The Offseason Monitor: Murakami Lands, Contreras to Cardinals
Catching up on two big stories from the weekend
Tim’s Top 150 Prospects and Full Package Have Arrived in Time for Christmas!
Two big moves happened yesterday (Sunday), so we have some stuff to talk about.
Murakami to the White Sox
Two years, $17 million. That was quite a long ways off from what was expected at the beginning of the offseason:
That’s a $150 million miss from MLB TR. That’s not a specific dunk on those guys, it was a reasonable guess with the information they had.
Personally, I nailed this contract. In my head, back in October, I said, “I bet Murakami gets like two years and $20 million to go to the White Sox. I even tried to write that prediction down on Twitter and on these pages, but I guess it just didn’t send. Damned wireless internet, amirite?
This was a surprisingly low contract, but it really tells us something, doesn’t it?
First, it tells us that we’re all still idiots and that MLB teams know stuff that we don’t. If the league’s execs thought this guy was any good, he would not be going to the White Sox for this much money and this many years. There are clearly major concerns about the guy’s ability to hit Major League pitching. Does that mean he now has a 0% chance of being a worthwhile MLB player? No, but the chance is way lower than we might have thought two days ago. A 25-year-old guy with top-10% raw power in the entire world doesn’t get a bigger offer than this from the Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, etc? And all of those teams could use a third baseman, mind you.
Second, and this is more my opinion I suppose - it’s not a steal for the White Sox. That was the reaction I saw on X. It was like “we thought this guy was gonna cost $150 million, but the White Sox got him for $34 - what a steal!!”. But no, you have to throw out that $150 million expectation at that point. It was made without proper information, it’s meaningless now. Don’t hold onto this original guess and think that anything below it was good value.
And the other point is that look what happened! Even if the guy proves everybody wrong and smashes 65 dingers over these next two years with the White Sox, it’s still not a great outcome for Chicago because they’ll lose him to free agency before the team is built for a playoff run. Crazier things have happened, and the White Sox young core is solid, but nobody really thinks this is a playoff squad in 2026 or 2027.
If Murakami figures out how to get that raw power to play in the Majors, and assuming he’s the kind of guy who likes money, he’s likely signing a big contract in two years with a team that isn’t the White Sox. Or maybe Chicago will nut up and try to extend him before that, who knows, but for right now you can’t say it’s a fantastic outcome for the White Sox.
I can’t say it’s a bad deal for the Sox, though. Even if it proves to be $34 million flushed down the toilet, that’s not an organization-shifting amount of money. And they’ll probably get a good chunk of it back regardless by bringing in the Japanese market that comes with the kid.
So I’m not trying to dunk on the White Sox, I’m just saying that Murakami is probably going to suck. My projection:
575 PA, 65 R, 24 HR, 66 RBI, 2 SB, .222/.312/.410, 33% K%, 10.6% BB%
Lots of guesswork is going into that. I don’t think the K% has much of a chance to be a ton lower than 33%, but it remains that his raw power (his EV’s are elite, as mentioned) should have him hitting a homer or two a week. Here’s what Steamer says:
558 PA, 73 R, 30 HR, 75 RBI, 9 SB, .231/.333/.458, 29% K%, 12.6% BB%
There’s a big difference here, but I’m going with ME.
So I’ll be out on the guy even at a weak third base position. The ADP had been in the mid-200s, but was trending to 275+ prior to this signing.
I think you’ve seen the last 300+ pick on the guy now that he’s signed, and he’ll probably come back into the 220-250 range if I had to guess.
As for my ranking, I CAN’T TELL YOU YET. That’s because I’m going through team-by-team one player at a time to make my rankings. I’m a little bit more than halfway through, but I’ve put the guy between Mark Vientos and Brett Baty for now.
Ignore the numbers there, they’re not relevant until I’m finished with the team previews, probably in about a month.
Wilson Contreras to Red Sox
The Red Sox finally grab a reliable power-hitting first baseman. We thought they had one with Bobby Dalbec and Triston Casas previously, but now there’s a known commodity over there.
The Contreras write-up is here. He was hot and cold last year, and the K% popped up to 25% with a sub-8% walk rate. He’s trending the wrong direction at age 33, but the bat speed is still there in spades. There’s no doubt this is a guy with 30-homer potential, and going from Busch to Fenway is a boost.
I’ve moved Contreras up quite a bit in my rankings with this signing. It’s a good park, but also a much-improved team context. The Cardinals are a bottom-ten lineup for 2026, and the Red Sox are probably above average, depending on how the rest of this offseason goes.
It’s not a World Series lineup, that’s for sure, but the top five are solid enough to boost Contreras to a nice counting stat season if he stays healthy and maintains that elite power. He put out 95th-percentile bat speed with an 85th percentile xSLG last year. My new projection or 2026:
474 PA, 60 R, 19 HR, 67 RBI, 4 SB, .256/.348/.457
That’s a bit pessimistic on playing time. So we should probably push that up a bit despite a little bit of injury history. The 600 PA projection turns into:
76 R, 24 HR, 85 RBI, 5 SB
That’s a strong fantasy baseball season if it pans out. Remember that my full 2026 projections are available to paid subs on the web app (password in Resource Glossary):
The return for St. Louis was pitcher-heavy. Hunter Dobbins probably joins the Cardinals’ rotation right away. His 2025 in Boston:
11 GS, 61 IP, 4.13 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 17.6% K%, 6.6% BB%, 0.89 HR/9
Not very good! He missed a good chunk of time due to injury. I project him for an ERA around with four with a 1.25 WHIP on a 19%-7% K-BB% in St. Louis.
The 48% GB% is nice to have, and he has a deep enough pitch mix and enough fastball velo to function as a decent SP4, but that’s about the best you can say about him.
The biggest get for the Cardinals with Yhoiker Fajardo, a 19-year-old pitching prospect who had an awesome season in 2025:
Not a single home run allowed in 52+ innings! That’s impressive stuff, and it comes with a 28% K%. He’s Tim’s #89 pitching prospect in his most recent update, but he comes up short of the overall top 150 for now.
So the immediate impact is that the Red Sox get a much needed power bat, and the Cardinals strengthen the pitching farm system while further depleting their lineup.
That’s the news! There will be much more to come, but I guess I should probably try to take some time off this week to do Christmas stuff with the family. Thanks for being here, and we’ll see you next time!