The Cubs are heading into an offseason where the pitching staff has to be rebuilt in a real way, and that makes Kaima Taira look like the kind of arm Chicago should be circling immediately.
Jed Hoyer essentially acknowledged as much in his end-of-season press conference, and the situation is stark: Shota Imanaga, Kevin Gausman, Matthew Boyd, Clay Holmes, Hunter Harvey, Colin Rea, Aaron Civale, Caleb Thielbar, Jacob Webb, Trent Thornton and David Peterson are all due to become free agents or have a route to free agency through options this winter. Some of those names could still come back, but the Cubs are staring at a rotation and staff overhaul that will leave the front office searching from a mostly clean slate.
In that kind of market, almost any available pitcher is going to draw Chicago’s attention, with Tarik Skubal the lone obvious exception. But if the Cubs are looking for the best fit, Taira stands out.
Taira just turned in a career year for the Seibu Lions, winning the NPB ERA title and taking home the Pacific League’s top ERA pitcher award for the first time. He finished with a 1.36 ERA and a 2.28 FIP across 146 innings, and he did it in just his second season as a starter.
What makes him so intriguing is the profile. He’s listed at 5'8" and 220 pounds, a frame more in line with Moises Ballesteros than a typical big league starter. And there’s another layer of uncertainty: six of his eight seasons in Japan came out of the bullpen, so any MLB team looking at him has to ask whether he can carry a starter’s workload.
Still, the stuff is loud. Taira can reach triple digits with his fastball and pairs it with an eight-pitch mix that has made him effective in just about every role the Lions have asked him to fill.
His strikeout rates have dipped since moving into the rotation, but that has been offset by better command and a steady ability to get ground balls. That combination would fit neatly behind the Cubs’ strong infield defense, and his track record of keeping the ball in the park - a career 0.3 HR/9 - would attack one of Chicago’s biggest pitching problems right away.
The expectation is that Taira will be posted in early November, giving him a little less than a month to choose a destination before the lockout. The Cubs have already scouted his starts in Japan, and while they did wait out a posting process before with Seiya Suzuki in 2021-22, they may not have the luxury of sitting back this time. If Taira is on the board, plenty of teams are likely to be in the chase.
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