7:20 a.m. PT: After the early morning reports of the Mariners’ interest, Murakami is signing a two-year deal with the Chicago White Sox. Ironically enough, that’s nearly exactly what Olney told ‘Refuse to Lose’ he’d like to see from the Japanese slugger.

Jeff Passan of ESPN confirmed the signing.

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Sunday, 6:30 a.m. PT Japanese outlet LiveDoor News is reporting that the Seattle Mariners are one of the teams trying to negotiate a deal with NPB slugger Munetaka Murakami.

Murakami has until 2 p.m. PT on Monday, Dec. 22 to sign or he will go back to the NPB. The outlet, which has 2.1 million followers on “X” also names the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels as teams trying to attract the powerful hitter.

Still just 25 years old, Murakami is the biggest enigma of this free agent class. He has age and power on his side, but there have been major questions about his ability to make contact, especially against high-velocity pitchers.

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He hit .318 in 2022 with 56 home runs for the Yokult Swallows, but he’s seen his average regress to .256 in 2023 and .244 in 2024. He hit .273 in 2025, but he only played 56 games because of injury.

He had 31 home runs in 2023 and 33 in 2024. He struck out 64 times in just 56 games this past season, an average of more than one strikeout per game. He still had 24 homers in that limited sample size.

After missing out on Jorge Polanco in free agency, there’s a few different ways that this can go for Seattle. The Mariners could use him at third base and delay using the Ben Williamson/Colt Emerson combo there, or they could utilize Murakami at designated hitter, where Dominic Canzone is currently slated to get the bulk of the at-bats.

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In all likelihood, Murakami would rotate between DH and the field, though he is not regarded as a strong defender. He also plays first base, but the M’s have Josh Naylor solidified there.

If the Mariners were to sign Murakami, it would give them continued lineup balance with Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena serving as right-handed power bats and Cal Raleigh hitting from both sides of the plate. Naylor and Murakami would hit from the left side. Victor Robles and Canzone are a platoon option in right field, and Luke Raley is still here as well.

It’s unclear if acquiring Murakami would impact the M’s ability to trade for Ketel Marte or Brendan Donovan, who they are still in contention for.

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The Mariners don’t currently have any Japanese players on the roster, but it’s unclear if that’s important to Murakami or not.

Though the Dodgers have become the preeminent team in Japan now, the Mariners previously had a strong foothold there. They’ve had great success with Japanese players like Ichiro Suzuki, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Hisashi Iwakuma. Kenji Jojhima and Shigetoshi Hasegawa also played for the Mariners, and Yusei Kikuchi was in Seattle recently as well.

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Ichiro was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame last summer.

Murakami was part of the 2023 Japanese team that won the World Baseball Classic. He had a home run in the gold medal game against the United States and had a walk-off double in the semifinals against Mexico.

With just over 24 hours to go, it’s still unclear what the overall deal may look like for Murakami, who was initially expected to get more than $100 million in free agency. ESPN’s Buster Olney said the following on the Refuse to Lose podcast, which is part of the MarinersRoundtable network.

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“I kind of blame the hype machine for that (for why we have’t heard much) because if you remember, at the beginning of the offseason, the talk was, ‘oh, he’s going to get a huge long-term deal.’ And then you drill down and you talk to teams and they’re like, ‘doesn’t really have a position, not a good defender, swings and misses a ton, would have to make a transition from Japan to facing major league pitching.’ And they had real concerns about him.

Like, I never have heard anything from any executive telling me that besides, ‘yeah, he’s got great power, but it’s a, it’s potential for all or nothing.’ And they were concerned about a guy coming over here and hitting .180 and potentially, if they gave him an everyday job, striking out 200 times. That’s not going to play.

And so I think it would have been a lot better if he had come with very little advance notice. Just come over, just sign a short-term deal. Great thing is he’s a free agent and he’s not subject to team control. So if he had signed, let’s say a two-year deal with some team, established himself, hit a ton of home runs with low expectations like the White Sox, then he could have hit the market again and could make a killing.

But instead we’re having this conversation about all of his warts. I just, I don’t think this was handled very well.”

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The outlet indicates that Murakami could take a shorter deal, as Olney referenced.

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