Japanese Home Run King, Munetaka Murakami, is Headed to MLB

Murakami hit 56 home runs in 2022 in Nippon Professional Baseball, breaking the league’s single-season record for homers by a Japanese player.

Japan's Munetaka Murakami celebrates after a semi-final baseball game against South Korea at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Yokohama, Japan, on Aug. 4, 2021. Matt Slocum/AP Photo

The single-season Major League Baseball (MLB) home run record has seen the torch passed from Babe Ruth (60 home runs) to Roger Maris (61) to Mark McGwire (70) to Barry Bonds (73). Thus, someone who could be described as the Japanese Barry Bonds finally coming over to the United States and joining the MLB is monumental news.

Japan’s home run king, Munetaka Murakami, is headed to the MLB, as all 30 clubs were informed Friday that the slugger is being posted by his Japanese team.

Murakami, who turns 26 in February, holds the single-season home run record for a Japanese player in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Japan’s highest level of pro baseball. He hammered 56 home runs in 2022 to break Sadaharu Oh’s record of 55 homers, which had stood since 1964.

That year, he also won the NPB’s Triple Crown at just 22 years old, becoming the youngest player in league history to receive that honor. Murakami hit .318 that season with 134 RBI, which was the 12th Triple Crown achievement in a league that has been around since 1950. With that type of historic season, Murakami also took home MVP honors, winning the Central League Most Valuable Player award for the second year in a row.

Over his eight-year career in Japan, which began when he was just 18 years old, Murakami slugged 265 home runs with 722 RBI. His batting split was .273/.394/.550 with a .945 OPS. For comparison, during Shohei Ohtani’s five years within the NPB, his OPS was .854.

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are posting Murakami, with his negotiating window with MLB clubs beginning Saturday morning. The posting lasts for 45 days, until Dec. 22, by which point the player and an MLB team must agree to a deal. If Murakami goes unsigned by the deadline, the posting window will expire and he will revert back to the Swallows.

The posting system is the route that numerous NPB stars, including Ohtani in 2017, have utilized to come over to the MLB. Others who have joined the MLB via the posting system include Ohtani’s Los Angeles Dodgers teammate Roki Sasaki and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Murakami, Ohtani, Sasaki, and Yamamoto were teammates at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, in which Team Japan won the gold medal. Murakami also has an Olympic gold medal from the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Yu Darvish, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki have also used this path to the United States and the MLB. The posting system is not just restricted to Japanese players. Anyone competing in the NPB can be posted. Dominicans Alejandro Diaz and Ramon Ramirez have also gone from the NPB to the MLB via the system.

The NPB teams that post players are financially incentivized to do so, as they receive payment directly from the MLB team that signs the athlete. Those MLB clubs must pay a fee to the team from which the player transfers based on his MLB contract. The MLB team will pay 20 percent for the first $25 million of the contract, 17.5 percent for the next $25 million, and an additional 15 percent on every dollar above $50 million.

Murakami, who bats left-handed, is primarily a third baseman, as he’s played more than 75 percent of his games at the hot corner. However, he also has 266 games at first base and even logged three games in the outfield this past season, marking the first time he’s done that in his career. He’s not known for his glove, nor his legs, as he averaged fewer than 10 stolen bases per game, but there aren’t many concerns with his bat.

Big-market MLB teams always seem to be most often linked to Japanese stars, and that’s also the case with Murakami. MLB.com says that the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Phillies, Giants, and Mariners are among those expected to have the most interest in signing the slugger. His willingness to possibly move to first base full-time, or assume the role of a designated hitter, will be a big factor in where he lands.

Murakami isn’t the only Japanese superstar who could be donning an MLB uniform come 2026, as Kazuma Okamoto is set to be posted as well by his team, the Yomiuri Giants. Like Murakami, he is a prodigious home run hitter who has led NPB’s Central League in homers three times in his career while also making six All-Star teams.

A fellow third baseman, Okamoto is four years older than Murakami and has seen his numbers dip a bit in recent years. However, he does offer more defensively and is a two-time Golden Glove award winner with the Giants.