Around Baseball 2025

[Jimcanuck]

On 11/5/2025 at 10:04 AM, Orgfiller said:

He's under contract until end of 2028 because Preller gave him a 6 year deal entering his age 36 season. I'm sure he would consider retiring from the MLB otherwise.

F**king Preller.  James Wood, MacKenzie Gore, Cj Abrams, and Susana close to MLB with ace calibre stuff.  What a gift for the Nats.

[CJ-Freeway]

1 hour ago, Jimcanuck said:

F**king Preller.  James Wood, MacKenzie Gore, Cj Abrams, and Susana close to MLB with ace calibre stuff.  What a gift for the Nats.

Too bad the current Nats owners don't give a f about winning. There's already rumors that they're going to trade Gore this Winter lmao

[hanton]

Gonsolin dfa'd and Ryan Ward added to the 40 man (if you know you know)

[SeranthonySantander]

Rays not taking 11m option on Fairbanks

 rays fans commenting on the news saying he couldn’t get a clean inning down the stretch and was painful to watch.   His last 5 appearances were 1 innings each no base runners.  Obviously some blown saves like everyone.

He has a nerve issue that flares up in the cold, so he needs to pitch in a dome or somewhere warm if he can help it 

[G-Snarls]

It's official:

-----------------------

Munetaka Murakami To Be Posted Today

By Charlie Wright | November 7, 2025 at 9:26am CDT

Japanese third baseman Munetaka Murakami will be posted by the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball today, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. The slugger will have 45 days to reach an agreement with an MLB team, beginning tomorrow.

Murakami has long been expected to make the jump from NPB to MLB following the 2025 season. He’ll now officially become one of the most intriguing names on the free agent market. Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette were the only hitters to rank ahead of him in our Top 50 Free Agents list.

The 25-year-old Murakami has been one of the preeminent power hitters in NPB over the past seven seasons. He launched 56 home runs in 2022, breaking the single-season record held by Sadaharu Oh. Murakami slugged 246 home runs across eight NPB seasons.

Since Murakami is now 25, he is considered a professional under MLB’s international free agency rules. That means he’s free to negotiate with all 30 teams without restrictions. Players who make the move to MLB prior to turning 25 are considered amateurs and are subject to the international bonus pool system, which significantly limits their earning power.

[CJ-Freeway]

16 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

It's official:

-----------------------

Munetaka Murakami To Be Posted Today

By Charlie Wright | November 7, 2025 at 9:26am CDT

Japanese third baseman Munetaka Murakami will be posted by the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball today, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. The slugger will have 45 days to reach an agreement with an MLB team, beginning tomorrow.

Murakami has long been expected to make the jump from NPB to MLB following the 2025 season. He’ll now officially become one of the most intriguing names on the free agent market. Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette were the only hitters to rank ahead of him in our Top 50 Free Agents list.

The 25-year-old Murakami has been one of the preeminent power hitters in NPB over the past seven seasons. He launched 56 home runs in 2022, breaking the single-season record held by Sadaharu Oh. Murakami slugged 246 home runs across eight NPB seasons.

Since Murakami is now 25, he is considered a professional under MLB’s international free agency rules. That means he’s free to negotiate with all 30 teams without restrictions. Players who make the move to MLB prior to turning 25 are considered amateurs and are subject to the international bonus pool system, which significantly limits their earning power.

Is any sportsbook offering betting options on if he's going to the Dodgers or not?😑

[sliderguy35]

21 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Anyone know where he is defensively?  He'd had an odd increase in K% following his historic 2022 season and its now upwards of 30% (after previously being in the low 20's for 3 straight years).  I wonder how that will translate at the ML level.  I guess Shohei struck out a ton in the NPB too.

What's Murakami going to get?  Might he actually be a better target than Bo?  2 years younger than Bo.

fangraphs has him as a below average defender, likely to move across the diamond relatively soon.

his FA is gonna be fascinating, the contact rates are untenable at the big league level, but he's been dealing with injuries the past few years so there's some hope that with that getting better + a swing change, he could tap into his raw power more. if he doesn't though, he just will not make enough contact to become an impact major leaguer.

he could realistically end up being the next keston hiura or franmil reyes to potentially a nick kurtz level talent if he's able to make a swing change and put it together. really fascinating player, but i don't see the blue jays being that involved. he screams mariner or padre to me

[glory]

I know nothing about Murakami but "swing and miss" makes me think the Jays won't be in on him. I can't think of a single player Atkins has acquired in years that had issues with swing and miss. Maybe they'll make an exception here, I have no idea, but my guess is they go after Imai more so than Murakami. 

[G-Snarls]

18 minutes ago, glory said:

I know nothing about Murakami but "swing and miss" makes me think the Jays won't be in on him. I can't think of a single player Atkins has acquired in years that had issues with swing and miss. Maybe they'll make an exception here, I have no idea, but my guess is they go after Imai more so than Murakami. 

Varsho prob the only one that's notable but he more than makes up for it in every other way

[Terminator]

If I'm the Rockies owner I'm out bidding everyone for Luis Arraez. He should be a lock for a few batting titles there which might be some of the only good press they'll get the next few years.

[Laika]

A bit weird to me that the Cubes would decline 3/$57M for Imanaga but then qualify him for $22M

Trying to thread the needle 

Shouldn't he just take that QO? 

[Orgfiller]

16 hours ago, SeranthonySantander said:

Rays not taking 11m option on Fairbanks

 rays fans commenting on the news saying he couldn’t get a clean inning down the stretch and was painful to watch.   His last 5 appearances were 1 innings each no base runners.  Obviously some blown saves like everyone.

