Song Sung-Mun Of The San Diego Padres

It kind of got lost among the other signings and the holidays but the San Diego Padres signed former Kiwoom Heroes infielder Song Sung-Mun to a four year contract.  Song was originally drafted by the then-Nexen Heroes in 2015 and made his top level debut that season.  He spent a lot of the next few years on the farm team and missed the entire 2020 season fulfilling his military obligations (which pretty much involved playing for the Sangmu Phoenix, a team associated with the military that plays in the KBO Futures League, KBO's farm league).  He became a regular with the Heroes in 2021 and had the best two years of his career the last two seasons - hitting .340 with 19 home runs and 104 RBIs in 2024 and .315 with 26 home runs and 90 RBIs in 2025.  I think his only experience with the Korean National Team was during the 2024 Premier 12.

Given that there aren't anywhere near as many KBO sets as NPB sets, he doesn't have a whole lot of baseball cards.  TCDB lists only 19 cards for him but I think ten of those are parallels or autograph cards - it's hard to be sure since KBO sets can be somewhat complicated with multiple base set cards sometimes having the same number, making it hard to tell if a particular card listing is a base card or a parallel.  His earliest known cards are from the 2018 SCC sets - #SCCR-01/157 in the KBO League Regular Collection, #SCCR-02R/058 in the KBO Collection 2 Red set and ##SCC-02/171 KBO Premium Collection.  It's possible there are earlier, team-issued cards of him but they are not listed in TCDB.  Here are all the cards I have of him - it's not many as I stopped getting KBO cards after 2021 and he was not in any of the 2020 or 2021 sets:

2018 SCC KBO League Regular Collection #SCCR-01/157

2018 SCC KBO Collection 2 Red #SCCR-02R/058

2019 SCC KBO Regular Collection 1 #SCCR1-19/074

2019 SCC KBO Premium Collection 1 #SCCP1-19/084

Kazuma Okamoto Of The Toronto Blue Jays

Kazuma Okamoto, formerly of the Yomiuri Giants, signed a four year deal worth $60 million with the Toronto Blue Jays a few days ago.  Okamoto was the Giants' first round pick in the 2014 draft out of Chiben Gakuen High School.  Okamoto spent most of his first three seasons as a professional on the farm team, not becoming a regular with the ichi-gun squad until 2018.  He had a breakout season that year, hitting .309 with 33 home runs and 100 RBIs.  That would be the first of six consecutive seasons that he'd hit over 30 home runs with a high of 41 in 2023.  He dipped to "only" 27 in 2024 and was injured for much of last season, causing him to hit just 15 home runs in only 69 games.

Okamoto led the Central League in home runs three times (2020-21 & 2023) and RBIs twice (2020 & 2021).  He's won two Best 9 awards (2020 & 2024) and three Golden Gloves (20-22 & 2024) and is a five time All Star (2018-19, 2021, 2023-24) - he was selected in 2022 but withdrew due to having caught COVID.

TCDB lists 14 rookie cards for Okamoto from 2015 and that number isn't as inflated by parallels, memorabilia and autographed cards as Imai and Murakami's counts were.  I think he has seven rookie cards from base sets.  As usual, his first card is from BBM's Rookie Edition set (#054) - actually his first TWO cards are from that set as he also appears in the "Then & Now" subset (#112).  His other BBM cards are in 1st Version (#186), the Giants team set (#G50 and #G78 in the "Star-To-Be" subset) and the Rookie Edition Premium set (#RP19).  His only non-BBM rookie card is from the Bandai Owners League 02 set (#66) which may actually be a short-print or insert card.  Here's three of his BBM rookie cards:

2015 BBM Rookie Edition #054

2015 BBM 1st Version #186

2015 BBM Giants #G50

Here's a card of him from every year for the rest of his career up until 2024 (when I stopped buying new cards):

2016 Giants Players Day

2017 Epoch Giants #28

2018 Calbee Series Two #131

2019 BBM 1st Version #233 Secret Version

2020 BBM Fusion #TH04

2021 BBM 1st Version #176

2020 Epoch NPB #092

2023 BBM 1st Version #259

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #81

I want to end this post with a couple Samurai Japan cards of Okamoto.  He's played in a handful of the friendly matches with foreign teams (the 2018 MLB All Star tour, the March 2019 games against Mexico and the November 2022 games against Australia) but the only major tournament he's played in was the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  He had six WBC cards that year and he also appeared in the 2019 Calbee Samurai Japan set and the Topps Now singles and team set for the 2022 games.  Here are cards from each of these groups:

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-27

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan team set #SJ-20

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-52

Tatsuya Imai Of The Houston Astros

Last week, the Houston Astros announced that they had signed former Saitama Seibu Lions right handed pitcher Tatsuya Imai to a three year contract.  Imai had been a star pitcher at Sakushin Gajuin high school, helping them win the 2016 Summer Koshien tournament - he was the starter and winning pitcher in the final game against Hokkai.  He pitched in all five of Sakushin's games in that tournament, striking out 44 while only only allowing five runs in 41 innings of work.

