About three Japanese hitters have succeeded in the Major League. They are Shohei Ohtani (LA Dodgers), Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, who achieved “50 homers and 50 steals” this season.
“Superstar” Ohtani has changed the history of Major League Baseball by banking on his ability to serve as both a pitcher and a batter. He was awarded the MVP twice in the American League, and received the National League MVP upon his transfer this season. While playing for 19 seasons, Ichiro had a total of 3,089 hits. Since his debut in 2001, he had 200 hits for 10 consecutive years. He had 262 hits in 2004, setting a new record for the most hits in a season. Ichiro will most likely be inducted into the Major League’s Hall of Fame. No fielder has ever unanimously made it to the Hall of Fame. Matsui had 100 RBIs for three consecutive years from 2003 to 2005 and was awarded the 2009 World Series MVP. While playing for 10 seasons, he recorded 175 homeruns to 760 RBIs overall. Ichiro and Matsui are outfielders, and Ohtani is designated hitter.
In 2026, another star player will fly to the Major League. He is Murakami Munetaka (24), the star player of the Yakult Swallows.
Murakami renewed his contract for next year’s season on Tuesday. He will receive 600 million yen (5.64 million U.S. dollars), the same amount as this year’s. Re-signing his salary is a formality. Murakami, who hit 56 home runs in 2022, signed a multi-year contract that winter. Even though he was not a free agent, he signed a three-year contract worth 1.8 billion yen (1.5 million dollars). Three years later, the club accepted its bid for the Major League through the posting system. Murakami was motivated by making sufficient compensation.
It will be lifted from the 25-year-old rule of Major League Baseball after the end of next year’s season. Players and clubs will be able to pocket more money.
He joined the team as the first rookie of the year in 2018. He has played full time since 2019. He has become a home run hitter representing Japan’s baseball league. 2025, which marks the eighth year of his career, will be a meaningful year for him. It is the last season before he enters the Major League. The better the performance, the better the terms of the contract.
Murakami reaffirmed his commitment to challenge for the Major League and renewed his commitment for next season. “I had discussions with the club about what I should do to win the championship. It is difficult because there are many injured players, but if we improve our performance, we can win the championship as we have good players,” Murakami said in a media interview. This is the best picture if he improves his individual performance and improves his team’s performance.
Murakami said, “I will only think about winning next year.”
In 2022, 토토사이트 꽁머니 Murakami was not seen as a monster. He shook the Japanese pro baseball league in his fifth year as a 22-year-old professional. He became the youngest to win three home runs. He had a batting average of 326-56 home runs and 134 RBIs. He surpassed Sadaharu Oh (Wang Jeong-ki, chairman of Softbank) as the legendary home run champion, and set the record for the most home runs a season by a Japanese batter.
Yakult, who won the Japan Series trophy in a year ago, won the Central League title for two consecutive years. However, Murakami and his team faltered the following year.
In 2023, he had a batting average of 256-31 home runs and 84 RBIs. His home run was followed by Kazuma Okamoto (Yomiuri) and his RBI single by Shugo Maki (Yokohama). Yakult fell to fifth place.
Murakami regained the title of homerun (33) and RBI (86) this season. He started the season by vowing to regain his triple crown, only to see his batting average falter. He only posted a batting average of 24.4 percent. No matter how strong his pitching and batters were, it is regrettable.
He had many twists and turns. He had to take the fourth position after suffering from poor batting performance in the early days of the season. He was still hit by a .200 batting average between May and June.
After the middle of the season, he upped his pace and managed to rebound. However, Yakult went on a thorny path. For the second year in a row, he ranked fifth. The championship team dropped sharply from 2021 to 2022.
Murakami’s defense at third base is not good. He is not fast-footed. What we believe is his slugging ability and home run production ability. He should appeal only by hitting. This is why we need better performance next season than this year.
Still, some are skeptical about Murakami’s bid to play in the Major League. This is the 2025 season when we need to dispel such doubts.