It's all lining up for Dodgers to force Tatsuya Imai into massive heel turn

Munetaka Murakami lingered on the free agent market longer than anyone expected, and ended up signing a two-year deal with the White Sox just a day before his posting window closed. Tatsuya Imai and Kazuma Okamoto's deadlines are coming up too; Imai's on Jan. 2 and Okamoto's on Jan. 4.

Imai was candid about the state of his market this weekend, saying, "There aren't many concrete options on the table yet," despite strong links to the Cubs, Mets, Phillies, and Yankees.

Everyone assumed that all three of the star Japanese players available would go to the Dodgers, but they didn't make a peep about Murakami before he ended up in Chicago, evidently aren't involved with Okamoto, and Imai made his stance on coming to LA clear. He wants to beat the Dodgers, not join them.

However, if offers are non-existent, the Dodgers could be a prime position to force him to go to the team he specifically swore not to. He is in LA this week, meeting with teams and complaining about grocery prices in the States (though who can really blame him for that?).

Dodgers could swoop in and convince Tatsuya Imai to sign if his market continues to stall

The markets for Japanese players have been startlingly slow, even if none are coming over with the same pedigree as Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki did. Some teams vowed to be more active in the Japanese market after the 2025 season to try to steal some international attention away from the Dodgers, but none (except the White Sox, evidently) have actually been moved to make good on that goal.

Imai pitched 163 2/3 innings in 2025 for a 1.92 ERA, 0.892 WHIP, and 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings. He's a three-time NPB All-Star and, per scouting reports, has a pretty vicious slider and changeup to combo with his 95 MPH fastball. The Dodgers know that signing Japanese players, especially Japanese pitchers, is a risk, but Sasaki needed far more development than anyone expected — and look how that turned out.

The Dodgers don't strictly need Imai, and don't necessarily have a need in the rotation. Even if they did, they still wouldn't be able to escape the accusations of more villainy and the game being rigged, but the Dodgers are plenty used to that at this point. It's like Dave Roberts said: "Let's really ruin baseball." If Imai's market plummets, who says no?