The 2023 World Baseball Classic star, Muneteka Murakami, has finally made his decision and signed with the Chicago White Sox, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Murakami’s posting date was Monday at 5 PM EST, and he signed with Chicago on Sunday at 10 AM on a two-year contract worth $34 million. This is the perfect “buy low” on Murakami, as he was once destined for $150 million and saw his market plummet all the way down to this.
Murakami is 25 years old, has prodigious power, and hit 56 home runs in 2023 to break the Japan-born home run record in 141 games with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. This is also a guy who’s a global star, is going to have a lot of eyes on him, and will be great for marketing. He is coming off a season in which he hit 22 home runs with a 1.043 On Base Plus Slugging Percentage in 56 games.
This is a guy with 30-40 home run power in the major leagues. Murakami will need to fine-tune a couple of things and takes in the advice that people in the organization have for him.
The White Sox are a young, rebuilding team, so every little thing that Murakami does won’t get scrutinized like if he were playing in New York. He can go through the ins and outs of figuring out Major League Baseball without immense pressure on him. This is also perfect because it coincides with the rest of the White Sox team, which is on the rise, and they actually have a formidable lineup.
Chicago’s projected lineup currently is Chase Meidroth, Kyle Teel, Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, Andrew Benintendi, Luis Robert Jr, Murakami, Edgar Quero, and Brooks Baldwin. This is an incredibly enticing lineup that can all grow together, and adding someone like Murakami just adds the cherry on top of it all.
Murakami’s potential is through the roof, and White Sox fans can really start to get fired up if they retain Luis Robert Jr. and he can bounce back offensively. Even if not, the power between Murakami and Montgomery is going to be insane, and Teel is an absolute stud.
Of course, people are already saying that they can’t wait until Murakami is either traded or signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency. I really do love this move, though, for both sides. He can get acclimated to the majors while trying to put the White Sox back on the map and hopefully hit absolute nukes on the way as well.
The massive power also comes with legit swing and miss issues with Murakami, who had a 28.5% strikeout rate in the Nippon Professional Baseball league. He also has issues with whiffing, which means a batter just swings and misses at a pitch in the zone. This is exactly why his market plummeted, as teams had legit concerns about this, as well as the fact that he hasn’t frequently seen high velocity in the NPB.
Murakami is also going to have to prove that he can hit high velocity pitching in the major leagues. It feels like everyone can throw 95 miles per hour these days, and people just spawn in throwing 100 MPH as well.
Murakami is also limited as a defender and projects to be a first baseman. He has third base experience in Japan, and obviously, he can slot in as the designated hitter when needed.
This is a good opportunity for him to put all this scrutiny to bed. By the time Murakami is 27 years old, he can re-up on an even more lucrative contract with whoever he chooses.
I really do love this pairing for both the White Sox and Murakami, as this really is a match made in heaven. Chicago hasn’t really spent a ton of money in years past, and if you told anyone that they would get someone of his talent, they would’ve called you insane. Especially in free agency, when seemingly every team could’ve gotten him even for this amount, the little old White Sox of all people got him?
Passan also mentioned that Murakami turned down offers with more years to sign with Chicago, which had one of the highest Average Annual Value offers. White Sox fans are absolutely elated, and how can you not be happy for a fan base that had to endure a MLB record-worst 121 losses in 2024?
Hopefully, Murakami works out for Chicago, and it can actually start signing really good players in the offseason and act like the big-market team that they are. At worst, it’s a two-year contract, and only at $17 million annually, this is a good, low-risk high-reward type of signing.
Top prospect Braden Montgomery is on the way, as well as power left-handed pitchers Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith. It’s a new era for the White Sox, and it looks incredibly promising for the first time in a while.
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