Munetaka Murakami was born in Kumamoto City, the capital of the Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, on February 2, 2000. Along with his older brother, he took to the game of baseball quickly. His dedication and
actual skill led his parents to enrolling him in private baseball academies headed by former professional ballplayers, among others. As a teenager, he attended Kyushu Gakuin High School, a high school in his native Kumamoto City. Primarily a first baseman and catcher, Murakami immediately made the team in his first year and was designated the team’s clean up hitter for virtually his entire tenure there. Though he was never able to lead the school to a Koshien victory, making the summer tournament only once, he helped lead the school to the regional Kumamoto Summer Tournament finals three times, with the team advancing in his first year but failing to win the finals in his next two. Clobbering 52 home runs during his high school career and known for his prodigious power, Murakami earned the nickname “Babe Ruth of Higa”, Higa being the former name of Kumamoto Prefecture prior to the Meiji Reformation.
During the 2017 NPB Draft, the Yakult Swallows, Yomiuri Giants, and Rakuten Golden Eagles all selected Murakami’s draft rights in the first round. The Swallows won the subsequent lottery, and after agreeing to a roughly $520,000 signing bonus, Munetaka Murakami was officially a professional baseball player.
He spent most of the 2018 season on the Swallows’ ni-gun team. On September 16, against the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Murakami made his NPB debut, appearing as the Swallows’ starting third baseman and hitting a home run in his very first at-bat. He went hitless in his next few appearances and was sent back down to the NPB Eastern League, ending his season.
Murakami was almost certainly going to be penciled in as the Swallow’s starting third baseman for the 2019 season, but a strong showing on the Japanese National Team that winter made it all but official. At 19-years-old, he became the youngest Swallows player to start the season, beating the previous record of 21-years-old, set by infielder Seikichi Nishioka back in 1958. Appearing in a team high 143 games, Murakami hit .231/.332/.481 with 20 doubles, 36 home runs, 5 stolen bases in 9 attempts, and drew 74 walks to 184 strikeouts. His 36 home runs tied the NPB record for most home runs by a rookie, while his 184 strikeouts set a record for most strikeouts in a season by a Japanese player, and weighing both the good and the bad, Murakami was awarded the 2019 Central League Rookie of the Year honors.
Because Japan was much more proactive in managing the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the NPB was able to have a 120 game season, and despite the outbreak, Murakami had a breakout. The 20-year-old appeared in all 120 games for the Swallows and hit .307/.427/.585 with 30 doubles, 2 triples, 28 home runs, 11 stolen bases in 16 attempts, and drew 87 walks to 115 strikeouts. His success continued into 2021, where he appeared in all 143 games for the Swallows and hit .278/.408/.566 with 27 doubles, 39 home runs, 12 stolen bases in 19 attempts, and drew 106 walks to 133 strikeouts. Murakami was not the only Swallows player to have a good year that season, and the team earned a playoff berth. Making it to the Japan Series, the Swallows beat the Orix Buffaloes and won their sixth NPB Championship, their first since 2001. Murakami was elected the Central League MVP, becoming the youngster ever to win the award at age 21, beating Hideki Matsui, who won in 1996 at age 22.
For as good as he was in 2021, the 2022 season was a magical year for Murakami, the kind of season that happens to a player only once in a while. Murakami hit and hit and hit, all while slugging home runs at a rate that he had never done before. At the midway point of the season, the infielder was hitting .312 with 33 home runs. In late July and the beginning of August, the flaming hot Murakami hit five consecutive home runs, going 3-3 with 3 home runs against the Hanshin Tigers and 3-3 with 2 home runs against the Chunichi Dragons- his third hit was merely a double.
