MLB bans teams from signing Mexican baseball league players, citing ‘corruption’

Major League Baseball has reportedly cut all ties with the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol (LMB), banning teams from signing players from the confederation. The ban comes as a result of “corruption” and “fraud” within Mexico’s top league.

The ban is a nuclear option after years of complaints failed to effect change in a league where teams sign scores of teenage prospects and hold their rights in perpetuity. Yahoo’s Jeff Passan reports LMB franchise signing rights have long been an issue with the MLB and its players association.

Players inking deals with MLB teams often cede up to 75 percent of their signing bonuses to the LMB teams who own their rights. Most recently, Los Angeles Dodgers’ top prospect Julio Urias had the bulk of his $1 million-plus signing bonus snapped up by the Diablos Rojos — the team the young pitcher signed with as a 15-year-old in 2012.

That player-unfriendly policy stands in stark contrast to the MLB’s relationship with Korean and Japanese baseball leagues. There, players can negotiate their own deals with American franchises in hopes of maximizing their value as free agents, as Japan’s Shohei Ohtani did this winter. The hometown teams that hold their rights are entitled to only around 25 percent of any signing bonus they receive.

This decision severs the relationship between the world’s top baseball league and a AAA-level feeder. The LMB isn’t a can’t-miss pipeline of young talent, but its produced a handful of young starters in recent years, including Urias, Manny Banuelos, Jorge de la Rosa, Joakim Soria, and Christian Villanueva. It’s also served as a minor league career-rehabilitation stop for several veteran players looking to prove their value and return to the big leagues.

That’s over for the foreseeable future. While the MLB waits for the LMB to clean up its act, young prospects locked into team-friendly contracts will have to wait for a change in policy to break out of AAA ball. MLB veterans — which currently include players like Nyjer Morgan, Jemile Weeks, Manny Acosta, Ricky Romero, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Delmon Young — will have more freedom, but finding a new home in a crowded minor league landscape will be difficult.

MLB is putting the pressure on the LMB after years of negotiations, but previous offers of additional funding in exchange for more player-friendly reforms failed to move the needle south of the border. Now the league is hoping a blanket ban will spark change, even if it effectively creates a roadblock for the nation’s baseball hopefuls. Even if the ban stands, the American league is hopeful it can create a viable alternative pipeline to its southern neighbor.

“We are hopeful that the LMB’s position on the reasonableness of our final proposal will change,” the letter announcing the ban to the league’s 30 teams read, “but if not, we will discuss alternative strategies for developing players in Mexico.”