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B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
BBM 2017 Summer Awards: Manager
of the Year / Batter
of the Year / Playoff
MVP / MVP
Changing
of the Guard: What Is Mexican Baseball's Future?
In
Radical Departure, LMB to Play 2 Seasons in 2018
Baseball Mexico 2017
Summer Awards: Pitcher of the Year
Nestor Molina,
Veracruz Rojos del Aguila
There were a
number of strong pitching performances in the
Mexican League during the 2017 season.
Yucatan's Jose Samayoa was a surprising 11-2 while finishing
second with
a 2.29 ERA, Tijuana's Carlos Hernandez (10-2, 2.67) and Miguel Pena
(11-2,
2.77) led the circuit's top mound staff while 2016 Pitcher of the Year,
Yoanner
Negrin of Yucatan (11-4, 2.93), had a second straight standout season. However, the choice for our 2017 Summer Bammy
Pitcher of the Year Award came down to two hurlers.
Mexico City's
Octavio Acosta, who won only a combined three
of eight decisions over the previous two campaigns for Oaxaca in 2015
and the
Diablos Rojos, turned in a career year this summer.
The onetime Mets minor leaguer led the league
in wins while posting a superb 14-1 record for a team that missed the
playoffs
for the second year in a row, finished tenth with a 2.99 ERA and
registered 102
strikeouts to come in sixth in that category.
The Guasave native's lone loss in 2017 came back on May 21, when
defending champion Puebla topped Acosta and the Red Devils, 7-4, at
Estadio
Fray Nano in the capital city. It was a
career year for the 27-year-old righty, but not quite enough to edge
out an
even more spectacular season-long performance by Veracruz ace Nestor
Molina.
Like Acosta, not
much was expected from Molina when the 2017
campaign dawned. The Valencia, Venezuela
product had turned in a combined 7-4 record for Oaxaca and Tabasco with
a 4.94
ERA last year before going 2-0 and 2.95 in a late-season, four-game
stint with
the Braves' AA Eastern League affiliate Richmond under manager Miguel
Ojeda,
who ironically served as Acosta's skipper this year in Mexico City. Although he had his moments in 2016 (winning
seven games for either the Guerreros or Olmecas in one season is no
mean feat),
nothing prepared the Mexican League for what was to come this season.
Pitching for one
of the Liga's most underpowered lineups,
Molina had to bring his "A" game every five nights and while he faded
a bit in the late going, he was otherwise up to the task.
After showing an 0-1 record following his
second start on April 8, Molina would not lose a second game until
dropping a
1-0 heartbreaker to Tabasco on July 27 in Villahermosa.
Over the 15 weeks between defeats, the
6'1" right-hander won eleven straight decisions and lowered his ERA to
a
microscopic 1.41 after tossing six scoreless innings in Tabasco during
a 3-2
win.
Although only
two of his final five starts in the regular
season could be considered "quality," Molina finished with a
league-leading
1.89 ERA and was tied for second in wins with Aguascalientes starter
Yohan
Flande with a 12-3 record. Molina also
led the LMB with a 1.08 WHIP, his 124 strikeouts were second to
Monclova's Josh
Lowey's 148 while his three complete games topped the loop.
One cursory
glance at Veracruz' everyday lineup might bring a
sense of wonder that they were able to qualify for the postseason, even
if it
was a single play-in game home loss on August 11 to Walter Silva and
fifth-place Leon in the weaker LMB South.
Molina was not one of the seven Rojos del Aguila pitchers sent
to the
mound in that contest by manager Eddy Castro, who surprised some by
surviving
the entire season at the helm in Veracruz (where in-season firings had
become
as common as shrimpboats in the port city's harbor).
The Eagle Reds finished fourth in the LMB
South with a 48-57 record. While that
may be the definition of backing into the playoffs, they wouldn't have
had a
sniff of playing beyond the regular season without Molina.
With all due
respect to Octavio Acosta, whose great year
while backed by one of the the Liga's top offenses (the Diablos posted
a team
.301 batting average), Molina was performing miracles with a lineup
that came
in 15th with a .271 average and finished near the bottom in nearly all
offensive categories. Whether the Rojos
del Aguila remain in Veracruz for 2018 or move to the Texas border,
Nestor
Molina should give his team a chance to win no matter where they're
playing or
who's in the field behind him.
BBM PITCHER OF
THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS
Summer
2010 Bobby Cramer, Quintana Roo
Winter
2010-11 Jose Silva, Culiacan
Summer 2011
Francisco Campos, Campeche
Winter 2015-16
Javier Solano, Mexicali
Summer
2016 Yoanner Negrin, Yucatan
Winter
2016-17 Jake Sanchez, Mexicali
Summer
2017 Nestor Molina, Veracruz
