Thousands of articles!
B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
Monday,
June 14, 2021
BENJI
GIL NAMED NEW MEXICAN OLYMPIC TEAM MANAGER
In the wake of the surprising ouster
of Juan Gabriel Castro as manager of Mexico's Olympic baseball team without
public explanation less than two months before the start of the Tokyo Summer
Games, Benji Gil has been appointed as the team's new skipper.
The Tijuana-born Gil had a playing
career that included eight seasons in the major leagues, including a berth on
the 2002 World Champion Anaheim Angels. He spent seven summers in the Mexican
League and was a member of Monterrey's 2007 champions, while also playing
several seasons of winterball in the Mexican Pacific League (winning four
pennants and two Caribbean Series with the Culiacan Tomateros).
After retiring as an infielder, Gil
went into managing and has led Culiacan to four Mexican Pacific League pennants
since the 2014-15 season. He's come under some fire for not winning a Caribbean
Series title, but teams still have to be champions to compete for one. Gil is in
his first season of managing a Mexican League team and has piloted the
expansion Guadalajara Mariachis to a 14-6 record over three weeks, good for a
first-place tie with defending champion Monclova in the LMB North.
The announcement was made by the Mexican
Baseball Federation (FEMEBE) last week. FEMEBE is ostensibly charged with
overseeing national teams but some baseball journalists in the country have in
effect called it a figurehead organization, claiming that the ProBeis federal
agency headed by former MLB and NPB player Edgar Gonzalez wields the real power
in the Mexican game.
Gil steps into a landmine-filled
situation following the firing of both Castro and Olympic Team GM Kundy
Gutierrez, who had steered Mexico to a berth in Tokyo by winning the Premier12
tournament's group stage at Guadalajara and then qualifying for the Olympics
with a third-place showing at the medal round in Japan in November 2019. No
reason was given for the move and nobody has stepped up and taken
responsibility for the move.
Castro and Gutierrez had both
publicly criticized the National Commission on Physical Culture and Sports
(CONADE) for withholding funds meant to cover the baseball team's travel
expenses during the trip to Tokyo. CONADE is led by former Mexican Olympic
runner Ana Guevara, who was appointed to her post by president Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador shortly after the latter had assumed office. Guevara and AMLO
have both been members of the same political party, with Guevara serving as a
senator under the banner of that party. Some speculation is that the ousters of
Castro and Gutierrez were retribution for their criticism of CONADE and
Guevara, who has been mired in allegations of job-related corruption for the
past several months.
Another school of thought is that
the firings were directed from the ProBeis office after Castro was publicly
cautious regarding the desire of Edgar Gonzalez' younger brother Adrian to go
to Tokyo after not playing since 2018. While the hiring of Gil, who manages the
same Guadalajara that Adrian Gonzalez plays for, raised a few eyebrows and led
to speculation that the appointment virtually assures that El Titan will
make the trip to Japan. It should be noted that Gutierrez has been a
longstanding friend of the Gonzalez family and that his firing would be
unlikely to have been instigated by Edgar Gonzalez. In short, only the
principles know for sure and a promised public airing of the situation by
Castro has yet to happen.
While Gil might appeal to the 30+
players who took their name out of Olympic consideration in protest of the
firings, he'll have a chance to look over some of the remaining candidates next
weekend when Mexico hosts exhibition games against the Dominican Republic and
Venezuela at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City. The game against the
Dominicans is set to take place Saturday, June 19 while Mexico will host
Venezuela the following afternoon.
A poll taken by Puro Beisbol
before Castro's ouster showed that 52.5 percent of respondents believe that
Mexico will not win a medal in Tokyo. Another 26.7 percent are predicting a
Gold medal, 14.4 percent foresee a Bronze and 6.4 percent see Silver in
Mexico's future. Six nations will compete in Olympic baseball this year. The
sport is being discontinued after Tokyo.
RIELEROS
SKIPPER HITS PLAYER, BOTH FINED AND SUSPENDED
The Aguascalientes Rieleros have
struggled on and off the field for years. The Mexican League team has won just
one pennant and two division titles since their 1975 debut, played before
sparse home crowds at aging Parque Alberto Romo Chavez and lost money on an
annual basis. Last August, Rieleros players forced to sit after the 2020 season
was canceled on July 2 asked Liga president Horacio de la Vega for financial
assistance that had been promised to players and umpires by the LMB office. In
short, the Railroaders are perennial also-rans, one of many franchises with
that status.
Given that history, the 2021 season
has begun in similar fashion for the team. Monclova's 48-year-old Bartolo Colon
became the oldest player in Mexican League history to pitch a complete game
Saturday night by tossing a 6-2 home win as the Rieleros lost their fourth in a
row to drop to 7-11 and seventh place in the eight-team LMB North. Colon gave
up two runs on five hits and struck out seven in going the distance to raise
his own record to 3-1.
Things are never pleasant when a
team's season appears to be going bad early but as befits a club from a city
named Aguascalientes (meaning “hot waters”), things reached a boiling point in
the visitors locker room after the game, when Rieleros manager Luis Carlos
Rivera punched former Cal State Fullerton infielder Richy Pedroza, who'd sat
out the contest. Photos of a bruised Pedroza circulated on the internet later
during the weekend.