The Lions took him with their first pick in that fall's draft.  Injuries and a suspense due to underage smoking limited him to only a handful of games with the farm team for his first year and a half as a professional, but he made an auspicious debut with the top team on June 13th of 2018, starting against the Swallows and holding them to only one run in six innings.  He was the first Lions pitcher to win his ichi-gun debut since Daisuke Matsuzaka in 1999.  The rest of his outings that year were a mixed bag but he showed enough promise to make the starting rotation when the 2019 season opened.

His pitching continued to be a mixed bag for a couple seasons - he missed some time due to injuries and was demoted to the bullpen for a spell in 2020 - but he started to turn it around in 2021 and had three straight ten win seasons for a pretty weak Lions team in 2023-25.  2025 was his best season ever, going 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA and a league leading 178 strikeouts.  He threw a combined no-hitter with Kaima Taira against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in April (it's not an official no-hitter because NPB does not acknowledge combined no-hitters or no-hitters in which the losing team scores a run) and also struck out 17 batters in a game against the Baystars in June.  

TCDB lists 56 cards for Imai from his first year of 2017 but, as I've pointed out with other players, that number's somewhat inflated by parallels, autograph and memorabilia cards.  He really has only nine rookie cards that are base set cards.  His first card was #028 in BBM's Rookie Edition set and he also appears in BBM's Icons - Japan Pride (#10), 1st Version (#103), Lions (#L02) and Rookie Edition Premium (#RP10) sets.  He also appears in the "Draft Pick" subset in Calbee's Series Two set (#D-04).  His last 2017 cards are in Epoch sets - their Lions team set (#6) as well as both the Pacific League (#36) and Pacific League Premier Edition (#35).  I have seven of these cards:

2017 BBM Rookie Edition #028

2017 BBM Icons - Japan Pride #10

2017 BBM 1st Version #103

2017 BBM Lions #L02

2017 Calbee Series Two #D-04

2017 Epoch Lions #6

2017 Epoch Pacific League #36

Here's a card of him from each year of his career up until 2024 (since I stopped getting NPB cards after that).  This includes a card from his only appearance with Samurai Japan in a somewhat major international tournament - the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship.

2018 BBM Fusion #033

2019 BBM 1st Version #002

2020 Calbee Series Two #075

2021 Epoch NPB #074

2022 Topps NPB #141

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Asian Professional Baseball Championship Team Set #SJ-11

2024 BBM Lions Collection #LC09

Looking at his cards over the years, it's obvious when he and Kona Takahashi started their "Team Long Hair"!

Munetaka Murakami Samurai Japan Cards

I had mentioned when I did my "New Import" post for Munetaka Murakami that I had a lot of Epoch One and Samurai Japan cards for him.  I did a post on the Epoch One cards last week and I thought I'd do the Samurai Japan one now before I get caught up in the Tatsuya Imai and (potentially) Kazuma Okamoto posts in the next few days (neither of whom I have as many Epoch One or Samurai Japan cards for).

As far as I know, there are 17* cards of Murakami as a member of Samurai Japan, of which I have 16.  Just about half of them (eight) are US issued cards for the 2023 World Baseball Classic while the others are all Japanese issues for that tournament and assorted friendly matches.  I'm going to run through the cards in roughly chronological order.

* Not including parallels, autographed or memorabilia cards

Murakami's first appearance with a Samurai Japan team was the one that played a couple friendlies with Mexico in March of 2019.  His first Samurai Japan baseball card was from the Calbee set that was released that fall:

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-33

His next appearance with Samurai Japan and the first major international tournament that he played in for them was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (which was played in 2021 and the baseball competition was played in Yokohama).  Unfortunately there were no baseball cards issued for that edition of the team.

