Mark Grote

I mean, when we were chilling in that cabana at Circus Swim, we were asking questions about, was that the best performance that Shota Imanaga did?

And I kind of was like,

Let's just wait and see.

I will admit, guys like that – and this is the problem.

This is the low-velocity bias.

When guys with lower velocity start to struggle and felt like last year lost it –

they don't get the benefit of the doubt as easily.

And maybe I should just speak for myself.

Yes, please, only speak for yourself.

That's the way I felt.

I was like, he can't afford to lose a mile per hour off the fastball.

We went through this with Kyle Hendricks.

He's like, you cannot afford that.

Okay, we'll accept 91, but it cannot go down another inch.

And it did for Shota Imanaga.

He looked ridiculously hittable.

He didn't take the Cubs up on the option, and then he did because nobody else was particularly interested in him.

And so you felt like you were stuck with this guy, this guy who appeared to have maybe kind of

lost it last year, and now here he is throwing this in my face and everybody else's face that doubted this guy.

And I was going to wait a while to see it, but I'm at the point now where it would be stupid for me to push back and say, well, we'll see about Shota.