18 minutes ago, ChiSoxFanMike said:

I would be really disappointed if Murakami decided to ride Ohtani’s coattails. Too many other players have already done that. He can be the face of the team here. Hopefully that means something to him.

Forget lame "coattails" type of fan crap, If LAD offers him a Dodgers like contract, and the Sox offer him a Sox like contract, THAT should mean something to him.

31 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Forget lame "coattails" type of fan crap, If LAD offers him a Dodgers like contract, and the Sox offer him a Sox like contract, THAT should mean something to him.

If Ishbia wasn’t in the equation, I would have zero hope that Murakami is here for the long haul. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

8 years is.... the first year that Ishbia can take over on his own.

9 minutes ago, ChiSoxFanMike said:

If Ishbia wasn’t in the equation, I would have zero hope that Murakami is here for the long haul. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

We can all hope, but until Jerry is gone, I am not convinced.

33 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

We can all hope, but until Jerry is gone, I am not convinced.

This is what I have such a hard time understanding. How was Ishbia ok with buying into this situation of another 8 years of JR continuing to add nails to the coffin. It seems the longer JR is in charge the more money it will cost to bring this franchise back to relevance.

17 minutes ago, supernuke said:

This is what I have such a hard time understanding. How was Ishbia ok with buying into this situation of another 8 years of JR continuing to add nails to the coffin. It seems the longer JR is in charge the more money it will cost to bring this franchise back to relevance.

Ishbia is obviously working behind the scenes. But I still haven't seen it really translate into the daily stuff.

4 hours ago, Colome's Hat said:

Kind of think he becomes our first $100 million signing. Multitude of reasons but also the fact that he brings in revenue like few other players can.

We give Getz crap but not only is this his best signing but it may prove to be the best free agent signing of the off season from any team.

Its april 21st. Long way to go.

21 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Its april 21st. Long way to go.

Definitely this. He's got great power on contact, but making contact consistently has been an issue through the first few weeks. If the pitchers are effective at exploiting him, it could be a long 2 years

Well his floor seems to be like a 2 WAR 1B. That's way better than anything else Getz has done FA wise. Upside maybe 4 WAR if he hits 210/330/510 which is a tall order even in today's 3TO league.

His defense at 1B seems average or slightly above. That was a nice play he made coming off the bag on Colson's toss the other day.

Murakami has pretty much been as advertised. Huge power along with lower batting average and decent defense at 1B. His eye at the plate is really good, probably better than expected. That has kept his strikeouts lower and his OBP pretty high.

If he can keep this up, the Sox could have their first 40+ HR guy in a while. And if that's the case, he will be getting a lot of attention from other teams in the off season and next season. I would love to see the Sox extend him, but as others have mentioned, as long as JR is involved, it's a long shot.

FanGraphs Baseball

Munetaka Murakami, as Advertised

Murakami is striking out a ton, sure, but he’s also absolutely demolishing the ball.

I'm curious what people are projecting Murakami's future price to be? Fangraphs had his offseason projection in the $20-22m AAV range with some caveats. Less generous projections were around 5/$80-90m.

Matt Olson is at $22m/year and he was coming off of a 39HR/111 RBI season with a .911 OPS (.271 AVG) when he signed that 8 year extension. Naylor (🤢) is a quality 2-3 WAR 1B and didn't crack nine figures in FA. Brent Rooker is a little older, but extended for 5/$60m coming off of a 39HR/112RBI/5+ WAR season. Alonso's $31m salary leads all 1B this year and is generally regarded as a modest overpay.

There's just a pretty hard cap to what teams spend on a non-premium position (and how many teams even try to in a given season), which is exactly why it's a place Jerry has found himself comfortable before. He's paid a top ~10 annual salary for 1B more often than not over the past 15 seasons, and I doubt anywhere else on the diamond comes close.

Mune is basically living up to the good eye/huge whiff/huge power scouting report that just failed to generate a massive bidding war. Barring some wild contact improvement, I don't exactly expect the same teams to be offering him Vlad Jr money in two years. Although even if they did, there's so little on the books in 2028 that the Sox could beat that AAV and still have a lower payroll than today lol

Basically, I'm here:

I don't think Getz would balk at Mune being the nine figure guy he's already said he expects to sign at some point, and even 5-6 years projects to be at the lower end of that. If he wants to stay here and doesn't suddenly start hitting .300, they can pay market price. I expect them to make a good faith effort.

