MLB Execs Regret Munetaka Murakami Free Agency Process, 'It Was a Bad Miss by Everyone'

As Munetaka Murakami puts up huge power numbers for the Chicago White Sox in his first MLB season, there's a lot of regret around the league from rival teams that let him slip through the cracks after being posted by NPB.

Per ESPN's Jesse Rogers, one official from an American League club said "it was a bad miss by everyone" when discussing Murakami's free-agent process.

"It was a bad miss by everyone," the official said. "In-zone miss scares people, and it was hard to project that versus improved pitching. It's one of the blind spots of hitting projection models, so it winds up hurting the confidence for every team."

Murakami, who signed a two-year, $34 million contract with the White Sox, was perhaps the hardest player to figure out in terms of value as he was preparing to be posted by the Yakult Swallows. His power output in Japan was astounding with 246 homers and a .557 slugging percentage in NPB.

However, there had been some red flags in Murakami's game that caused legitimate concerns when thinking about how it would translate against MLB pitching.

Oblique and elbow injuries limited Murakami to 56 games last season. His strikeout rate was over 28 percent in his final three NPB seasons. His in-zone contact rate of 73.4 percent last year was nearly eight full points lower than the worst qualified MLB hitter from 2025 (Franmil Reyes: 81.0 percent).

"Guilty of weighing the strikeouts too much," an NL exec told Rogers. "I probably did not give him enough of the benefit of the doubt about getting on base."

Combine that with Murakami being limited to a first base/DH role, he wound up taking a short-term deal from the White Sox after some analysts projected he could get at least $200 million.

The deal has turned out to be a tremendous steal for the White Sox. Murakami enters play on Friday with a .237/.369/.565 slash line and 14 homers in 160 plate appearances over his first 37 games.

Aaron Judge with 15 homers is the only AL player with more dingers than Murakami.

Murakami has also been instrumental in the White Sox actually being a competitive team so far. They are only 17-20 through 37 games, but this is the earliest in a season they have reached 17 wins since 2022 when they finished 81-81.

The upside for Murakami in taking the short-term offer is that he will be a free agent again after the 2027 campaign and going into his age-28 season, so that big-money deal everyone anticipated last winter could be coming at some point.