Agreement opens doors wider for Mexicans to chase big league dreams
Compared to the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba, Mexico isn’t considered a major pipeline for Major League Baseball. Nonetheless, there’s plenty of quality talent in the land of the Aztecs.
The country that produced the legendary Fernando Valenzuela and 1954 American League batting champion Bobby Avila is fertile enough to have a thriving winter league and a strong summer league that compares favorably to Class AAA.
Astros closer Roberto Osuna, who already has one All-Star berth, and Dodgers lefthander Julio Urías are only two recent examples of young Mexican talent in the majors. They’re likely to have a few more paisanos follow them to the majors now that MLB, the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol and the MLB Players’ Association have reached a historic two-year transfer agreement.
If you love Mexico, Mexican baseball and MLB, Tuesday’s announcement was great news.
“Major League Baseball is pleased to further solidify its longstanding relationship with the LMB with this agreement,” MLB commissioner of Baseball Robert D. Manfred, Jr., said. “Mexico is an important market for our game, as demonstrated by our three series in Monterrey in the months ahead. We look forward to the opportunities to develop more major league players and baseball fans in the country.”
A new direction
Until MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem sent out a memo temporarily stopping transactions between MLB clubs and Mexican League teams last June, Mexican League teams were known to take up to 75 percent of a player’s bonus to let him sign with an MLB club.
Mexican League teams essentially have territorial rights to players in their area, and it was an open secret that MLB teams were hesitant to sign a young player from Mexico before that player had already reached an agreement with its local Mexican club.
By comparison, MLB teams don’t have to negotiate with teams in the Dominican, Venezuela or Panama when they sign the best 16-and 17-year-old international amateur free agents after the July 2 international signing period opens. Puerto Ricans, as American citizens, are subject to baseball’s June draft.
Mexican League teams can sign players when they’re 14 years old. By comparison, no player from Venezuela, the Dominican nor Panama can sign as an international free agent before at least turning 16.
Players in the United States and Puerto Rico aren’t eligible for the June draft until they are seniors in high school, so those players are usually 17 or 18 years old before they can sign.
The rights of most top young Mexican players already belong to Mexican League teams by the time they’re old enough to sign with MLB teams as international free agents at 16 years old.
“Of the signing bonus, you as a player have a right to 25 percent of what you sign for,” Red Sox reliever Hector Velázquez, a native of Ciadad Obregon, Sonora, told La Vida Baseball last year. “The club gets the other 75 percent. It’s a rule the league put in, so that’s what a player has. MLB is trying to change that so there’s a bigger percentage to the players and not the club.”
Velázquez, 30, played in the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol from 2010 until 2016 before the Red Sox purchased his rights from Campeche in February 2017. He has also played winter ball in the Mexican Pacific League.
The two-year player transfer agreement between MLB and the Mexican League should be better for Mexican players who hope to play in the majors.
Valuable Experience
Under the first transfer agreement between MLB and LMB, players under contract to an LMB club can sign with MLB teams in the offseason after they reach what the MLBPA considers foreign professional status.
To gain foreign professional status, players must be at least 25 years old with at least six years of professional baseball experience.
To sign players to major-league contracts before they gain “foreign professional status,” MLB teams must pay Mexican clubs 15 percent of the total guaranteed value of the contract. MLB teams must pay Mexican clubs 35 percent of the signing bonus if they want the club to release them early to sign minor-league deals.
“Mexican players past and present have looked forward to a time when there would be a fair and transparent path to pursue their dreams of playing Major League Baseball,” said Tony Clark, the MLBPA executive director. “This agreement provides for that.”
Clark echoes the sentiments Velázquez shared with La Vida Baseball last summer.
“It’s really tough because many times you have the talent, but the signings don’t happen because the clubs in Mexico ask for a lot of money,” Velazquez said of the past structure. “The club here in the U.S. doesn’t want to pay a lot of money because sometimes (the Mexican teams went) overboard (on an asking price).”
Thanks to the historic agreement between MLB, LBM and the MLBPA, the next wave of Mexican players should have an easier path to chase their dreams in the United States.
Featured Image: Luis Acosta / AFP