Pressure's now on Astros for Tatsuya Imai to live up to Dodgers' Yamamoto comps

Tatsuya Imai stayed true to his word about the Dodgers when he went to a team with a pretty extensive (and notorious) history of beating them. After a relatively quiet free agency, he took a three-year, $54 million contract (with player opt-outs after 2026 and '27) with the Astros a day before his posting window closed.

It was Houston's first big signing of the offseason, and Imai is already working hard to ingratiate himself with fans. He could very well be back on the free agent market next season if the Astros miss the postseason for a second season in a row, but for now, he's an Astro.

His contract is the third-largest given to a Japanese pitcher by AAV, after Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12 years, $325 million) and Masahiro Tanaka (seven years, $155 million). Imai was inevitably going to be compared to Yamamoto at every turn, but the money he's getting only turns up the pressure.

Imai's deal isn't only the second-largest for an active Japanese pitcher, but the biggest by AAV of the three major Japanese free agents to sign this offseason.

Astros' surprising Tatsuya Imai splash will force comparisons to Yoshinobu Yamamoto

It's certainly unfair to ask a rookie to make a difficult transition into the league and perform to Yamamoto's standard, but comparisons are unavoidable. We might give Imai a little bit of grace; Yamamoto was injured for a huge chunk of his rookie season and didn't really find his stride until this past year.

He left Japan with four consecutive seasons of solid work (sub-2.50 ERAs, a steadily sinking walk rate, and a steady strikeout rate), but he's not nearly as decorated as Yamamoto was when he came over. Baseball knew that Yamamoto had a better chance than anyone to be an otherworldly talent in MLB, but Imai is more of a wild card.

But after the strong statement he made about wanting to beat the Dodgers (beat them, not join them), he really invited the pressure and the comparisons unto himself. The Astros are no longer the team they used to be in the era of Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Justin Verlander, and Gerrit Cole at their peaks, but their unexpected postseason miss hasn't forced everyone to write them off entirely — yet. Imai could play a huge role in the Astros either salvaging their reputation for postseason inevitability, or sinking it.