Murakami's next played for Samurai Japan in the friendlies against Australia in November of 2022 (along with warm up games against the Giants and Fighters).  Topps issued 16 Topps Now singles for the team which included two cards for Murakami.  They also issued a full team set via Topps Now:

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #003

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #007

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-22

Murakami's best known tenure with Samurai Japan was from the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  Murakami had ten cards across the ten sets/subsets that Topps did for the tournament - two of which (the Samurai Japan team set and the Japan Edition "Samurai Japan" insert set) were ony available in Japan.  I have nine of these - I'm missing his Bowman Chrome card:

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-66

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-69

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #WBCJPN-5

2023 Topps Global Stars #10

2023 Topps Global Stars #F-3

2023 Topps Samurai Japan Team Set #30

2023 Topps 2 WBC Stars #WBC-60

2023 Topps Japan Edition Samurai Japan #WBC-5

2023 Topps World Baseball Classic #84

In addition, BBM had a Samurai Japan subset in their 2023 Infinity set which wasn't "officially" for the WBC but might as well have been:

2023 BBM Infinity #25

Murakami's final appearance to date with Samurai Japan was the friendly matches they played in March of 2024 against "Team Euro", a team of players from European Union nations.  Topps again did Topps Now singles for this series (dubbed the "Global Games") although there were just eight of them this time, one of which was Murakami.  They also again did a full Topps Now team set:

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #1

2024 Topps Now Global Games Samurai Japan Team Set #24

Murakami is not the player that I have the most Samurai Japan/Japanese National Team cards for - he's tied with Ichiro for fifth.  I have a whopping 27 cards of Daisuke Matsuzaka with three other players - Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani and Tetsuto Yamada - tied for second with 17 cards each.  All but three of the Ohtani's cards I have are from the 2023 WBC (he had 17 in all but I "only" have 14 of them).

Munetaka Murakami Epoch One Cards

I mentioned the other day that I had a number of Epoch One cards of Munetaka Murakami.  I actually have 14 in all (along with a 2023 promo card) which is the most I have of any one player.  I can't say that I set out to get that many of him - it's just that his Epoch One cards have tended to have really attractive photos so I've picked them up.

Murakami has a lot of Epoch One cards.  TCDB lists 119 between 2019 and 2024 and a quick eyeball count of the Epoch One website (TCDB does not have the 2025 cards listed) came up with another 11 2025 cards.  (It's a little frustrating that there doesn't appear to be any way to do a search on the Epoch One website.)  So I have a little more than a tenth of his 130 Epoch One cards (not counting the various other Epoch One varieties - "Holospectra", "Signature DECO", etc).  50 of his 130 cards were released in 2022, the year he hit 56 home runs and won the Triple Crown.  I don't know if he has the most Epoch One cards of any player but it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

I thought I'd do a quick post to show off the Epoch One cards of his that I have - you'll see what I mean about how attractive a lot of the photos are.  I've included on each of these what the event each card represents - some are more mundane then others.

This first card commemorates his first ever walk off grand slam on July 2, 2020:

2020 Epoch One #120

He stole three bases in a game on November 5th, becoming the first player to do so in 41 years:

2020 Epoch One #642

This next card is for him hitting his 13th home run of the 2021 season:

2021 Epoch One #264

The next two cards commemorate him hitting home runs in five consecutive at bats over two games from July 31 to August 2, 2022 (the Swallows were off on August 1st).  The first card shows the three home runs on July 31 while the second card shows the second home run (and fifth overall) from August 2:

2022 Epoch One #601

2022 Epoch One #615

This card is for his 41st home run of the 2022 season, He reached 100 RBIs in this game, his 103rd of the season, the fastest any Swallow had ever reached that milestone:

2022 Epoch One #667

This card commemorates his 56th home run of the 2022 season and is actually a promo card from the following season:

2023 Epoch One Promo

Late in Game Three of the Final Stage of the Climax Series in 2022, Murakami beat out an infield single with two outs and the bases loaded, helping the Swallows rally to eliminate the Tigers:

2022 Epoch One #956

In 2023, he homered in his first at bat of the season:

2023 Epoch One #032

I'm not entirely sure what happened in this next card but I think with the score tied late in the game against the Carp on April 2nd, Murakami hit a ball that he thought was a home run but the wind kept it in the ballpark at Jingu.  The defense, however, misplayed the ball and Murakami ended up scoring what proved to be the winning run for the Swallows.  He got credit for a double and a two base error.  

2023 Epoch One #037

He hit his 17th home run of the 2023 season on July 22nd:

2023 Epoch One #555

He hit his first home run of the 2024 season on April 14th:

2024 Epoch One #222

Five days later, he hit his third home run of the season.  It was his first that year at Jingu Stadium and the solo shot in the eighth inning put the Swallows up for good against the Baystars:

2024 Epoch One #271

He hit his 23rd home run of the 2024 season on August 24:

2024 Epoch One #919

This final card commemorates him hitting his 30th home run on September 20th, becoming the fourth player in club history to hit 30 home runs in four consecutive seasons.  The card shows him celebrating with Jose Osuna:

2024 Epoch One #1033

I know I promised a post with all his Samurai Japan cards as well - I'll get to that when I get a chance.