Shota Imanaga listened to the crowd cheer during the national anthem and took in the scene before one of Connor Bedard's first home games with the Chicago Blackhawks. Imanaga later returned to the United Center to purchase a Michael Jordan jersey and take a photo next to the famous statue.
That was in early November, a few weeks before Imanaga joined the publishing system created by Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball. Imanaga, an integral part of the Yokohama DeNA BayStars and the winning pitcher in Japan's victory over Team USA in last year's World Baseball Classic championship game, wanted a new challenge.
As a 45-day negotiating window began to close, Imanaga returned to Illinois at Christmastime to make himself available for meetings and reassess his free agent options. Octagon, the agency that represents him, has an office on Michigan Avenue and a network throughout the Chicago area. The central location made sense for a possible trip before Thursday's deadline to sign a contract with a major league club.
Imanaga and his associates were stationed at a suburban hotel and bought comfort food at Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese grocery store in Arlington Heights. Imanaga trained at Bo Jackson's indoor facility near O'Hare International Airport. Imanaga's group now has a collection of tourist photos around Chicago that could best be described as “Where's Shota?”
Imanaga felt so comfortable that he wanted to stay. He just wasn't sure if the interest was mutual.
“Every team is different and it’s a long process,” Imanaga told The Athletic through an interpreter on Thursday. “One time I said, 'I hope the Cubs offer me an offer.' I was just kidding, just because the Cubs weren’t in the picture at the time.”
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Cubs managers Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins are patient, logical and calculating. Throughout December and into mid-January, the Cubs did not sign a free agent to a major league contract or make a trade to upgrade their 83-win roster that moved away Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman. Hoyer personally scouted Imanaga during a trip to Japan in September and remained in touch with his representatives even though the Cubs emerged as the leading candidate only late in negotiations.
The rest of the offseason will be characterized by this bounce. The Cubs have the financial resources and prospect to make a deal at any time. That reality became apparent in the two months of inactivity between Hoyer's hiring of Craig Counsell as the sport's highest-paid executive and Imanaga's signing of a four-year, $53 million contract with an option to extend the contract to five years, $80 million , increasingly difficult to understand. But the Cubs are very good at recruiting when they focus on specific free agents and craft personalized pitches that previously resonated with Japanese players like Yu Darvish and Seiya Suzuki.
The Cubs showed a little more creativity in their trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday, giving up two talented but distant prospects (Jackson Ferris and Zyhir Hope) for a reliever who fits immediately in Counsell's bullpen (Yency Almonte) and a lefty. Handball hitter who destroyed Triple-A pitching (Michael Busch) but was blocked by all the stars at Dodger Stadium.
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Suddenly the conversation at this weekend's Cubs convention will focus on what's happening and away from the steps that aren't being taken. Imanaga will be unveiled Friday afternoon at the Loews Chicago Hotel. When Imanaga went to a Schaumburg mall on Wednesday to buy a new tie in the correct shade of Cubbie blue for the news conference, the clerk recognized him and double-checked by looking at the name on the credit card. Anonymity is already disappearing.
“The Cubs stepped in,” Imanaga said. “Their intensity made me feel like they really wanted me.”
(Photo: Megan Briggs/Getty Images)