Players · M · 1B · 2026 regular season

Munetaka Murakami

Chicago White Sox American League Central1B

Age: 26
B/T: L/R
Height: 6' 2"
Weight: 213 lb
Number: #5

Born: February 2, 2000 in Kumamoto, Japan
MLB debut: March 26, 2026

Compare with…vs Chase DeLauter vs Kyle Schwarber vs Steven Kwan

dbWAR: 3.1
PA: 553
AVG: .207
OBP: .347
SLG: .478
wRC+: 130

Munetaka Murakami is a first baseman for the Chicago White Sox. In 2026 he hit 35 home runs and knocked in 77 RBIs, notching 94 hits across 553 plate appearances in 127 games. His batting average was .207, 15.1% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .347 clip and slugged .478, for an OPS of .825, 14.8% higher than the league mark of .719 — the third best on his team, and 46th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 93.9 mph off the bat, hit 57.2% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 17.1% of them and made contact on 57.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 130 wRC+ puts his offence 30% above average. That comes to 3.1 dbWAR — +18.3 runs with the bat, +0.5 for the ballpark, -1.8 on the bases, +2.4 on double plays, -7.1 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026 regular season.

wRC+130

wOBA.359

ISO.271

BB%16.6%

WAR3.1

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +29.4 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.

																					Trend
2026	CWS	127	553	94	35	77	1	92	196	.207	.347	.478	.271	.263	16.6%	35.4%	.359	+18.3	130	3.1	—

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason batting

Postseason Munetaka Murakami's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2026 Post	CWS	Postseason total · through Oct 10	7	31	27	3	5	1	5	3	16	1	.185	.258	.296	.554
		Wild Card	2	10	8	2	1	0	1	1	5	0	.125	.200	.125	.325
		ALDS	5	21	19	1	4	1	4	2	11	1	.211	.286	.368	.654

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	169	133	24	7	33	59	.180	.349	.376	.332	34.9%
vs RHP	384	321	70	28	59	137	.218	.346	.520	.370	35.7%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 259 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 257 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 17.1%
Exit velocity: 93.9
Max exit velo: 114.1
Hard hit: 57.2%
Sweet spot: 31.7%
Launch angle: 16.1°

Barrel rate17.1%

Exit velocity93.9 mph

Hard hit rate57.2%

Contact rate57.7%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Munetaka Murakami hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by

By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	553	—	—	—	—	—	—	.207	.347	.478	.359
Bases empty	303	261	51	18	18	40	113	.195	.307	.444	.330
Runner on first	142	112	28	11	25	28	45	.250	.408	.589	.430
Runners on	250	193	43	17	59	52	83	.223	.396	.523	.394
RISP	108	81	15	6	34	24	38	.185	.380	.432	.344

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Kyle SchwarberPHI

wRC+: 130
HR: 45
AVG: .232
WAR: 3.7

Aaron JudgeNYY

wRC+: 134
HR: 18
AVG: .241
WAR: 1.6

Esmerlyn ValdezPIT

wRC+: 131
HR: 17
AVG: .232
WAR: 1.7

Comparable

Ben RiceNYY

wRC+: 142
HR: 41
AVG: .264
WAR: 4.4

Loosely similar

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.