Last season, the Tomateros de Culiacan fell a run short of the Caribbean Series title, falling to their Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico rival, the Charros de Jalisco, in 11 innings.
Looking to augment the offense, they’ve made the first big splash of the offseason, adding the bat of Robinson Cano, who plays for Tomateros manager Lorenzo Bundy during the summer with the Diablos Rojos del Mexico of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, for the upcoming winter ball season. It will be Cano’s first foray into winter ball outside of the Dominican Republic, where he has played 10 winter seasons with the Estrellas Orientales of LIDOM in his home town of San Pedro de Macoris.
Cano has played in five of the last six Caribbean Series representing the Dominican Republic with the LIDOM champion, winning titles in 2021, 2023, and 2025.
He played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball, mostly with the New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Seattle Mariners, and compiled 1,306 RBIs, fourth all-time among second basemen, but was also suspended for the entire 2021 season after testing positive for Stanozolol, a banned anabolic steroid. It was his second time testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Since leaving MLB, Cano has played for the Diablos Rojos del Mexico in the summer, winning back-to-back titles with Bundy. He won the LMB batting title in 2024 with a .431 average while hitting 14 homers and driving in 77 runs to lead the Reds to their first championship in over a decade. With Cano powering the 2024 lineup, the Diablos’ 71-19 regular season record gave the club a winning percentage of .789, the highest in the history of the LMB in a season of 90 or more games. While his batting average dropped a bit in 2025, Cano hit .372/.426/.533 with a .999 OPS, 14 homers and 86 RBIs while seeing more action as a designated hitter in his age 42 season. Thus far this season, he’s batting .324 with six homers and 26 RBIs through 25 games.
The LAMP season will begin Oct. 13, 2026 when the Jaguares de Nayarit visit the Charros de Jalisco. The Tomateros will begin their season the next night visiting the Venados de Mazatlan before returning home to Culiacan to open their home schedule against Mazatlan on Oct. 14.
Graphic courtesy of the Tomateros de Culiacan.