Blanca Cisneros of ABC Noticias
reported that the manager lost control and that “players affirm that Richy did
nothing to provoke this situation and that he did not respond to the attack.”
One Aguascalientes player, third baseman Michael Wing, posted a Tweet stating
“Punching players now...what a joke.”
On the other hand, the Mexican
League office handed down one-game suspensions and fines of approximately
14,170 pesos (or about USD$714) to both Rivera and Pedroza. The LMB said Rivera
was being punished for hitting Pedroza while the latter was sanctioned for
“violating the regulations in team facilities, including insulting the
manager.”
The 5'6” Pedroza was batting .241
after playing shortstop and going 1-for-3 with a walk and scoring a run from the
leadoff slot in Friday's 15-3 drubbing at the hands of the Acereros. A
29-year-old switch-hitter from Covina, California, Pedroza was a 17th-round
pick by St. Louis in the 2013 draft and played all or part of three seasons in
the Cardinals system before being released early in the 2015. He landed in
Aguascalientes the following season and has been with the Rieleros since,
batting .283 with 260 runs scored over 412 total games. Pedroza's best season
in the LMB was in 2019, when he hit .310 with 28 doubles and 104 runs scored in
111 games under then-manager Felix Fermin.
The 42-year-old Rivera is a
Chihuahua native who spent part of the 2000 season pitching six games for
Atlanta and Baltimore, going a combined 1-0 with a 1.23 ERA after five years in
the Braves' organization. Although he was ranked the fifth-best prospect in the
Orioles system in 2001, the 6'3” righty didn't pitch that year or the next
before his release in 2003. He later surfaced in the Mexican League, where he
pitched until 2010 and spent his last four seasons with his hometown Chihuahua
Dorados. Before his hiring in Aguascalientes prior to the canceled 2020
campaign, Rivera managed Leon for both Spring and Fall seasons in 2018 and
registered 27-29 and 26-28 records.
The Rieleros front office had yet to
issue an official statement on the incident or suspensions as of Sunday.
LMB
TEAMS ON TIGHT BUDGETS AFTER LOST 2020 SEASON
The Mexican League's 2021 season is
coming on the heels of their canceled 2020 schedule due to the pandemic and for
many (if not most) of the LMB's 18 franchises, year after year of red ink
dominating their profit/loss statements before that.
Beatriz Pereyra of Proceso
penned a report detailing how teams have been cutting expenses in an attempt to
stop the bleeding. Here is a Google translated portion of her report:
The pandemic caused by Covid-19 has
left a trail of millions in economic losses among the owners of the clubs of
the Mexican Baseball League but, at the same time, it has opened the the door
to an unprecedented increase in the number of former major league players and
the expansion from 16 to 18 teams that will play a schedule shortened from 120
to 66 games, plus the playoffs.
Depending on the club and the
percentage of fans with which they will be allowed to play at home, the
economic blow can amount to 70 million pesos. In addition, they must invest in
the application of anti-covid protocols which can increase operating expenses
in up to 3 million pesos.
To resist negative impacts,
teams took drastic measures such as cutting player salaries by 20 to 50
percent, cutting back office staff, hiring interns and bartering with sponsors
via publicity in exchange for service delivery.
The payroll of players of the
Yucatan Leones, owned by the Arellano brothers, which was 79 million pesos in
2018 (the year in which they were champions), was reduced to 43 million in
2019. Now the pandemic forced them to adjust it to 16 million for 2021.
The team created a financial
analysis that included the players, sponsors and even Yucatan's state governor,
Mauricio Vila. The document indicates that they still lack 29.8 million pesos
to operate the season, a figure that is reduced to 21.8 million if the team is
allowed to play with 40% of the capacity at Estadio Kukulcán.
“We believe that with this reduction
in the cost of payroll we will move forward,” says Leones president Juan Jose
Arellano. “If conditions improve, we can adjust and raise them. We explained
that to the players and they understood it perfectly. They know that not
playing all of last season made it difficult for us. Although we did not play,
we helped them with their maintenance because if a player does not play, he
does not generate income.”
The days of the “fat cows” are over,
when operating for a season cost the team more than 100 million pesos. In 2021,
spending on jobs exceeds 53 million. Another of the items sacrificed will be
that of player development, which fell from 14 million in 2019 to 8 million
during 2020 and 2021.
“We are also going to reduce travel
costs and in whatever way we can because last year's losses were
stratospheric,” added Arellano.
So it is that even one of the LMB's more solid second-tier franchises behind the top tier of Monclova, Tijuana, Monterrey, Mexico City and Oaxaca (the latter two owned by billionaire Alfredo Harp Helu, one of Mexico's richest men) has had to drastically cut expenses in an attempt to likewise cut their losses as a result. If the Yucatan Leones have had to tighten their belt in such a fashion, how are the franchises already operating on the margins like Tabasco, Leon, Laguna and Aguascalientes going to tighten belts that have already run out of notches?
