Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami's free agency was astoundingly quiet until the Tigers rival, the White Sox, made their first major free agent splash in years and signed him to a two-year, $34 million deal on Sunday — just a day before his signing window closed.
Murakami is bringing over an impressive resume from NPB — he broke Sadaharu Oh's single-season home run record for a Japanese-born player in 2022 (56) — but there are some red flags. Truly comprehensive scouting reports are a little hard to come by with international players and, for Japanese and Korean players, have varying degrees of usefulness because the transition to MLB can be so difficult and trip up even the best of players at first.