Seven clubs picked Kiyomiya first in 2017. Three then turned to Murakami, and Yakult won the draw

Japanese coverage called the 2017 draft the Kiyomiya draft, and with reason. Kotaro Kiyomiya of Waseda Jitsugyo had hit 111 home runs in high school, and seven clubs named him in the first round, tying the record for a position player. Nippon-Ham won the draw. Yakult, Yomiuri and Rakuten lost it and went to their next name, the same one for all three: Munetaka Murakami, a catcher from Kyushu Gakuin with 52 home runs. Yakult won that draw too.

In Japan's draft, a club that loses a first-round draw picks again. Press shorthand for that second choice is "hazure" first-round, literally a missed pick, and that is the label Murakami carried. Number Web's Oct. 2026 piece by former Asahi reporter Yoshihiro Ando also recalls in its headline that he was left off the high school national team.

The most quoted later account came in August 2022, as Murakami chased the Triple Crown. Writer Masahiko Abe gathered scouts' recollections in Number Web under a headline quote: "Murakami's rating was above Kiyomiya's." The speaker is not named in the free portion we read. The article's introduction adds a scout's view that the push for Kiyomiya came more from the front offices than from the scouts. These are retrospective comments, made once the results were known.

The two careers took different routes at the start. Nikkan Gendai reported in 2021 that Kiyomiya played 53 first-team games as a rookie, while Murakami spent most of his year on the farm. Then-manager Atsushi Ogawa told web Sportiva that the first year was for defense at a new position, third base. Murakami's second season gave Japan the first look: 36 home runs, and a league-high 184 strikeouts, with Ogawa keeping him in the lineup all year.