By the time September arrived, it was very apparent that the NPB record for most home runs in a single season held by former teammate Wladimir Balentien was within reach. On September 13th, Murakami hit his 55th home run of the season, tying Sadaharu Oh, Alex Cabrera, and Tuffy Rhodes for the second-most home runs hit in a single season, and trailing Balentien by 5. As luck would have it, the slugger went into a slump, going 48 straight at-bats without hitting a home run in the final few weeks of the season. On October 3rd, the last day of the regular season, Murakami launched his 56th long ball, breaking the record that Sadaharu Oh set for most home runs by a player of Japanese descent.
On the season, the 22-year-old slugger appeared in 141 games and hit .318/.458/.710 with 21 doubles, 1 triple, 56 home runs, 12 stolen bases in 19 attempts, and drew 118 walks to 128 strikeouts. His 10.5 WAR led all of Nippon Professional Baseball and was the first time that a position crossed over into double-digits since Yuki Yanagita posted a 10.2 WAR and Tetsuo Yamada posted a 11.9 WAR in 2015. There has not been a player as valuable since, with Kensuke Kondoh posting back-to-back league-leading 8.1 and 7.9 WARs in 2023 and 2024, and Teruaki Sato posting a 7.0 in 2025. He led the league in batting average, home runs, and RBI, winning the Central League Triple Crown, the first time a Central League player did so since Randy Bass in 1986.
For his second consecutive season, Murakami won the Central League MVP Award. His 2022 selection was unanimous, making the young slugger the first NPB player since Masahiro Tanaka won the award unanimously in 2013 and the first position player to win it unanimously since Sadaharu Oh’s 1977 season.
Following the conclusion of the season, Murakami signed a three-year extension with the Swallows worth roughly $4 million dollars per year, but more important than the money was a clause in his contract stating that the Swallows were contractually obligated to post the slugger following the conclusion of the 2025 season.
Murakami was not able to keep up that elite level of performance in 2023. He began the season in a slump and while he was able to break out of it by the beginning of June, a knee injury sustained at the end of the month had lingering effects over the course of the remainder of the season. All in all, the 23-year-old appeared in 140 games and hit .256/.375/.500 with 28 doubles, 31 home runs, 5 stolen bases in 8 attempts, and drew 90 walks to 168 strikeouts. His 2024 season was very similar. He began the year mired in a massive slump and was bothered by a nagging elbow issue that required arthroscopic surgery after the season to resolve. Appearing in 143 games, Murakami hit .244/.379/.472 with 13 doubles, 1 triple, 33 home runs, 10 stolen bases in 15 attempts, and drew 105 walks to 180 strikeouts.
If Murakami’s prior two seasons were let downs, his 2025 season- his last in Japan- was a major disappointment. Missing opening day for the first time in years, due to oblique problems, Murakami tweaked the muscle further when he did begin playing, hurting himself while swinging the bat during a game. He did not return to the field until early July. He was eased back into the baseball grind, and by August had found his groove slugging home runs by the bunches. Ultimately, Murakami appeared in just 56 games for Yakult, but in those 56 games, he hit .273/.379/.663 with 7 doubles, 22 home runs, 4 stolen bases in 6 attempts, and drew 32 walks to 64 strikeouts.
Assuming Murakami’s time playing in Japan is done, the slugging corner infielder is leaving the land of the rising sun as a .270/.394/.557 hitter in 892 games over 8 years, clobbering 146 total doubles, 4 triples, and 246 home runs, stealing 59 bases in 92 attempts, and drawing 678 walks to 1068 strikeouts. He was the 2019 Central League Rookie of the Year Award winner, the 2021 and 2022 Central League Most Valuable Player, a four-time NPB All-Star (2019, 2021, 2022, 2024), and a four-time Best Nine Award winner (2020 at first baseman and 2021, 2022, and 2024 as a third baseman).
Murakami stands square at the plate, standing tall and extending his arms to hold his bat far from his body, angling the bat-head nearly perpendicular to the ground. He swings with a leg kick but minimal load and weight transfer, his arms and upper body generating most of his power. His swing is long, smooth and angular, designed to lift and drive the ball. The length of his swing and the time it takes from him to get his hands into proper hitting position have raised major red flags for MLB scouts and evaluators.
