White Sox watching one thing with potential star Munetaka Murakami originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Chicago White Sox were a bit of a surprise landing spot for Munetaka Murakami.
The Japanese slugger was expected to have a more robust free agent market than he ended up having, and that could be telling.
It likely reveals at least some of the doubts that some MLB teams had about his ability to translate his prodigious power against major league pitching.
The White Sox believe in him, though. But they, and everyone else, will be watching the early returns.
"There may not be a more intriguing hitter to watch this spring than Murakami," wrote MLB.com's Jared Greenspan in a new article on Saturday. "The 25-year-old Japanese slugger arrives stateside with a reputation for prodigious power and the ability to hit the ball exceptionally hard. Yet a propensity for swing-and-miss and high strikeout totals made his free-agent case rather polarizing. How well will Murakami handle Major League pitching? We’ll get our first glimpse shortly, and you’ll want to catch him before he leaves camp to play for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic."
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In 2022 playing in Japan, Murakami hit 56 home runs. On a simple level, his power is very, very real.
One of the big concerns always cited for hitters coming from outside of MLB is that the velocity is higher in the big leagues than it is anywhere else. So can Murakami catch up? That's a portion of what people will be watching.
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Of course, hitters sometimes have rough springs and then still prove they are stars. Both Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani have stories of stumbling a bit in their first forays stateside before hitting the ground running by the time the regular season arrived.
So don't make too many early judgments on Murakami. But yes, he'll put everyone at ease if he proves quickly that he can hit MLB pitching.
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