PM PT.
We will not have a Lab zoom talking baseball this Saturday the 18th as I have a funeral to go to. We will also be off on Saturday the 25th as I’ll be flying to New York for our Long Game meet up at Citi Field on Memorial Day! The Lab will return on Saturday, June 1st. See you then
We’ve spent months talking about how pitchers’ arms are exploding and biting our nails over what to do about it. I won’t sugarcoat how injuries are decimating MLB. Only one active American League Cy Young winner (Justin Verlander) is currently healthy. Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray, Shane Bieber, Max Scherzer, and Blake Snell are all on the IL. The same goes for the National League, where only one active Cy Young winner (Corbin Burnes1) is able to pitch. Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Alcantara, Snell, and Jacob deGrom are all out indefintely.
There’s also the dismal news that nine of the ten pitchers that threw the hardest average fastball in 2023 are all hurt right now as well. (Hunter Greene sleeps with one eye open).
Blown out elbows and shoulders make it both easy to get frustrated and also fair to wonder about the caliber of baseball we could be watching right now if the very best pitchers were on the mound. But this kind of fretting also does a disservice to the guys who are absolutely dominating so far in 2024, many out of nowhere. It is time to celebrate these men while their limbs still work!
So, here are my top five pitching success stories of the season so far:
Shōta Imanaga, Cubs LHP
See AlsoBaseball Time Machine
Over the off-season, Imanaga was thought to be a consolation prize for whatever team failed to sign his superstar countryman, the Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Here’s what Baseball America had to say about Imanaga when the Cubs signed him:
Scouting Report:Imanaga is a crafty left-hander with a good feel for pitching. His fastball sits 89-93 mph with solid riding life as a starter and touches 94-95 in short bursts. His main secondary pitch is an above-average, 82-85 mph splitter with late cut that induces ground balls.
The Future:Imanaga’s feel for pitching gives him a chance to be a No. 4 or 5 starter. He may fit best as a swingman or bulk reliever on a contending team.
Perhaps because he was not expected to be better than a number four starter, the Cubs were able to ink Imanaga to a relatively cheap four-year contract worth $53 million. Yamamoto got 12 years and $325 million. (To be fair, Imanaga is 30 years old, and Yamamoto is 25).
I do believe that Yamamoto will ultimately be better and have a longer career than Imanaga—but that’s irrelevant here. The fact is that the Cubs are paying Imanaga $9 million dollars this year and he’s been an absolute stud. Chicago is 7-1 in games he has started, and he did not give up a run in that game they lost. They are 18-18 in games someone else starts. They trail the Brewers by just 1.5 games in the NL Central, and it’s fair to wonder if they’d be looking to blow up their roster this summer had Imanaga not been such a star.
Imanaga has a 0.96 ERA (!!!!) through his first 46.2 big league innings. He’s struck out 51 and walked just eight. His ERA, FIP, and his ERA+ are all the best in the big leagues. (FIP is the pitcher’s expected ERA based on home runs, walks, and HBP prevented. ERA+ is the stat used to adjust a pitcher’s numbers relative to the ballparks he plays in). I use these stats because it’s early in the season and statistics can be especially noisy if we don’t adjust for luck. Imanaga has not been lucky. He’s been an ace, and there’s nothing in the underlying numbers to suggest his results will plummet any time soon.
What makes his dominance especially noteworthy is that sixty-five pitchers will earn more money than he will this year. Imanaga would have fit into any team’s budget this season except probably the A’s, who are outwardly trying to lose. To be clear, Imanaga is definitely underpaid and I’m not excited about that. But I am giddy that Japanese pitchers are excelling here and I want them all to come play in MLB because I’m greedy.
Will hitters adjust to him when they get to see him a second time? Probably. But Imanaga will adjust, too. Both Yamamoto and the Mets’ Kodai Senga struggled to grip the ball MLB uses after coming over here from Japan before they began to excel. Imanaga has shown no such difficulties.
Maybe all the scouting reports were right and he winds up ultimately being a fourth or fifth starter. But boy, I hope this run continues. He’s been an absolute joy to watch.
Ranger Suárez, Phillies RHP
