![\"Munetaka](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/munetaka-murakami-team-japan.jpg\")
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(Photo by Eric Espada\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The MLB<\/a> posting deadline for any team to sign Munetaka Murakami is nearing, with December 22 being the final day, and now the San Diego Padres<\/a> are emerging as a potential suitor. Moreover, as the final days approach, teams could be ramping up their efforts to secure the player with question marks but tremendous upside. <\/p>\n Despite playing just 56 games last season in Japan due to an oblique injury, Murakami still hit 22 home runs and posted a .273\/.379\/.663 slash line.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, teams remain cautious, particularly because of his strikeouts and high swing-and-miss rate on pitches in the zone. Still, his youth and long-term potential make him an enticing prospect.<\/p>\n One team that could make a last-minute jump for the player are the Padres. After re-signing veteran pitcher Michael King<\/a> and South Korean infielder Sung-Mun Song<\/a>, the Padres could be turning their attention to the Japanese slugger. <\/p>\n On the December 19 edition of \u201cFoul Territory,\u201d<\/a> Baseball America\u2019s Geoff Pontes reported that San Diego have met with Murakami. <\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the Padres have had some meetings,\u201d Pontes said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if the Song signing from Korea [on December 19], maybe offsets that a little bit. It seems like the market is a lot softer than I think Murakami, or his representation, necessarily expected when he came over.\u201d<\/p>\n Munetaka Murakami Concerns Amid Padres News<\/p>\n The buzz around Murakami has been relatively quiet, and there\u2019s no concrete information on whether it\u2019s by design or whether his representatives miscalculated the market. Regardless, Pontes provided additional details on why teams may be hesitant to sign Murakami. <\/p>\n \u201cTeams are really suspect of the lack of plate skills there, how the bats of all ability is going to translate, and how frequently he\u2019s going to be able to get to that power,\u201d Pontes added. \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that there\u2019s this Kyle Schwarber-esque upside. From a raw power perspective, certainly there is. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s ever going to hit like Kyle Schwarber. It was a lot of swing and miss\u2026 We\u2019ll see how that translates to the United States. <\/p>\n \u201cYou could be talking about a guy his first year here, who hits 220 or lowered, like a buck 90. Then you have questions about, you probably can\u2019t play him at third base. He\u2019s not a very good first baseman, so you\u2019re locking yourself in the air with a low-contact, low-batting average DH. Teams, though they value impact and they value power hitting, they do still value contact.\u201d<\/p>\n What Teams Have Interest in Munetaka Murakami<\/p>\n Regarding the other teams linked to Murakami, MLB Network insider Jon Morosi shared on December 12 potential landing spots for the power hitter, including the New York Mets<\/a> and Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cMurakami is of interest to teams like the\u00a0Red Sox<\/a>, the Mariners, the Tigers, the Phillies, the\u00a0Mets, the Blue Jays, a lot of different teams,\u201d\u00a0Morosi said on MLB Network<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0Pirates, I have\u00a0been told, are connected to Murakami.\u00a0If you want to sign Murakami, you only have 10 more days\u00a0to do\u00a0it. And so if the [Alex] Bregman market is going to continue into the new year, and if you\u2019re thinking about Bregman or\u00a0the\u00a0power\u00a0of Murakami.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the power that he\u2019s had in the past, the 56-homer season, a really intriguing lefty bat. Yeah, there\u2019s some swing and miss, but he\u2019s a guy that a lot of teams like. You can\u2019t wait forever on Bregman because Murakami is no longer a secondary option once you get past December 22.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tEduardo Razo<\/a> Eduardo Razo is a sports journalist covering the NFL for Heavy.com. He previously covered the league for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has contributed as a freelance writer for The Sporting News. He also served as an editor for Athlon Sports and Heavy Sports focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Padres\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty (Photo by Eric Espada\/Getty Images) The MLB posting deadline for any team to sign Munetaka Murakami is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-360351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}