On Monday, The Athletic ‘s Boston Red Sox reporter Jen McCaffrey identified Tatsuya Imai among the free agent pitchers that Boston might pursue this offseason.

“Among the starting pitchers, Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez and Tatsuya Imai (another recent Japanese star who was recently posted) all figure to be free-agent targets as the Winter Meetings approach,” McCaffrey wrote (subscription required).

While most Red Sox fans are already familiar with Cease and Valdez, Imai is a less familiar entity, mostly because he’s never pitched in MLB before.

However, for Red Sox fans interested in Imai, a comment that Imai recently made about the Los Angeles Dodgers should be of supreme interest.

Imai said that he’d rather beat the Dodgers than join them, which shows that he’s a pitcher with

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