He has a nerve issue that flares up in the cold, so he needs to pitch in a dome or somewhere warm if he can help it 

He's a pretty good arm so he'll likely beat this, but getting him on the Yimi Garcia contract would be great.

Would be the Seranthony replacement in the bullpen, with better command but worse stuff - his fastball Stuff+ has really declined.

[BTS]

3 minutes ago, Laika said:

A bit weird to me that the Cubes would decline 3/$57M for Imanaga but then qualify him for $22M

Trying to thread the needle 

Shouldn't he just take that QO? 

Apparently they also owed 15% of the 57M to his former team, so it was actually 3/66 or so. Not a huge deal, but I think it makes sense to prefer 1/22 to 3/66. I think he'll accept the QO. 

[Orgfiller]

42 minutes ago, glory said:

I know nothing about Murakami but "swing and miss" makes me think the Jays won't be in on him. I can't think of a single player Atkins has acquired in years that had issues with swing and miss. Maybe they'll make an exception here, I have no idea, but my guess is they go after Imai more so than Murakami. 

I'd say Varsho but he also ticked every other box that Atkins loves - defense++ and baserunning

[Orgfiller]

9 minutes ago, Terminator said:

If I'm the Rockies owner I'm out bidding everyone for Luis Arraez. He should be a lock for a few batting titles there which might be some of the only good press they'll get the next few years.

No way Jonah Hill is coming back to baseball to immediately sign the most anti analytics guy available lol.

[BTS]

12 minutes ago, Terminator said:

If I'm the Rockies owner I'm out bidding everyone for Luis Arraez. He should be a lock for a few batting titles there which might be some of the only good press they'll get the next few years.

I want Toronto to sign Arraez. He's not particularly good and doesn't have a place on the team. I just like watching him hit. 

[Spanky__99]

6 minutes ago, BTS said:

Apparently they also owed 15% of the 57M to his former team, so it was actually 3/66 or so. Not a huge deal, but I think it makes sense to prefer 1/22 to 3/66. I think he'll accept the QO. 

That makes sense, I think he will too.

[glory]

2 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

I'd say Varsho but he also ticked every other box that Atkins loves - defense++ and baserunning

Yeah forgot about Varsho but great defense and baserunning from a CF can compensate for that. The one non-D player they have signed in the last 2-3 years is Santander whose K rate in his last 3000 PA before 2025 was 20%. They were playing IKF over DS in the playoffs almost certainly for the difference in contact ability. I read on X (don't know if it's true) that Murakami has trouble with fastballs too. I'm sure Morosi will be linking him to the Jays within the next 48 hours, but I doubt he's even on their radar. 

[Orgfiller]

Just now, glory said:

Yeah forgot about Varsho but great defense and baserunning from a CF can compensate for that. The one non-D player they have signed in the last 2-3 years is Santander whose K rate in his last 3000 PA before 2025 was 20%. They were playing IKF over DS in the playoffs almost certainly for the difference in contact ability. I read on X (don't know if it's true) that Murakami has trouble with fastballs too. I'm sure Morosi will be linking him to the Jays within the next 48 hours, but I doubt he's even on their radar. 

I'm pretty sure the fastball thing is one of the biggest reasons why his contact rates are bad. I've seen a lot of people saying he can't hit 95+, and if you're a guy already not making contact in the NPB where contact reigns supreme and the pitching quality isn't quite as good as the MLB, I have extreme hesitancy at giving him a big contract to hope to fix him.

Anyone remember Yoshi Tsutsugo? Obviously Murakami is a tier above in contact quality, but the K rate trending up from his early 20s to now is a big red flag.

[jaysblue]

4 hours ago, BTS said:

I want Toronto to sign Arraez. He's not particularly good and doesn't have a place on the team. I just like watching him hit. 

Could he get by at second or not really?

[Terminator]

4 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

No way Jonah Hill is coming back to baseball to immediately sign the most anti analytics guy available lol.

Old Man Monfort is salivating over the potential batting titles. I know he promised DePodesta full autonomy but he's going to renege on that promise real quick.

I can't wait to watch Luis Arraez bat 2 for 5 out of the 2 hole next year in a 12-4 Opening Day loss to start the season

[SeranthonySantander]

4 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

No way Jonah Hill is coming back to baseball to immediately sign the most anti analytics guy available lol.

Things have changed 

[SeranthonySantander]

4 hours ago, BTS said:

I want Toronto to sign Arraez. He's not particularly good and doesn't have a place on the team. I just like watching him hit. 

MVP votes 3/5 years and he almost hit 400 once.  He is particularly good 

[ComeTogether]

Awful news.  

 

 

[G-Snarls]

OMG that's horrible 

[Spanky__99]

2 hours ago, SeranthonySantander said:

MVP votes 3/5 years and he almost hit 400 once.  He is particularly good 

lmao... a slap hitting 1st baseman is hardly good, he gets his hits but doesn't bring anything else to his game, man.

[SeranthonySantander]

1 minute ago, Spanky__99 said:

lmao... a slap hitting 1st baseman is hardly good, he gets his hits but doesn't bring anything else to his game, man.

Ok he hasn't been particularly good.  But he can be good and has had some good years.

[Spanky__99]

2 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Could he get by at second or not really?

He played 82 innings at 2B last year for a reason, bro.

[Spanky__99]

1 minute ago, SeranthonySantander said:

Ok he hasn't been particularly good.  But he can be good and has had some good years.

1 full season career year, his defense and baserunning has tanked.

[SeranthonySantander]

https://www.lookmovie2.to/shows/play/38701473-alex-vs-arod-2025#S1-E1-368423

A rod doc.  I watched the first episode.  It's not great.  But it's free.  Mostly content from high school and his Seattle years.  I do think the "swung on and belted" has always been my favourite home run call.