As MLB veterans head south for money and opportunity, the Mexican League has its moment

MEXICO CITY — Ryan Meisinger decided to go to Mexico on July 1. When he landed, he was officially an employee of the Diablos Rojos del México, a baseball team in the Mexican League.

Meisinger, 30, had begun the summer in North Carolina as a relief pitcher for the High Point Rockers, an independent team in the Atlantic League. It was not exactly Plan A. He had once made appearances for the Baltimore Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, but after toiling in the Cincinnati Reds organization last year, he found himself outside affiliate baseball and in a predicament.

“I was pretty much losing money playing in indy ball,” he said.

The maximum salary in the Atlantic League is $3,000 a month before taxes, so that part was expected. But he had hoped to pitch well enough to draw interest from a major league team that might need depth at Class AAA. When that did not happen by July 1, he signed a free-agent deal with the best team in Mexico, where the season begins in April and the championship series starts in early September.

For a pitcher like Meisinger, a deal with the Diablos Rojos comes with a monthly salary that ranges from $15,000 to $25,000, better facilities than most minor league teams and a chance to compete for a championship in an unfamiliar baseball culture. This year, a record number of former major league players have chosen this path.

Once a last resort, the Mexican League has propped open its doors to foreign players, becoming a destination for veteran major leaguers pushed out of baseball because of the elimination of American minor league clubs, shifting labor trends and new roster caps in the minors. Some, like Robinson Cano, Didi Gregorius and Jonathan Schoop, are former standouts whose best days are behind them. But dozens of others represent an eclectic influx of former big leaguers who have remade a proud domestic league, elevating its level of play while reducing opportunities for homegrown Mexican players.

“There’s way more opportunity for, let’s say, an American player or a Dominican player,” said Benji Gil, a former Anaheim Angels infielder and the manager of the Mexican national team. “If they’re not (playing) in the states or they’re not getting the money they feel they deserve, they’re able to come to Mexico now and get paid way more money.”

The changes have been brewing for more than a decade, as increased investment from owners and renewed focus on baseball from the Mexican government have led to better facilities, higher salaries, professional travel and more cultural attention, embodied by the country’s third-place finish in the World Baseball Classic in 2023. But the floodgates opened this year, when the league office increased the number of foreign players allowed on each team’s 30-player roster to 20 from seven.

For proof, one only needs to glance at rosters across the league. There is Jonathan Villar and Daniel Palka, playing with Gregorius and Schoop for Union Laguna in Torreon; there is Luke Voit and Adeiny Hechavarria, playing for Tabasco; there is Yasiel Puig and Matt Adams and Julio Teheran and Alcides Escobar and Danny Salazar and Aristides Aquino and Mallex Smith, and, well, you get the idea.

“It’s hard to get picked up in affiliate ball because of all the jobs they cut these past couple years,” Meisinger said. “If you look at our team, we have so many big leaguers on this team.”

The Mexican League remains far behind the domestic leagues in Japan and South Korea, which offer higher competition and substantially better pay. Yet it has made strides to catch up with the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan.

“We make the joke that we’re scratch lottery tickets,” said Kevin McCarthy, a former Kansas City Royals pitcher who has spent the past two seasons with the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos. “We know we can all still play, and we still love playing, but we’re also very aware of the fact of where baseball is at analytically — the numbers — the rosters are cut down and every year is a decision.”

The Mexican League was founded in 1925, and has professionalized in the past decade. Recent investments include 5-year-old Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium in Mexico City, which hosted a San Francisco Giants-San Diego Padres series in 2023, and a round of expansion that resulted in new clubs in Chihuahua and Querétaro.

Ballpark amenities and travel have improved, and so have salaries. The monthly salary cap for Mexican League teams, according to team executives not authorized to publicly discuss salaries, is 9 million pesos — or around $475,000 for the entire 30-man roster. According to Ricardo Williamson, the general manager of Tijuana, it is a significant shift from more than a decade ago, when the league capped individual salaries at “eight to nine thousand” dollars.

Gil, the manager of the Mexican national team, has reservations about the declining opportunities for Mexican players. But he believes the addition of former major league stars like Cano — who hit a team-record .431 for the Diablos Rojos this season — could serve as a recruiting pitch to other stars.

“It’s a huge selling point,” he said. “And not only that, but they also have friends that are in the big leagues. And they’re like: ‘Hey, you know what, you’re not getting enough of an opportunity in Triple A, even though you’re making good money. Well, over here you’re going to make just as good of money, but you’re going to get to play every day. You’re playing to win. You’re not sitting behind a prospect.’”

The recent roster crunch in the minor leagues has changed the equation. MLB took over the minor leagues after the 2020 season, which led to the elimination of 40 minor league teams. The league then negotiated the first minor league players’ collective bargaining agreement in 2023, agreeing to higher salaries for minor leaguers. But the agreement gave MLB the option of capping rosters at 165, which led to the elimination of 450 jobs.

“There are definitely fewer spots for some of the veteran guys that teams would usually hang on to for depth,” said catcher Patrick Mazeika, who joined the Diablos this summer. “But it benefited a lot of the younger guys, so that’s fine. Instead of making a few hundred dollars every paycheck, they’re actually living comfortably.”

Mazeika, 30, was an eighth-round pick of the New York Mets in 2015. When he joined the Diablos, he walked into a clubhouse with a group of former major league pitchers that included Daniel Ponce de Leon, Álex Claudio and Trevor Bauer.

For pitchers like Claudio or Meisinger, there are limited options if they wish to push off retirement. The most coveted spots reside in Japan and South Korea, where salaries begin in the low six figures. But players on the fringe quickly learn the realities of international baseball. Japan has a limit of four international players on the active roster, while South Korea allows three.

Another alternative is independent ball, but the salaries pale in comparison to Mexico.

“Personally, I would rather be in Mexico than AAA,” said McCarthy, who last appeared for the Royals in 2020 before spending two seasons at Class AAA for the Boston Red Sox and Cubs.

For many former major leaguers in Mexico, the focus is on the next step. This summer, former Miami Marlins outfielder Jerar Encarnación began the season with Oaxaca, where he batted .366 with 19 homers in 26 games. That led to a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants, and by early August, he was back in the majors.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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