Home run-hitting Munetaka Murakami is making the White Sox look pretty smart

White Sox general manager Chris Getz and agent Casey Close are both former Michigan baseball players, and several of Close’s clients are in the Sox organization, so it’s not unusual for them to keep in touch during a baseball season.

But Getz found himself texting Close more than usual at the end of March. He knew he was giving stalker vibes.

“I said, I promise you that I won’t text you every single day for this season, but if he is going to hit a home run every single day, I will be texting you,” Getz said with a laugh.

“He” is Munetaka Murakami, Close’s client, who signed a surprise two-year, $34 million deal with Getz’s White Sox in the offseason.

And while Murakami hasn’t homered every day, I can’t blame Getz for wanting to reach out to Close to say thank you or you’re welcome.

Murakami started the season with home runs in his first three games in March and then bettered that streak a few weeks later when he homered in five straight games on the road.

As we head into May, Murakami is tied for the major-league lead with 12 home runs, and you couldn’t blame Getz for texting everyone in his address book whenever the Japanese slugger sends one to the bleachers.

As you might’ve heard, times have been rough for the White Sox in recent seasons, but if you’re paying attention, you might also notice an empty grave where everyone buried this franchise.

Since losing a modern-day record 121 games in 2024, Justin Ishbia has entered into an agreement to eventually buy the team from Jerry Reinsdorf, a Sox fan was elected Pope, the farm system has been replenished, there is positive movement for a new ballpark in the South Loop, and now, with Murakami, the Sox have a bona fide star for the first time since Tim Anderson homered into the Iowa corn.

The White Sox are making Munetaka Murakami the face of their team. Jon Greenberg / The Athletic

The 26-year-old former Triple Crown winner in Japan was looking for a nine-figure, multiyear deal, and the Sox, well, they were looking for bargains to help them get out of the basement. When the market cooled on Murakami, Getz swooped in as the posting period was ending and worked out a short-term deal that was seen as a “win-win” for both sides.

Four months later, the White Sox are off to a decent-for-them 14-17 start, which means they’re in the mix in the sub-.500 AL Central, and Murakami is even better than advertised.

Though he has yet to hit a double in the major leagues and he’s striking out in a third of his at-bats, he’s still sporting a .939 OPS and a 154 wRC+ because he’s walking at an 18 percent clip and hitting all those homers.

And everyone is talking about him. Or asking about him.

The other day, Sox second baseman Chase Meidroth was walking from the home clubhouse to the field when hitting coach Derek Shomon asked him about an interview he was doing at his locker.

“They don’t ask about me,” Meidroth said. “They only ask about Mune.”

Not that he really minds.

“He’s one of the best humans ever,” Meidroth said.

Ever?

“He’s the nicest guy, he works hard,” Meidroth said. “So it’s cool when you see stuff like that on the field because you know how hard he works behind the scenes.”

Shortstop Colson Montgomery was the player we asked about last year. The 2021 Sox first-round pick got to the majors and hit 21 homers in 73 games, putting him second to Lenyn Sosa’s 22 for the team lead. But the Huntingburg, Ind., media didn’t camp out in the clubhouse, like Japanese reporters are for Murakami.

Going back to December, Montgomery realized the spotlight was coming.

“Once they said he was a Japanese Babe Ruth, I checked out some videos, and I’m like, all right, like this is our guy,” Montgomery, who has eight homers already, said. “He’s new to our team, he’s new to the league, he is new to everything. … So, of course, we’re going to get asked questions about him.”

I asked people for their favorite Murakami homers, and while I got a few answers, the consensus was that his grand slam in Sacramento was the most important and the coolest. Elvis Alvarado threw a full-count 98 mph fastball over the heart of the plate, and Murakami demolished it 431 feet to dead center.

Meidroth said it was his favorite because it helped them win after a three-game losing streak. Sox manager Will Venable agreed on that point, but he picked it for a simpler reason.

“Well, it also literally disappeared,” he said.

The league had questions about Murakami coming in, and some of the concerns were valid. He is tied for fourth in baseball with 46 strikeouts — he has one four-strikeout game and five with three K’s — and he’s looking like a true “three-true-outcome” hitter, for better or worse.

“The first time I see him go to bat,” former White Sox manager and current broadcaster Ozzie Guillen said, “I just told Chuck (Garfien, Guillen’s partner), we’re going to see a lot of home runs, and we’re gonna see a lot of strikeouts.”

“We knew that he made good swing decisions,” Getz said. “We knew that there was power, right? Let’s call it raw power. But the contact was a real concern.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise is how Murakami commands the strike zone. It’s much better than you’d think for a guy with that many whiffs. He ranks sixth in walk percentage. He’s not out there flailing around.

“He’s just got this calm demeanor about him,” Shomon said. “He doesn’t get overly worked up when things aren’t going well. He’ll come in after an at-bat, he’ll look at the AB, it’s like he processes it, and then he’s on to the next thing.”

Through one month, Murakami is making his doubters look silly, and Getz looks like a relative genius for getting the deal done.

The reality is that when Murakami was posted in late November, teams had only a 30-day window to figure him out, and by that point, playoff-caliber teams were likely budgeting money for more known commodities. So the posting deadline played into the Sox’s only strength: availability.

“It’s a young, developing team,” Getz said. “You can go out there and hopefully get comfortable, be yourself. There are no crazy expectations. I think those were factors.”

With a low projected payroll and an open spot at first base, the Sox had no problem taking a minor gamble, and now they’re reaping the benefits on and off the field.

Munetaka Murakami jerseys are going fast at Rate Field. Jon Greenberg / The Athletic

I stood around the team store during two recent games and saw fans flock to the shelves of Murakami shirts, which spell his name in English and Kanji. White Sox chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said there’s been about a 60/40 split in fans buying his jersey in English and Japanese. The important thing is they’re buying them.

“This has been kind of unprecedented territory,” Boyer said. “His jersey is outselling the rest of the team combined, kind of as you’d expect.”

During Murakami’s most recent homer binge, Boyer was in Japan for the third time this year on White Sox business, this time talking to Japanese travel agencies. The Sox are hosting Shohei Ohtani’s Dodgers in the second week of June, and there is going to be an influx of Japanese tourists heading to Rate Field.

Boyer is working on some deals with Japanese companies, and a Murakami bobblehead night should be announced soon. The Sox’s marketing department has been hustling in recent years, churning out milkshakes and Pope hats. Now they not only have a player to market, but also a team that isn’t bad.

“Murakami has made us more relevant,” Boyer said. “It’s really fun. We’re sitting here at the end of April, and we’re not out of it.”

Now, the only question people are asking about him in Chicago is: Can the Sox sign him to an extension? Getz isn’t peppering Close with texts about that just yet. And let’s be real: The way Murakami is hitting, he’ll have a lot more suitors after the 2027 season (if it doesn’t get canceled because of a labor dispute). But after one month, it’s fun to dream.

“At this point, everything’s on the table,” Getz said. “But we’ve also done a great job in getting him comfortable here, allowing him just to go play. So why would I want to change any of that right now? Just like he’s learning the big leagues, we’re learning him. He does seem very happy here, but we just want him to go out there and be himself.”

As Murakami has shown, being himself translates quite well in America.

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