A report from Michael Kay of the YES Network surfaced where he mentioned that the Yankees were building their offseason around Munetaka Murakami, a left-handed power hitter from Japan’s NPB. Entering his age-25 season, he’ll play one more year in Japan before being posted, where he’ll be free to negotiate with MLB teams once posted, just two years ago his free agency sweepstakes were seen as one of the most enticing to wait for. After hitting 59 home runs in 2022, Murakami was on top of the international baseball world, poised to become the next great Japanese slugger.
Unfortunately, the following two seasons have come with a harsh regression, as the reality has quickly become that Munetaka Murakami isn’t the superstar-caliber first baseman of the future, but rather a project bat.
Is Munetaka Murakami the Yankees’ Long-Term Answer at 1B?
This past season, Munetaka Murakami hit the second-most HRs for any hitter in the NPB (33) with the fourth-highest OPS (.851), but his league-worst 180 strikeouts are a real point of worry. While facing Japanese pitching is no easy feat, the average fastball velocity and overall Stuff+ scores for pitchers in the NPB are worse than what you’d see at the Major League level, a product of just how much money teams have to pour into player development among other things.
It’s important to note that a big reason for the dropoff in OPS over the past two seasons stems from a run environment that has collapsed league-wide something that could be a product of changed baseballs among other things. I’m not as much concerned about the production as I am about the swing-and-miss rates, as there’s no question about whether Murakami has the power or plate discipline to excel at Yankee Stadium, but rather the ability to make contact.
Seiya Suzuki struck out 14.2% of the time in his final NPB season as a 26-year-old, and in his MLB career, he’s posted a 24.8% strikeout rate, which doesn’t bode well for what Murakami’s 29.5% K% would balloon to stateside.
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Munetaka Murakami’s spike in strikeout rate is beyond concerning for the Yankees, as he was in the 2nd Percentile in K% and in the 0th Percentile in Zone Contact%. That’s not a typo; the zero there is accurate, and it doesn’t bode well for his ability to transition over the big leagues. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue for Murakami was coming over while playing a premium position, as you could hope he’s a 30-35% K% guy with excellent game power, becoming a ~105 wRC+ hitter with some pretty extreme profiles.
The problem is that there are serious flaws in his offensive profile while being a first baseman, a position where your bat carries most of your value. Would his power play well at Yankee Stadium? Yes, because right field is an easy place for him to turn pulled flyballs into home runs, but the lack of consistency in the contact rates seriously brings into question whether he’s a worthwhile gamble. Furthermore, the Yankees have to pay him as if he were a regular free agent, meaning they’ll have to fork over guaranteed MLB money that counts toward the Luxury Tax.
If this was a Roki Sasaki situation where a player was coming over to sign a MiLB deal you take that flier, but Munetaka Murakami is likely a worse hitter than both Masataka Yoshida and Seiya Suzuki, who are also below-average defensively.
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Not all hope is necessarily lost for Munetaka Murakami; if he’s able to improve his contact rates and settle around a 20% K% again, then I think the Yankees would be all-in on their pursuit of the young slugger. It’s not like he’s going to draw heavy interest from a Dodgers’ team with Freddie Freeman at first base or Shohei Ohtani at DH, so don’t worry about them plucking him from the Yankees’ grasp. There’s also the chance that Murakami is a ~30% K% guy at the big-league level and has success, which is still on the table given his power and upside.
I’m not out on Munetaka Murakami entirely, but I am of the belief that he has to prove himself to be a potential impact player at the MLB level this season, or else the Yankees should look elsewhere. The question marks around his game also make me completely doubt the notion that they’re building this offseason around him, they could show interest but that does not mean that they passed up on opportunities with him in mind. This is not a player who should draw comparisons to Shohei Ohtani or even Seiya Suzuki offensively right now, despite having that trajectory (offensively) two years ago.
Hopefully, he figures things out, signs with the Yankees, and averages a .500 SLG% with 30 HRs a season, but I have serious doubts about whether he’ll become that kind of player or not when he comes over to Major League Baseball.