(Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)Meghan Montemurro, Chicago TribuneSat, February 14, 2026 at 3:50 AM UTC·5 min readMESA, Ariz. — There was a real possibility Shota Imanaga’s last moments in a Chicago Cubs uniform would be one of heartbreak.
Imanaga had to watch the Milwaukee Brewers’ victory celebration from the bullpen at American Family Field, the season ending without getting a chance to pitch in the decisive Game 5 of the National League Division Series. His complicated contract situation added a layer of uncertainty over the offseason. Imanaga, affected by a left hamstring strain that cost him seven weeks during the regular season and left his mechanics out of whack, was not guaranteed to be back and have a chance to redeem a bad NLDS Game 2 start.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEverything ultimately worked out for both sides when Imanaga accepted the Cubs’ qualifying offer rather than rejecting it to seek a multiyear contract with another major league team. He begins spring training with a clear vision of what must change this season.
“There wasn’t really much uneasiness,” Imanaga said Thursday of his offseason through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “I was focused on, OK, what do I need to do, what I need to practice, and then just focusing on that. … I felt like I made the best choice talking with my agent, obviously with a one-year contract versus a multiyear for me, you’ve got to look at it one year at a time and doing what you can for the team and doing your best each year.”
The Cubs are thrilled Imanaga is back.
“I’m very excited for Shota to have an outstanding season,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s going to respond to the things that happened at the end of the year, and he wasn’t happy with how he pitched. That’s what great competitors do, they respond to things like that. And he will absolutely respond, I’m very confident in that.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementImanaga’s determination to put an inconsistent 2025 season behind him has the 32-year-old prioritizing staying around the team for spring training rather than again competing in the World Baseball Classic. Team Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata said through an interpreter in December that he would be “obviously disappointed” if Imanaga opted out of pitching for his country.
“I’m talking to everybody around me, getting everybody’s opinion, we thought that making your own adjustments, practicing here in Arizona probably for the best,” Imanaga said of his decision.
How Imanaga and the Cubs get him looking more like the version that posted a 2.91 ERA over 173 1/3 innings in 29 starts during his debut season in 2024 has been a focal point the last few months. The Cubs believe Imanaga wasn’t far off during the second half from recapturing the type of command and effectiveness he displayed the season prior, but those minor tweaks became different to harness while also being in compete mode each time he took the mound.
“He wanted more, he thinks there’s more in there, there’s more to prove, and you can tell by the way he’s coming to spring training that he feels that way,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said, “because he’s in such a great place from where he was at the end of the year last year.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementImanaga spent the offseason rebuilding his lower-body strength, which had never fully returned following the hamstring injury he suffered in early May. Good command typically comes from consistent pitch shapes, which can be affected by lower-body ailments, Hottovy noted. So when Imanaga didn’t have the fastball shape he wanted during the second half, he kept searching for it. That required altering delivery cues and his sight lines, and the adjustment didn’t happen quickly.
The injury affected Imanaga’s drive leg in his delivery, creating lack of stability and even trust in his movements.
“You might sit a little deeper because you don’t want to overextend the hamstring and it actually might look like you’re creating more force, but in reality, you’re creating it to get out of it faster instead of holding it down the mound,” Hottovy explained. “And I think for him, his delivery does have a lot of depth in terms of how he gets in his back leg, but his strength comes from holding that position and then rotating hard late.
“He was having to affect how he was rotating, which was then affecting how his arm path was, and he knew he was trying to get his arm path up a little bit and a slightly higher arm-release point, but he just couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t able to support his trunk that way.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWith an offseason of work to correct those issues behind him, Imanaga’s next step during camp is honing his pitch mix with a three-pronged approach: refining his sweeper, tweaking his sinker grip and reintegrating the cutter into his pitch mix.
The lefty’s sweeper took a step forward last year, and the Cubs want to see that pitch take the next step of its iteration this year: maintaining that pitch shape but now within his natural delivery and arm path versus the manipulated version in 2025. Hottovy also wants Imanaga to utilize his curveball more. Curveballs accounted for just 2% of his pitch usage last season, but two of the three that were put in play resulted in a hit. Hottovy envisions the pitch helping Imanaga’s fastball-splitter combination to right-handed hitters. Adjusting his sinker grip will help Imanaga add velocity to the pitch. And in bringing back Imanaga’s cutter, which had been de-emphasized after coming over from Japan, the Cubs want to figure out how to best deploy it.
“That’s opening up the arsenal quite a bit,” Hottovy said. “What that means, though, for him is still making sure we get the heater-split dialed in, the sweeper off that arm path and then just kind of open up the rest.”
Imanaga is determined to keep his attention on this season. He isn’t worried about trying to recapture his old self.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I feel like there’s times where if you’re chasing a specific version of you from a different year, you can go into a downward spiral,” Imanaga said. “So instead of focusing on what I had in the past, I’m focused on trying to be a better version of what I am right now.”
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