In the summer of 2021, the Chicago Cubs desperately needed a reset. Jed Hoyer, the newly elevated president of baseball operations, had traded away Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez in a flurry of deadline deals, leaving the team almost unrecognizable. Those star players ended a 108-year championship drought, but Hoyer’s unsentimental front office was looking toward the future. As the Cubs searched for their next competitive advantage, they set their sights on Japan.
The Cubs had dabbled in that market over the years, making an offer to Masahiro Tanaka, getting a meeting with Shohei Ohtani and signing Yu Darvish at a pivotal point in his career. Those players, however, represented one-off pursuits more than a persistent focus for the organization. Cubs officials believed that the slower trickle of talent from Nippon Professional Baseball would soon become an enormous wave.
The next target became Seiya Suzuki, a patient, powerful hitter who could make his major-league debut at the age of 27. Suzuki was such a priority that Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts joined the club’s delegation at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles, helping make the recruiting pitch to the international free agent.
Not only did the Cubs close a five-year, $85 million deal with Suzuki after Major League Baseball’s lockout ended in March 2022, the franchise also decided to make a greater commitment in Japan.
“We went after Seiya hard,” Hoyer told The Athletic. “In the process of that pursuit and thinking about the number of players who could come over in the future, we talked to Tom about making a much bigger investment over there… We spent the money to try and get a foothold there. I think it’s paid off.”
The Tokyo Series is a culmination of years working behind the scenes, building relationships and making connections in what the Cubs see as the next frontier. The first pitch of their 150th season will be thrown by Shota Imanaga, a Japanese lefty who was an All-Star last year as a rookie. Opening Day, an unofficial holiday in Wrigleyville, is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 5:10 a.m. Chicago time, more than 6,000 miles away from their iconic home.
While the Los Angeles Dodgers get top billing with Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, the Cubs’ presence in this showcase event is not by accident.
“You have to commit to boots on the ground,” Ricketts said. “As you’ve seen with Ohtani and now Sasaki, guys are going to start coming over younger, so it’s even more important that you have a presence in Japan. Our games this year will help raise our profile, and hopefully we’ll continue to be in the mix for all the Japanese players that want to come over.”
To understand the globalization of baseball, Darvish remains a key figure, even though he’s not pitching this week in the Tokyo Dome. Joel Wolfe, the Wasserman agent whose clients also include Suzuki, Yamamoto and Sasaki, has long described Darvish as a godfather figure to this generation of Japanese players.
Darvish’s time in Chicago did not go according to plan. He arrived after an awful performance with the Dodgers during the 2017 World Series, an event that would be seen in a new light after the Houston Astros were exposed in a sign-stealing scandal.
Darvish spent most of his first season with the Cubs on the injured list. The Cubs later wound up trading Darvish to the San Diego Padres halfway through his six-year, $126 million contract, as Hoyer faced large COVID-19-related budget cuts when he replaced Theo Epstein after the 2020 season. Yet both sides still maintained an enduring mutual respect.
Darvish appreciated how several Cubs staffers helped him recapture his Cy Young Award-caliber form. Rather than forcing a certain method, pitching coach Tommy Hottovy encouraged Darvish to be himself and use his creativity on the mound. Off the field, Vijay Tekchandani, the team’s director of team travel and clubhouse operations, and Nao Masamoto, the club’s manager of Pacific Rim operations and major-league video, also helped Darvish feel comfortable and rediscover his passion.
“He’s grateful to the Cubs for supporting him and his family through some really tough times,” Wolfe told The Athletic. “At the time that he came to the Cubs, we didn’t know all the things that we now know about what the Astros did and how that really affected him. He had an injury. It was tough, but they all pulled together.”
That mattered in 2022 when it was Suzuki’s turn to make a decision. The Japanese outfielder visited Darvish’s home in Southern California, Wolfe said, and listened to a glowing recommendation: “Yu spoke very highly of the Cubs.”
The Cubs have welcomed multiple Japanese players over the years, including current pitcher Shota Imanaga, left, and Hisanori Takahashi, who briefly played for them in 2013. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
Darvish saw the Chicago area as a good place to raise children. The city’s livability is such that Kosuke Fukudome, another former Cub from Japan, maintained a residence in Chicago well after he stopped playing for the team. The current support system — which includes Cubs vice president of baseball strategy Meghan Jones and Shingo Murata, a manager of baseball analytics and a Pacific Rim liaison — can address wide-ranging matters from housing to nutrition to family accommodations to player performance.
Even with those resources, Suzuki’s first two seasons in Chicago were still “rocky,” as Wolfe acknowledged. The agent credited Hoyer and general manager Carter Hawkins for both their responsiveness and subtlety.
“One thing they understand about Japanese players and the culture is how much they respect discretion and privacy,” Wolfe said. “We can bring up issues and talk about a lot of things and the players don’t have to worry that they’re going to read about it in the media.”
The fans see the contract terms via social media, and snippets from the press conference on TV, but those public aspects are ultimately just a small percentage of the work between an agent and a club. Throughout the year, there are ongoing conversations about the player’s on-field performance and off-the-field situation. Both sides have to establish expectations and maintain an open dialogue.
Suzuki, for example, changed interpreters in the middle of last season, which also featured a new manager in Craig Counsell, who replaced David Ross. Within this evolving partnership, Suzuki’s Wins Above Replacement have risen in each of his three years with the Cubs (1.8, 3.2, 3.5, per Baseball-Reference). His OPS+ has also risen steadily (113, 130, 138) to the point where the Cubs expect him to be one of the best hitters in baseball this year.