And FWIW, nothing I've seen/read about Mune suggests he's in some rush to jump ship. Most of his NPB fanbase seems to be rooting for him to repeat his Swallows journey with the White Sox, where they were the worst team in NPB the season before he joined (also with some doubts and at a discount) then he stuck it out, proved his worth, re-signed, and helped lead them to success. He's made more than one reference to wanting to be a part of "writing the story" for a team, which is why a clear starting role was a part of the Sox' appeal.

Ohtani $100-125 million extra to Dodgers corporate/sponsorships/marketing tie ins

$90-100 million in personal endorsements

Bryce Harper +/- $10 million

Would be a shocker if Yamamoto hasn't passed by Harper the last calendar year.

otoh Imai's whining might get Daikin Park renamed in Houston...and Okamoto hasn't done much for Toronto yet.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by caulfield12

Munetaka is not a platoon bat.

37 minutes ago, 46DidIt said:

Munetaka is not a platoon bat.

Not after this week...he'll make adjustments against lhp

very smart hitter with elite strike zone command

Whatever else you can say about him, that home run swing of his has charisma.

David Keller was scouting Murakami (and Okamoto IIRC) back with the Mets in addition to his trip for the Sox last year. NY was also connected to him in the offseason, but ended up paying more for Polanco to try to convert him to 1B instead.

One assumes money wasn't the problem, so I wonder if they just didn't like the profile. Or maybe Mune just turned them down.

12 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Definitely this. He's got great power on contact, but making contact consistently has been an issue through the first few weeks. If the pitchers are effective at exploiting him, it could be a long 2 years

On the flip side of this, if he's really this good (meaning OPS near 1.000, wRC+ around 170, etc.) then his contract is going to be less Pete Alonso and more Vlad Guerrero Jr

5 hours ago, Autumn Dreamin said:

I'm curious what people are projecting Murakami's future price to be? Fangraphs had his offseason projection in the $20-22m AAV range with some caveats. Less generous projections were around 5/$80-90m.

Matt Olson is at $22m/year and he was coming off of a 39HR/111 RBI season with a .911 OPS (.271 AVG) when he signed that 8 year extension. Naylor (🤢) is a quality 2-3 WAR 1B and didn't crack nine figures in FA. Brent Rooker is a little older, but extended for 5/$60m coming off of a 39HR/112RBI/5+ WAR season. Alonso's $31m salary leads all 1B this year and is generally regarded as a modest overpay.

There's just a pretty hard cap to what teams spend on a non-premium position (and how many teams even try to in a given season), which is exactly why it's a place Jerry has found himself comfortable before. He's paid a top ~10 annual salary for 1B more often than not over the past 15 seasons, and I doubt anywhere else on the diamond comes close.

Mune is basically living up to the good eye/huge whiff/huge power scouting report that just failed to generate a massive bidding war. Barring some wild contact improvement, I don't exactly expect the same teams to be offering him Vlad Jr money in two years. Although even if they did, there's so little on the books in 2028 that the Sox could beat that AAV and still have a lower payroll than today lol

Basically, I'm here:

I don't think Getz would balk at Mune being the nine figure guy he's already said he expects to sign at some point, and even 5-6 years projects to be at the lower end of that. If he wants to stay here and doesn't suddenly start hitting .300, they can pay market price. I expect them to make a good faith effort.

And FWIW, nothing I've seen/read about Mune suggests he's in some rush to jump ship. Most of his NPB fanbase seems to be rooting for him to repeat his Swallows journey with the White Sox, where they were the worst team in NPB the season before he joined (also with some doubts and at a discount) then he stuck it out, proved his worth, re-signed, and helped lead them to success. He's made more than one reference to wanting to be a part of "writing the story" for a team, which is why a clear starting role was a part of the Sox' appeal.

I wrote about this in more detail recently. I don't love the Olson and Alonso comps because of the age difference, although there aren't many great comps out there in fairness. Vlad Jr. is on the other extreme since he was younger than Murakami will be when he reaches free agency. I don't know why everyone conveniently ignores that one during these conversations — maybe because Guerrero didn't end up reaching free agency himself, but at this (very early) point he is a much better hitter comparison for Murakami than any of these other guys. A 170 wRC+ is MVP-level good. Again, very early.

It will ultimately come down to just how good he is. If he's the hitter we've seen through the first 23 games, he'll be closer to Vlad Jr. and will be long gone. If he's closer to that Naylor tier then he can reasonably be kept even with contract inflation + his off-field value. If he's a Pete Alonso-level hitter, I would be skeptical since he's younger and more valuable off the field. I know Alonso just got his deal, but if he were three years younger this free agency and had an outsized off-field revenue impact, he probably would've gotten more like 8/280