The common rule of thumb for Japanese stars coming over stateside is that their preferences are to land on the West Coast and with a team that already employs one of their countrymen to help with their cultural adaptation and serve as a mentor. The New York Mets don’t have the West Coast box checked, but for a young Japanese pitcher, there might be no better mentor than Kodai Senga.

On the mound, the next bright Japanese star to come over is 27-year-old Tatsuya Imai, who by all accounts is a top priority for the Mets. By conventional wisdom, the Mets would be a second-tier option for the young flamethrower by virtue of their geography. But Imai is a different bird.

The highly coveted right-hander isn’t motivated by the glitz and glamor of Los Angeles, as so many Japanese stars have been leading to them landing with the Dodgers. Instead, he’s driven by the boredom he’s experiencing from facing the slap-hitting approach most NPB hitters employ.

Moreover, he’s not looking for more of the same when it comes to his next destination. Imai doesn’t want to be a Dodger, but he also doesn’t want to play on a team that already employs other Japanese players. That would seemingly rule the Mets out, for now.

Tatsuya Imai’s unconventional desire just gave the Mets another reason to move on from Kodai Senga

The Mets have made it clear that Kodai Senga is extremely available this offseason as they search for rotation upgrades. The soon-to-be 33-year-old and his vaunted ghost fork were once seen as the next great hope to lead the rotation in Queens.

And while the flashes of dominance have been there, the consistency and availability necessary to make Senga a top-of-the-rotation horse simply haven’t been.

At $15 million per year, Senga is a relative bargain, but only when he’s healthy and at the top of his game. Those things haven’t happened nearly enough in the last two years, making him a distressed asset whose likely market is a bad-contract-for-bad-contract swap.

And, if the Mets truly want to bring Imai into the fold, the urgency to rid themselves of Senga has just been ratcheted up to 11. Before this update, the Mets could reasonably afford to keep Senga on the roster and still upgrade the starting staff, but now, that would be impossible if Imai is their top target. Say goodbye, leverage!

At the end of the day, Imai could be everything the Mets were hoping they were going to get with Senga and more. He’s not as highly touted as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was, nor does he have the potential of a Roki Sasaki, but he’s the next best thing.

It’s important to remember that Senga was once the “next best thing,” and if Imai backfires, then running him out of town would have been for naught.

It’s looking like that’s the path that David Stearns wants to take, and with Senga jettisoned from the roster, the Mets would seemingly shoot up to the top of Imai’s list. Only time can tell if that will be a fruitful development.