Since 2021, Murakami has a 69.4% ZSwing% along and a 75.5% ZContact%. The number has been incrementally trending down and has gone from an 80.8% in 2021 to a 72.6% this past season, roughly 10% lower than the 2025 MLB average of 82.5%. His OSwing% is 25.6% and he has a 50.4% OContact% to go along with that. These numbers also have been trending in the wrong direction, with his OSwing% roughly 5% higher in 2025 than it was in 2021-2024 and his OContact% up slightly, from 43% in 2021-2024 to 46.9% in 2025. More specifically, his swing rate against chase pitches, pitches outside of the zone enticing enough to commit to and swing at, has risen from an 18.1% from 2021-2024 to a 23.9% this past season, while his contact rate on those same pitches has dropped from a 39.6% from 2021-2024 to 29.2% in 2025. In other words, Murakami was swinging at more pitches outside of the zone that he thinks he can hit, but he is swinging and missing them.
The slugger feasted on four-seam fastballs, and while he did not struggle against other secondary pitches, the results simply were not the same. Against four-seam fastballs, he had a 154.4 total runs above average and a 30.3 RAA per 100, but against all other pitches, the results were decidedly worst. Against other pitchers in the fastball family, two-seam fastballs/sinkers and cutters, he had a 14.9 RAA/1.5 RAA per 100 and a 17.7 RAA /3.5 RAA per 100. Against breaking balls, sliders and curveballs, he had a 27.8 RAA /5.6 RAA per 100 and a 15.1 RAA /3.0 RAA per 100, respectively. Against off-speed pitches, changeups and splitters, he had a 15.5 RAA.3.1 RAA per 100 and a 24.7 RAA /4.9 RAA per 100, respectively. Even his success against fastballs has to be looked at with a bit of concern, as the average NPB fastball since 2021 is 91.3 MPH, a few miles per hour slower than the average MLB fastball in 2025.
When Murakami makes solid contact, he is capable of punishing the ball in ways that few players are capable of. Murakami’s carrying tool is his plus left-handed power. Any mistake thrown his way is liable to be sent over the outfield wall. With 246 home runs under his belt since his professional debut, the infielder has averaged 35 home runs per year since 2019, the year he became a regular for the Swallows.
According to NPB+ Trackman data, Murakami had a max exit velocity of 116.5 MPH during the NPB regular season. Only 17 MLB hitters had at least a single batted ball event resulting in an exit velocity of at least 116.5 MPH, with Onil Cruz hitting the hardest ball in 2025, a home run off of Logan Henderson on May 25 that left the bat at a whopping 122.9 MPH. This is in line with similar Statcast numbers measured during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, where his hardest hit ball was a home run off of Merrill Kelly that left his bat at 115.1 MPH.
Despite being such a power-focused hitter, Murakami uses the entire field. Since 2021, he has pulled the ball at a 43.2% rate, has gone back up the middle at a 33.4% rate, and has gone to the opposite field at a 23.4% rate. Of his hits, 16.9% have been line drives, 41.2% have been ground balls, and 42% have been fly balls.
The 6’2”, 215-pound Murakami- and that listed weight is likely being very generous to him- has mainly played third base for the Swallows, but he does have a considerable amount of experience at first base as well. All in all, he profiles better at first base, where the defensive bar of acceptability is much lower. According to Deltagraphs UZR Data, Murakami is a -8.1 defender in 5273.1 innings at third base since 2021. He has much less time and experience at first base during that same period, but in 123.2 innings he is an almost exactly net neutral +0.4 fielder. He is not particularly quick-twitch muscle oriented, meaning that he does not have a quick first step, nor is he rangy or agile. His arm is passable at third base but is stretched. While his arm is accurate, his arm strength is weak.
