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Monday,
March 19, 2 0 1 8
March 12, 2018 - March 5, 2018
- February 26, 2018
February 19,
2018, Rookiegate!
- February 5,
2018
- January 29,
2018 - Culiacan
wins LMP pennant
Jalisco's Manny
Rodriguez named
MexPac MVP for 2017-18
Jalisco Charros
second baseman Manny Rodriguez has been voted
Most Valuable Player in the Mexican Pacific League for their 2017-18
season. And the balloting really wasn't
all that close, as Rodriguez garnered 90 of 167 votes, or 53.9 percent,
as cast
by Mexican sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the LMP. MexPac batting champion Sebastian Elizalde of
Culiacan finished second with 25 votes, or 25.2 percent.
Rodriguez receives the Hector Espino Trophy
after finishing second to Elizalde's .380 average by hitting .371,
tying
Elizalde for the lead in hits with 95, topping the circuit with 50 runs
scored
and 58 RBIs, tying Navojoa's Randy Arozarena atop the table with 25
doubles and
tying Charros teammate Agustin Murillo for fourth in homers at 10
apiece. The 35-year-old Guasave native
struck out just
26 times in 256 at-bats for the Guadalajara team. He'll
be back in Monclova this summer after
batting .313 with 13 homers and 89 RBIs over 102 games for the Acereros
in
2017.
Mazatlan's Mitch
Lively won the Vicente "Huevo"
Romo Trophy as the MexPac's top pitcher after receiving 67 percent of
the media
votes. Lively led the loop with nine
wins, two more than Anthony Vazquez of Culiacan and Jalisco's Octavio
Acosta,
finished second in strikeouts to Navojoa's Tyler Alexander (66 to 63)
and came
in second to Mexicali's Rolando Valdez (1.74) with a 2.50 ERA. The 6'5" Sacramento State alum tossed
the LMP's only complete game shutout on November 30 in Culiacan against
the
potent Tomateros, missing a perfect game by one Elizalde single in a
1-0 win.
Navojoa closer
Daniel Moskos was voted the Isidro Marquez
Trophy winner as best reliever after outpolling Obregon's Manny Acosta,
42 to
29 percent. Although Acosta led the LMP
with 17 saves in 34 appearances for the Yaquis, Moskos finished second
with 16
saves while turning in a no-see-um 0.92 ERA, allowing just three earned
runs
and striking out 29 batsmen in 29.1 frames over 29 trips from the
bullpen.
Other winners
included Navojoa pitcher Jaime Lugo (5-3, 2.53)
with the Melo Almada Trophy as Rookie of the Year, Mayos manager Willie
Romero
with the Benjamin "Cananea" Reyes Trophy for Manager of the Year and
Culiacan team president Hector Ley with the Horacio "Macacho" Lopez
Trophy for Executive of the Year.
Tomateros manager Benji Gil also accepted without incident the
Francisco
"Paquin" Estrada Trophy for leading Culiacan to the league title.
LMB and LMP in
Houston confab with
MiLB, COPABE
Representatives
from both the Mexican League and Mexican
Pacific Leagues, including respective presidents Javier Salinas and
Omar
Canizales, were recently in Houston, Texas for meetings with Minor
League
Baseball president Pat O'Connor and Pan American Baseball Confederation
chief
Juan Francisco Puello. The conference
was convened to address issues concerning the tight timeframe between
the end
of the LMB's second 2018 season playoffs and the opening of the LMP's
regular
season.
As the March
opening of the Mexican League's revolutionary
two-season experiment approaches, the four groups (which included Dos
Laredos
owner Jose Antonio Mansur, Culiacan president Hector Ley, Los Mochis
president
Joaquin Vegas and Eustaquio Alvarez of parts unknown) met to discuss
the
ramifications of a year in which playoffs following the Mexican
League's second
season could potentially end as late as October 8, or three calendar
days
before the Mexican Pacific League opened their 2017-18 regular season
schedule. The quick turnover would be
hard on players on the heels of two 57-game tournaments with playoffs
and many
may be inactivated due to "extreme fatigue" (as happens with players
under MLB contracts) by their Mexican League teams, who own player
rights south
of the border.
Such a situation
would create a talent shortage in the
MexPac, with perhaps as many as 80 players delayed in reporting for
winterball. The LMP increased the number
of foreign players allowed on each team from six to eight last winter
with talk
of increasing that limit to ten foreigners per squad in 2018-19. Curiously, O'Connor apparently never broached
the topic of Mexican-American players being considered "domestic" by
LMP teams, thus not counting against their self-imposed extranero
quota. The issue
split the Mexican League down the middle last winter before O'Connor
ruled that
the LMB should have no limit on Mexican-American players because the
policy
violates Mexico's labor laws. As
president of MiLB, O'Connor had the authority to make that ruling for
the
Mexican League but not the MexPac, which is an Associate member of the
World
Baseball Softball Confederation (as are Nippon Professional Baseball,
the Korea
Baseball Organization and Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball
League, among
others).
