Munetaka Murakami, a lefthanded-hitting corner infielder, was expected to be posted by his Japanese team Friday, starting the clock on his 45-day window of free agency in North America.
Murakami has played mostly third base for the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball, but is projected to play first base for an MLB team.
That could interest the Red Sox, whose plans at first base are uncertain.
Murakami is just 25 and has shown tremendous power in Japan, belting 56 homers in 2022. But he’s also seen his strikeout rates increase in recent seasons and has had difficulty making contact against elite fastballs. When swinging at pitches at 93 mph or more in Japan this past season, Murakami hit just .093.
Currently, the Sox have Triston Casas, who missed the last five months of 2025 with a significant knee injury. But Casas must first prove that he’s healthy, and eventually, show more consistency to claim the position. Mostly due to injury, Casas has played just 251 games over parts of four seasons.
Even when Casas plays, he’s been prone to swing-and-miss, with a career strikeout rate of 26.6 percent, well above the MLB average.
The Sox could also retain Nathaniel Lowe, whom they signed after he was released by the Washington Nationals and who contributed to the Sox in the final six weeks of the season. But Lowe is eligible for arbitration and his projected salary, predicted by MLBTradeRumors.com, is $13.5 million, far more than he would be valued on the open market. The Red Sox could non-tender him and attempting to re-sign him at a lesser figure.
Contract projections for Murakami are all over the place. The Athletic recently predicted he would land an eight-year, $158.5 million deal.
Murakami isn’t the only Japanese slugger about to be posted. Kazuma Okamoto is also expected to made available through the posting process, though an industry source recently predicted that Okamoto won’t be posted until the beginning of December, or a week or so before the start of the annual Winter Meetings.
Okamoto is older (29) and is a right-handed bat. He’s expected to get substantially less than his fellow countryman, in part because of his age and also because he lacks Murakami’s raw power. Like Murakami, Okamoto has been primarily a third baseman, but has some experience at first.
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