If the White Sox have not yet begun negotiating a contract extension for Munetaka Murakami, they should have — yesterday.
The Japanese slugger, as this past weekend’s hugely satisfying spectacle between the White Sox and Cubs proved, is the team’s most charismatic star since Tim Anderson, or at least until Jose Ramirez knocked him into Cuckooland with a single punch.
With 17 home runs in just 46 games and 199 plate appearances, Murakami is the unquestionable transformative piece that has made the White Sox relevant again.
If the Sox don’t launch a preemptive strike and sign Murakami to an extension, sooner than later, the Sox are looking at the next big bidding war for a player the rest of the baseball industry whiffed on last winter, allowing the Sox to sign him for the bargain price of two years, $35 million.
To keep him, Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who made it to his 90th birthday without gifting any Sox player to a $100 million contract, will need to go well north of that number to keep Murakami, a 26-year-old star entering his prime.
If not, Reinsdorf could be risking the one doomsday scenario that might cause even die-hard loyalists to curse the day they ever became White Sox fans: Tom Ricketts and the Cubs poaching Murakami away from the Sox, like the Dodgers did with Shohei Ohtani, who forsook the Angels to sign with a winner two years ago.
“I do think they’re on the clock with him,’’ said a highly placed industry source with firsthand knowledge of last winter’s negotiations with Murakami.
Murakami’s agent, Casey Close, made it clear to teams early on that he was seeking a deal in the $100 million plus range when Murakami first became available on the market last winter. No one was willing to pay that price because the industry was convinced that his strikeout rate would be unplayably high.
It reached the point where his agents contacted teams and essentially said, “Make us your best offer. We’ll listen.”
The White Sox may have been the only team willing to go even that far, which is how Chris Getz, the team’s executive vice president and general manager, was able to land him at a discount rate, because of the widespread belief he would not make enough contact.
There is still some risk connected to the Sox giving Murakami an extension now — he is striking out at a 33% rate (league average is 22%), and if that number closes in on 40% and balls stop leaving the park — teams will be congratulating themselves on taking a pass on him.
The prudent course may be for the White Sox to wait for the season to play out.
But if Murakami hits 40 home runs or more, and his agents are looking for the type of payday — or bigger — that they sought last winter, some in the industry believe that the White Sox will be priced out of his market.
Thus the urgency to get Murakami signed to an extension now before his price spirals beyond what the Sox are willing to pay. Yes, Murakami seems very happy on the South Side, he likes his teammates, and they like him, but it would be foolish to count on the Sox receiving a hometown discount. The Angels did everything in their power to make Ohtani feel at home, and he left for the chance to play for a winner.
“Tom Ricketts, you have a call on Line 1.’’
The Sun-Times reached out to Getz, but he didn’t respond by the time of publication. Close politely declined to comment about possible negotiations, saying only, “I’m very happy for Mune, and [it’s] fun to watch the Sox compete.”
Cubs pitcher Jameson Taillon, who raved about Murakami after he was taken deep by the Sox first baseman Saturday, was still singing his praises the next day.
“It’s just a weird thing that 29 of 30 teams all decided together (not to pursue him),’’ Taillon said. “I’m sure they had their metrics and numbers that they believed in. But that’s where you’ve also got to believe in humans and track record. If the fear is he swings and misses too much, [which it was] supposedly, if you believe in the human — and everything I’ve heard about him is he’s a good dude and works hard, he wants to be really good and is curious — why don’t you believe in the human figuring it out and working with him?
“When you have like 80-grade power, you would just think more teams would bet on the guy to figure out the swing and miss. He’s only 26, it’s not like he’s a finished product, you know.’’
Murakami won the MVP award in the Japanese Central League in 2021 and ’22. As a 22-year-old in ’22, Murakami also hit 56 home runs and won the Triple Crown.
He’s the player, someone said to Taillon, who is going to force Reinsdorf to tap his bank account harder than he ever has before — or perhaps lean on his partner and eventual successor, Jason Ishbia.
“I don’t know what they do on the South Side,’’ Taillon said.
“I mean, you’ve got to think he’s marketable. He puts [butts] in the seats. That’s a pretty cool thing that can draw attendance and jersey sales and all that. So yeah, he’d be a good one to invest in. I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of teams that are interested, too.’’
And if the Cubs were to poach him from the Sox?
“That’d be nice,’’ he said. “He’s gonna hit 40 home runs. I mean, who knows? I’m sure his agents probably signed this short-term deal with this scenario playing out perfectly, where they want him to hit free agency again.
“So we’ll see.’’