“The Cubs have been really great to work with,” Wolfe said, “because they’ve been very understanding and very flexible along the way, especially with Seiya, because there’s been some changeover in his needs, on and off the field, and with his staff.
“When you do a contract for a Japanese player, we try to think of everything that the player’s going to need. But in Seiya’s case, after Year 2, there were other things that he needed that we hadn’t thought about that were unique to Seiya. It would have been very easy for Jed and Carter to tell me to beat it. But they were very flexible and open-minded.”
It’s essential to remember that each Japanese player is an individual with his own ideas and experiences. But whether it’s trying to get the most out of Suzuki, or preparing Imanaga for his first season pitching in the majors, or organizing a presentation for Sasaki, the Cubs learned so much from Darvish.
“They learned that everything is connected in Japan,” Wolfe said. “How these players speak of the teams — while they’re there and after they leave — is very important because they carry a lot of influence with the current NPB players.
“Who better to learn from than ‘The Godfather?’”
The Cubs are applying those lessons in a baseball world that has become smaller. The proliferation of pitch data has given certain clubs more confidence in evaluating international free agents and envisioning how they would attack major-league hitters. International tournaments have also become more prominent, creating additional exposure.
Imanaga, who considers Darvish and Ichiro Suzuki to be inspirations, cited the information available on social media as players try to make adjustments and seek out new challenges. Darvish, for example, has an Instagram following of 1.1 million and a YouTube channel with more than 700,000 subscribers.
“In being able to see that, and having access to that,” Imanaga said through an interpreter, “the distance from Japan to MLB is a lot closer.”
Japan beating Team USA to win the 2023 World Baseball Classic can be seen as a seminal event. For Imanaga, who started that championship game, it came with the realization that “I had to work a little harder” to excel in the majors. The Cubs, though, had been tracking Imanaga well before the WBC, part of a scouting history that allowed them to chart substantial progress with his slider, measure the explosiveness of his fastball and formulate a north-south plan that would keep hitters off-balance.
In a serendipitous twist, Imanaga’s agency, Octagon, has a Chicago headquarters. Following the 2023 season, Imanaga entered the posting system organized by NPB and MLB, and he wound up spending so much time in and around Chicago that “Where’s Shota?” became a running joke in his camp.
Shota Imanaga chose to sign with the Cubs over three other clubs he had deeply considered. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
There was Imanaga attending a Chicago Blackhawks game, buying a Michael Jordan jersey and working out at Bo Jackson’s indoor facility near O’Hare International Airport before he signed a four-year, $53 million contract. Imanaga certainly isn’t at the level of “Be Like Mike” or “Bo Knows,” but he’s a wonderfully entertaining pitcher to watch.
The Cubs believe more pitchers will notice Imanaga’s success and want to follow him to Chicago. That’s part of why Hoyer kept Japan as a top priority during a recent reorganization. Shinsuke Yokote remains a well-regarded scout in the region. Longtime Cubs official Andrew Bassett, who’s now a vice president of international scouting and a special assistant to Hoyer, is making more frequent trips abroad and actively overseeing the operations.
“There were obviously great players who came over from Asia before this recent run,” Bassett said, “but Jed deserves a ton of credit for sensing this market coming out of the pandemic and getting way out in front of it. The amount of talent and resources necessary to cover the leagues in Asia is exploding.”
This coming winter will likely feature Munetaka Murakami, 25, the youngest player in NPB history to reach 200 home runs. Kazuma Okamoto, another infielder from Japan’s 2023 WBC championship team, is also on the horizon. The next waves of Japanese pitching talent are projected to include Hiroto Takahashi, Hiroya Miyagi and Tatsuya Imai.
NPB can also be a landing spot for Cuban defectors or American players looking for a fresh start. Foster Griffin, a left-handed pitcher who was released by the Toronto Blue Jays after the 2022 season, has posted strong back-to-back seasons with the Yomiuri Giants.
Carter Stewart was the No. 8 pick in MLB’s 2018 draft out of high school, but the Atlanta Braves flagged his physical and failed to sign their first-round selection. Stewart, now 25, joined the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, an unusual career decision that still kept him on the major-league radar and left him as a very intriguing 6-foot-6 pitcher.
The Korea Baseball Organization has also become a good platform for pitchers to reinvent themselves. All this international talent is expected to be distributed over multiple offseasons and different classes of free agents, which reinforces the belief that the Cubs have to stay involved and keep reinvesting.
Rintaro Sasaki bypassed the NPB draft and enrolled at Stanford last year to play college baseball. The Athletics made a relative splash in this year’s international signing period, landing Shotaro Morii an 18-year-old Japanese two-way player who also opted out of the NPB system and commanded a $1.5 million bonus.
“It’s not just one person that went,” Counsell said. “They have more stories of success or enjoying the experience. There’s a comfort level now of what to expect.”
And there is only a small handful of teams truly competing in this space. The Dodgers are a colossus. The Padres and Texas Rangers have also carved out spheres of influence. The Philadelphia Phillies are trying to break in, but they don’t have the same history with Japanese players.
The West Coast advantage hasn’t meant much recently for the Seattle Mariners or San Francisco Giants. The New York Yankees and New York Mets have international presences, but this is not the same process as going dollar for dollar in the Juan Soto negotiations.
The Cubs have a good ground game in Japan and exceptional ambassadors wearing their uniforms during the Tokyo Series. The ultimate goal is Suzuki and Imanaga and many more.
“We’re in Japan, in part, because we have these two players,” Hoyer said. “That’s a great thing for our brand. It’s opened up a lot of great business opportunities for us. My hope is it’s just the start of something.”
(Top photo of Suzuki, right: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
