Hats off to Tommy Hottovy, Tyler Zombro and the rest of the Cubs pitch lab if they’re able to get any quality innings out of former Japanese star pitcher Kenta Maeda. The Cubs signed the 37-year-old veteran to a minor league deal and while the acquisition is likely out of desperation to cover innings at Triple-A with the Iowa Cubs, you can never really rule out the potential of Maeda maybe pitching for the Cubs sometime in 2025.
We’re still a long ways from that happening so, let’s just treat this as it is, a minor league deal.
According to Yuki Yamada, Maeda had offers from three other teams before he ultimately decided to sign with the Cubs. The pitcher was a former teammate of Seiya Suzuki in Japan and is said to be a good friend of Shōta Imanaga. He was also teammates with Justin Turner to begin his MLB career.
Maeda is expected to pitch for the Iowa Cubs later this week.
Maeda was a five-time All-Star and won the equivalent of the Cy Young award twice in Japan before coming over to MLB following the 2015 season. The right-handed pitcher signed an eight-year contract that guaranteed him $25 million with the Dodgers in 2016. A lot more money was tied up in incentives that could have made the deal worth more than $100 million. Maeda was pretty good in LA from 2016-19, recording a combined 3.87 ERA in four seasons.
In 2020, the Dodgers traded Maeda to the Minnesota Twins and in the shortened season the right-hander was great, posting a 2.70 ERA in 11 starts, finishing runner-up for the AL Cy Young award. Things started to go south in 2021 for Maeda, who had a 4.66 ERA 21 starts before the Twins announced that he needed to undergo Tommy John surgery.
The right-handed pitcher missed all of the 2022 season, but did return in 2023 and had a decent season. Maeda threw 104.1 innings with the Twins in 2023, recorded a 4.23 ERA in 21 games that was good enough to earn a two-year deal with the Detroit Tigers worth $24 million.
Last year was rough for Maeda, who made 16 starts to begin his Tigers’ career before he was moved to the bullpen in July. He only made one more start the rest of the season. Maeda did pitch much better as a reliever in Detroit, a 3.86 ERA in 42 innings out of the bullpen, but that success did not continue this season.
The Tigers designated Maeda for assignment on May 1, after he a 7.88 ERA in eight innings of work. Maeda cleared waivers and was released by the Tigers on May 7.
The Cubs just signed 37-year-old Kenta Maeeda to a minor league deal. He had a 6.1 ERA in 112 innings last year, and he pitched just 8 innings this year before the Cubs signed him.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Cubs try to change with Maeda—if anything at all. Maybe they… pic.twitter.com/anzSsLAYT4
— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) May 16, 2025
Can the Cubs pitch lab do it again? We’ll see, but hopefully if we do ever see Maeda in a Cubs uniform it’s because he did figure something out while pitching at Triple-A and not because the Cubs are so desperate to need to use him. But hey, you got a nine-year MLB veteran pitcher with a decent track record. Could do a lot worse for your emergency pitcher down the line.
Across 9 MLB seasons, Maeda has a 4.20 ERA in 986.2 innings.
