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Nippon Professional Baseball’s best power-hitter Munetaka Murakami set to play his final season in Japan in 2025
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Photo credit: © Sam Navarro - USA Today
Ryley Delaney
Dec 2, 2024, 18:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 2, 2024, 19:13 EST
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It’s never too early to look ahead to next off-season.
According to Yakyu Cosmopolitan, Japanese third baseman Munetaka Murakami signed a one-year deal with the Toyko Yakult Swallows. Interestingly, he noted that the 2025 season will be his last in Japan.
Murakami is 24 years old and will be 25 in early February. Unfortunately, his birthday is too late to be posted in the traditional sense this off-season, meaning he’d have to go through the international free agency. Next season, he and his team will benefit greatly as he can sign a deal with the same structure as Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, who signed a 12-year, $325 million deal last off-season.
That begs the question, what makes Murakami so intriguing? Well, the 24-year-old slashed .244/.379/.472 with 33 home runs in 610 plate appearances last season. In 2022, he slashed .318/.458/.711 with 56 home runs in 612 plate appearances for an insane 1.168 OPS. That year, he broke the home run record for Japanese-born players.
For his seven-year career in Nippon Professional Baseball, Murakami is slashing .272/.395/.534 with 241 home runs in 3,983 plate appearances, with a 25 K% and a 16.1 BB%. It’s clear that Murakami has power and loads of it.
Although he mainly plays third base in NPB, Yakyu Cosmopolitan believes that he’ll slide over to first base or designated hitter once he reaches Major League Baseball. That’s not a bad thing either, as his bat is his best tool without question.
This off-season is loaded with position player talent, like Juan Soto, Alex Bregman, Teoscar Hernández, and many others. Next season isn’t the case though, as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is set to become the best free agent of the 2025-26 class (hopefully the Blue Jays re-sign him). Moreover, Bo Bichette and Kyle Tucker are the next-best batters in what is a fairly weak free-agency class.
You have to imagine that all 30 teams will have interest in Murakami, as he’s a young power hitter who can play third base. That will be a fun player to track next off-season.
As always, you can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.

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