Fantasy Baseball News

Tatsuya Imai, the highly-coveted free agent righthander from Japan, has agreed to a three-year deal with the Houston Astros as reported by Jon Heyman. The deal, which contains opt-outs every year, is worth $54 million guaranteed and, with inning incentives, could be worth as much as $63 million. (Source: Jon Heyman on X)

Fantasy Impact: News surrounding Imai, the prized Japanese-born pitcher, was quiet until the last few days and it was the Astros who swooped in and signed the righthander. Imai, 27, went 10-5 with a career-best 1.92 ERA in 163.2 innings with the Saitama Seibu Lions of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, capping off a four-year run of dominance with the Lions. Over the last four seasons, Imai went 35-19 with a 2.13 ERA and 556 strikeouts in 549.1 innings of work. His 27.8% strikeout rate in 2025 was the best in NPB. Imai projects to be either the #2 or #3 starter in Houston, slotting in behind Hunter Brown and, possibly, Cristian Javier.

Josh Winckowski is returning to Toronto, the team that drafted him, on a two-year minor league contract. The righthander had internal brace surgery recently and hopes to pitch late in 2026. (Source: Steve Adams on X)

Fantasy Impact: Winckowski was drafted by the Blue Jays in the 15th round of the 2018 MLB Draft. He eventually broke into the big leagues in 2022 with Boston and pitched parts of four seasons with the Red Sox before being designated for assignment in November. His best season came in 2023 when he appeared in 60 games and posted a 2.88 ERA with a 22.3% strikeout rate. He has a career ERA of 4.20 in 121 games as both a starter and reliever with a below average 18.2% K rate.