Japanese Baseball Cards: Shota Imanaga Of The Chicago Cubs

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Shota Imanaga Of The Chicago Cubs

Former Yokohama DeNA Baystars pitcher Shota Imanaga signed a four year deal this past week with the Chicago Cubs. Imanaga was the Baystars top pick in the 2015 NPB draft out of Komazawa University. He immediately moved into DeNA's starting rotation in his rookie year, making his debut in the Baystars fourth game of the season, and was pretty much in their rotation ever since. I don't have a whole lot of highlights to point at but he's a two time All Star (2019 and 2023), he led the Central League in strikeouts in 2023 and he threw a no-hitter against the Fighters in 2022. He's pitched for Samurai Japan in a number of occasions, both major (2017 Asian Professional Baseball Championship, 2019 Premier 12, 2023 World Baseball Classic) and minor (friendlies against Australia in 2018, Mexico in 2019 and Australia in 2022). He spent several weeks in late 2018 with the Canberra Calvary of the Australian Baseball League, going 4-0 with an 0.51 ERA in six starts, striking out 57 and only walking one in 35 innings.

Imanaga's first card was #106 from the 2016 BBM Rookie Edition set. He had other rookie cards in BBM's 1st Version (#318), 2nd Version (#576), Fusion (#21), Genesis (#103), Rookie Edition Premium (#34) and Baystars (#DB14) sets that season. His first Calbee card was #144 in Series Two that year as well. He's appeared in both the 1st and 2nd Version sets every year from 2016 to 2023 and every Calbee base set over the same period except 2018. He's had cards in Calbee's Samurai Japan sets in 2019 and 2020, the Topps Now Samurai Japan cards for the 2022 Australian friendlies and in various Topps issues for the 2023 WBC team. Obviously this is not a comprehensive list. Here's some highlights of his cards: