Thousands of articles!
B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
BBM 2017 Summer Awards: Manager
of the Year / Pitcher
of the Year / Batter
of the Year
Changing
of the Guard: What Is Mexican Baseball's Future?
In
Radical Departure, LMB to Play 2 Seasons in 2018
BBM
Summer Awards: Playoff MVP
Cyle
Hankerd, Tijuana
Although he had
a largely forgettable series in the Mexican
League North Division championships against Monterrey, there were also
enough
big games over three postseason sets for Cyle Hankerd of newly-crowned
LMB
pennant winners Tijuana to earn BBM's Playoff Most Valuable Player
Award.
The former USC
All-Pac 12 pick and Arizona Diamondbacks minor
leaguer batted .309 in 16 playoff games for the Toros, leading all LMB
players
in the postseason with 19 RBIs and tying teammate Corey Brown for most
playoff
homers with five. Hankerd also scored 13
runs to tie another TJ teammate, Roberto Lopez, for second in that
category
behind Brown's 17 counters. All this
despite a five-game dry spell in the Toros' LMB North finals against
Monterrey
during which he suffered through an 0-for-14 stretch.
But, oh, those games when the hits were
flowing!
First, there was
Tijuana's opening round series against a
pesky Aguascalientes team. Hankerd went
7-for-19 (.368) in six games against Rieleros pitchers, collecting
three RBIs
in both Game One and Game Four while socking a solo homer in Game Three. His performance in the August 24 opening game
of the Monterrey series was rock-solid as the 32-year-old Californian
belted a
two-run homer off Sultanes starter Javier Solano in the fourth inning
and lined
a run-scoring single off reliever Isaac Jimenez during a wild seven-run
seventh. Although Hankerd's offensive
well ran dry the rest of that series, it was the Serie del
Rey against defending champion Puebla when he really
turned up the heat.
Hankerd went
3-for-5 in Game One on September 5 with a pair
of singles and a double, scoring one run and driving in another. One night later, he lofted a two-run homer
off Pericos starter Jaime Lugo in the third to break a scoreless tie in
the
Bulls' 5-3 win. After the series shifted
to Puebla, he was 2-for-3 with a double, a run and one ribbie on
September 8 in
TJ's 4-0 Game Three win to put manager Pedro Mere's team one win away
from a
sweep. Hankerd went hitless on September
9 as the Pericos kept their flickering hopes alive with a 6-3 win
before
homering twice and driving in four runs in the Toros' pennant-clinching
15-3
rout to finish the Serie del Rey with
a .444 average and three homers in five games.
Tijuana's title
capped off a strong season for Hankerd, who
hit .321 with 17 homers and 69 RBIs over 94 games in the regular
season, which
ended a little early for him when he was drilled by a pitch from
Monterrey
closer Wirfin Obispo in the August 4 opener of a home series with the
Sultanes,
the 15th time Hankerd was plunked over 94 games (he was on the
receiving end of
eight more HBPs in the postseason).
Hankerd is no
stranger to postseason heroics, having stroked
a game-winning walkoff single in the bottom of the tenth for Mazatlan
in the
Venados' Mexican Pacific League pennant-clinching 4-3 win over Mexicali
on
January 25 of last year. Playing third
base for the Mexican champions, Hankerd then hit .294 with a homer and
played
error-free ball over six games as the Venados ran the table for the
Caribbean
Series title.
After signing
with Arizona out of Southern Cal in 2006,
Hankerd started his pro career off with a bang, winning the Class A
Northwest
League's Most Valuable Player award that summer by hitting .384 with
four
homers and 38 RBIs in 54 games for Yakima.
That began an ascent up the D-Backs chain that included a 2007
season in
Visalia of the Class A California League, where he hit .285 with 8
homers and
three years at AA Mobile of the Southern League, hitting in the
.250-.260 range
with about a half-dozen homers a year while representing the BayBears
in the
2009 SL All-Star Game. He also had a
seven-game cup of coffee in AAA Reno of the Pacific Coast League during
an
injury-plagued 2010, hitting an even .400 with 5 ribbies over 7 games,
but was
released in early 2011.
Hankerd spent
much of the 2011 season with Amarillo of the
independent American Association, knocking AA pitchers around for a
.355
average with 10 homers and 55 RBIs over 70 games before he signed with
Philadelphia
in August and spent the rest of the campaign with Clearwater of the
Class A
Florida State League and hitting .248 in 31 games.
After two relatively undistinguished years
bouncing between indy ball and both the White Sox and Dodgers
organizations, Hankerd
made his Mexican League debut in 2014 with Yucatan, hitting .284 with
four
homers for the Leones. He then moved
over to Mexico City in 2015 and hit .384 with 22 homers in just 58
games for
the Diablos Rojos while also spending time with Southern Maryland of
the
independent Atlantic League (.354/9/20 in 33 games).
Hankerd spent all of the 2016 schedule back
in Mexico City and hit .322 with 16 homers for the Diablos in 104
contests
before moving to Tijuana this year. He's
also played the last two winters for Mazatlan in the MexPac, turning in
a .301
average for the Venados in their 2015-16 CS title season before going
.280/10/32 last winter.
BBM PLAYOFF MVP
AWARD WINNERS
Winter
2010-11 Iker Franco, Obregon
Summer 2011
Pablo Ortega, Quintana Roo
Winter 2015-16
Danny Rodriguez, Mexicali
Summer 2016
Mauricio Lara, Puebla
Winter 2016-17
Danny Rodriguez, Mexicali
Summer
2017 Cyle Hankerd, Tijuana