One thing that
WAS apparently debated is the idea of a
Mexican National League as a confederation of sorts between the two
league to
create more cooperation in the world's only nation with Class AAA-level
professional baseball throughout the year.
The proposal appears to be Puello's brainchild and Puro
Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros says informed sources tell
him that while three of the MexPac's teams would be in favor of such a
move but
only four of the Liga's 16 franchises are sympathetic.
Ultimately, the
meeting in Houston produced nothing of
substance beyond an apparent willingness among all sides to continue
visiting
the lack of breathing room between schedules, so players will have to
continue
waiting (if they have the time).
Guasave,
Culiacan, La Paz possible Liga Norte expansion cities
While the
Mexican League is clearly the king of summer
baseball in Mexico, the North Mexico League has established itself as
the LMB's
top affiliate circuit and is considered Class AA within the country's
baseball
hierarchy. Now, after being a six-team
loop since its 2008 formation, the Liga Norte is strongly considering
adding
two more franchises to become an eight-team body and one former Mexican
Pacific
League site is the clear front-runner for one of the teams.
LNM president
Francisco Ochoa tells journalist Carlos Torres
Bujanda that he has heard from an unnamed person interested in placing
a Liga
Norte team in Guasave, which hosted a MexPac franchise for 44 winters
until the
Algodoneros were sold by local owners and moved to Guadalajara and
renamed the
Jalisco Charros. It was rumored earlier
this year that there was interest in bringing a Mexican League to
Guasave,
Sonora's fourth-largest city with just under 300,000 residents, but
nothing has
come about since the LMB office was reportedly contacted (perhaps by
the same
person).
A LNM franchise
would make more sense for Guasave, where a
team would be competing with other like-sized markets in much closer
geographic
proximity while a Liga Norte franchise fee would be a fraction of the
51,000,000 pesos (just under US$2.5 million under the exchange rate at
the
time) that Fernando Valenzuela agreed to pay for the Quintana Roo
Tigres. Guasave would be an
attractive place for the
Liga Norte, with a good population base and an 8,000-seat ballpark in
Estadio
Francisco Carranza Limon that would be the league's largest since the
Mexicali
Centinelas moved to Tecate to become the Indios. No
formal bid for a Guasave franchise in the
LNM has come in at this point.
One concern
about expansion Ochoa shared with Torres was that
there should be two teams brought in, primarily for scheduling purposes
as well
as creating a suitable travel partner for Guasave, which would be
otherwise be
isolated as the Liga Norte's southernmost team.
One feeler Ochoa claims he's received comes from Culiacan, where
mayor
Francisco Antonio Castaneda is said to have been interested in bringing
a
summer team to Estadio Tomateros as soon as this year.
Ochoa said there was not enough turnaround
time for that, but added that businessman Guadalupe Miranda (a friend
of Mayor
Castaneda's who would've operated an LNM franchise there) has instead
been
encouraged to invest as a partner in the existing Puerto Penasco
Tiburones to
gain experience first.
Attention for
LNM expansion has also been directed toward La
Paz, a city of nearly a quarter-million people on the Gulf of
California near
the southern end of the Baja Peninsula.
La Paz would be virgin territory in a region (including Cabo San
Lucas)
that has never hosted a professional baseball team and sits a ferry
ride across
the water from Tompolobampo near Guasave.
Although La Paz has never hosted a team, there is a 9,000-seat
ballpark,
Estadio Arturo C. Nahl, in town that is currently undergoing
renovations as
part of a 70 million peso (US$3.8 million) makeover of the city's
sports
complex. Baja California Sur governor
Carlos Mendoza, who has contacted Ochoa at the LMN office to inquire
about an
expansion franchise in conjunction with Guasave's entry.
Mendoza invited Ochoa to tour La Paz as part
of an effort to bring baseball to the peninsula.
The Liga Norte
will open its 2018 season April 3 when San
Quintin visits Tecate, Caborca hosts San Luis Rio Colorado and
defending
champion Ensenada welcomes Puerto Penasco.
Teams will play two 42-game halves between early April and
mid-July,
with the top four seeds (via a points system similar to that used by
the
Mexican Pacific League) advancing to playoffs that last into early
early
August.
Each LNM team
has two parent clubs from the Mexican League
providing players and coaches: Caborca
Rojos (Laguna, Yucatan), Ensenada
Marineros (Mexico City, Oaxaca),
Puerto Penasco Tiburones (Saltillo,
Tijuana), San Luis Algodoneros (Monclova,
Puebla), San Quintin Freseros (Campeche,
Quintana Roo) and Tecate Indios (Aguascalientes,
Monterrey). Ballparks in the Liga
Norte range in capacity from 2,500 to 5,000 sets. Tecate
is replacing the Mexicali Centinelas,
who played in 17,000-seat Estadio B'Air before requesting a leave of
absence
for 2018.