Munetaka Murakami is going to be posted by the Yakult Swallows this offseason. It’s long been speculated that it was going to happen, but Mark Feinsand of MLB.com is confirming that it’s going to happen at this point.
The 25-year-old infielder has played for Yakult since he was 18-years-old and has hit 246 home runs in his eight years. In 2022 he hit 56 of them, but has seasons of 36, 28, 39, 31, 33, and 22 outside of that campaign. In 2025 he only hit 22 of them, but those home runs came in just 56 games as he missed much of the year with an oblique strain.
The left-handed hitter has shown plenty of power in his career and even more so when you consider his age while he was doing it. If there’s one thing that the Cincinnati Reds need in their lineup is someone who can hit for a lot of power.
But with all of that power from Munetaka Murakami comes some concerns. He strikes out a lot. Like a lot a lot. In 2024 he played in 143 games and had 180 strikeouts. The year before he struck out 168 times in 140 games. In 2025 he struck out 64 times in 56 games. Over the last three seasons that’s a 28.8% strikeout rate. Even in MLB that would be a very high strikeout rate, but the strikeout rate in Japan over that time was 19.3% compared to 22.5% in the same time across MLB.
Murakami has walked a lot in his career, too. So it’s not necessarily an issue of his strikezone awareness as much as it’s probably an issue making contact. That can be it’s own large concern, though. Most sluggers do tend to swing and miss often enough and it’s a trade off you can make as long as you are still picking up enough hits and walks to balance that all out.
The power really is the selling card, though. Let’s take a quick look at the slugging percentages put up by Murakami compared to the league average in Japan since he turned 20.
YearMurakami SLGLeague SLGDifference2020.585.391.1942021.566.383.1832022.710.370.3402023.500.362.1382024.472.341.1312025.663.350.313
Some of his seasons have been better than others, but it’s clear in all of them that he’s on a different level of power hitter than the rest of the league. In the piece from Feinsand, an MLB scout told him that he has legit power that should translate to the major leagues.
There is a lot at play here. First is the sort of unprovenness over Murakami. There have been success players come over from Japan – and the best player we’ve ever seen is from there and doing things every year that defy what we know about baseball players – but there have been plenty who were God-like in Japan who came over and didn’t live up to the billing, too.
Then there’s the competition for his services. All of the big teams seem to at least be mentioned by Feinsand as having some level of interest. That doesn’t bode well for a team like Cincinnati who has never played even in the middle tier of the market for players in free agency this century.
Unlike Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki, who had to sign minor league contracts because of how the rules are set up for international players, Munetaka Murakami is considered a free agent and he can sign a big league contract worth as much money as someone is willing to pay him.
How much he could be looking for and how much he will be able to get both seem to be unknown at this point. There are some real questions on his resume, but there is plenty of possible upside with that power, too. The amount of sluggers on the market this year may push the price down some, but his age may also play in his favor as he will be just 26-years-old next year.
