Japanese superstar Munetaka Murakami given 5 free agent landing spots by ESPN’s Jeff Passan originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The clock is ticking.

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Munetaka Murakami was posted on Nov. 8, and he has until Dec. 22 to sign with an MLB team. There are no shortage of suitors.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan shared a list of five possible landing spots for Murakami:

The Pirates showed up a couple times in Passan’s free agency breakdown and evidently are at least making noise about making a splash this offseason.

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The Mets and Red Sox would be obvious big-market destinations. The Rangers and Diamondbacks are both looking to bounce back after struggling since they played in the World Series a few seasons ago.

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Passan doesn’t mention the Los Angeles Dodgers or Seattle Mariners, who other insiders have suggested could be in on Murakami.

The desire for Murakami is simple: He’s a 25-year old third baseman with immense pop. He holds the NPB record for home runs in a season by a Japanese-born player (56).

“He is in line to land the first nine-figure deal for a Japanese position player coming to MLB,” Passan writes. “Breaking Sadaharu Oh’s single-season Nippon Professional Baseball home run record by a Japanese-born player in 2022 has made Murakami joining MLB years in the making.”

There’s always the question of how a skillset translates, but in Murakami’s case, it’s not a big enough question to stop teams from offering him big deals.

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Someone is going to land a new heart-of-the-order bat in Murakami. There’s about a month for teams to make their case.

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