SF Giants rumors: MLB insider confirms worst fears about Tatsuya Imai chase

The SF Giants have been seen as natural suitors for Japanese ace Tatsuya Imai by many in the baseball industry, but one insider has just confirmed what many Giants fans already knew about a potential pursuit of Imai.

Buster Olney of ESPN took to social media to report the following about the Giants and Imai. He writes: "The Giants have been repeatedly linked to Tatsuyi Imai, the premier free agent pitcher from Japan. But a lot of their market pitching inquiries have been for more modestly priced arms -- a strong indication they aren't chasing the highest priced pitchers, like Imai."

SF Giants fans seem unlikely to seriously pursue Tatsuya Imai

This will come as no surprise to Giants fans who have seen the team operate this past decade. Ever since the Giants doled out large contracts to Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija in free agency, contracts that did not age well, there has been a reluctance to hand out similar sorts of contracts to free agent pitchers.

Giants chairman Greg Johnson once again seemed to pump the brakes on the notion that the Giants would be aggressive in handing out a nine-figure contract to a pitcher which is the exact kind of deal that Imai seems likely to command. This is especially true after Dylan Cease, one of the other top free agent pitchers on the market, just landed a big deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.

This is so frustrating for many Giants fans because Imai has said that he does not want to join the Los Angeles Dodgers, instead he wants to go against the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to see if he can beat them rather than join the Empire.

With the Giants having two gaping holes in their starting rotation and the financial resources to land someone like Imai, it is infuriating if they refuse to go after him because they are worried about the risk involved in a large deal to a starting pitcher.

Yes, there would be risk involved in giving a pitcher who has never pitched in major league baseball a contract worth well over $100 million. But if the Giants are going to try to be competitive with teams like the Dodgers, they are going to have to take risks.

Maybe this is all some sort of smoke screen and president of baseball operations Buster Posey is laying in the cut waiting to make a deal. But given the team's lack of serious pursuit with Corbin Burnes last offseason and Johnson's comments this offseason, it seems like it will be another offseason in which the Giants opt for more modest additions to the rotation.