LMB: Tomohiro Anraku Returning to Diablos Rojos; Could Julio Urias Join Him In Mexico City?
Leif Skodnick - World Baseball Network | Mar 25th, 2025 1:00pm EDT
Tomohiro Anraku, the Japanese reliever who played a key role on the Diablos Rojos del Mexico’s run to the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol championship in 2024, will be returning to Mexico City for the 2025 season.
Anraku, 28, played nine seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles before being released in December 2023 after reports were made by several young players on the team that he was harassing and bullying them. The Japan Times reported that Anraku was pulling down his teammate’s pants and making harassing late-night phone calls after they refused to dine with him.
In Japan, Anraku was mainly a relief pitcher for nine seasons from 2015-23. He posted a 3.04 ERA with 32 strikeouts in 57 appearances in 2023. He has a career ERA of 3.59 and 277 strikeouts in 365.2 innings.
With the Diablos Rojos last year, Anraku made 47 appearances in 2024, throwing 46 1/3 innings with a 3.50 ERA.
The same day that the Diablos Rojos announced the signing of Anraku, the organization’s general manager, Jorge del Valle, was asked about the possibility of Julio Urias pitching for the Diablos Rojos this year.
He told AlBat.com, a website that covers Latin baseball, that the club is analyzing the situation, adding, “I don’t think he wants to think about that until it has to happen,” Al Bat quoted del Valle as saying.
The Diablos Rojos hold the LMB rights to Urias, who was placed on administrative under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy in 2019, and was placed on leave again in September 2023 under the same policy. Major League Baseball announced this week that Urias would be suspended through the All-Star Break of the 2025 season under the league’s domestic violence policy.
He does not currently have a contract with an MLB club, as his deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers expired at the end of the 2023 season. He has not pitched professionally since.
Were the Diablos to sign Urias, it would fill the hole left in the rotation when his former Dodgers teammate, Trevor Bauer, elected to return to NPB’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars in hopes of winning that league’s Eiji Sawamura Award for pitcher of the year.
Bauer played a key role for the Diablos Rojos last year, making 14 starts with a 10-0 record, throwing 83 1/3 innings and leading the league in strikeouts with 120. He came out of the bullpen in game seven of the Zona Sur playoff series against the Guerreros de Oaxaca, throwing the final four innings of the game, allowing two hits and striking out five as the Diablos came back from a 3-0 series deficit to win the series four games to three and advance to the Serie del Rey.
One notable signing the Diablos have made over the offseason is starting pitcher Zac Grotz, who had a 2.35 ERA in 76 2/3 innings over 14 starts with the Acereros de Monclova in 2024, though signing Urias, should he quickly return to the form he showed in Los Angeles, would fortify the Diablos’ rotation significantly.
Urias, 28, has made 158 appearances in MLB, all for the Los Angeles Dodgers over eight seasons, throwing 717 innings with a 3.11 ERA. His best season came in 2022, when he led the National League with a 2.12 ERA and a 186 ERA+, throwing 175 innings with 166 strikeouts. He was third in the 2022 NL Cy Young Award balloting and 14th in the NL MVP balloting that season.
Well, That Happened – A year after the Diablos Rojos took both exhibition games against a New York Yankees split squad, the Boston Red Sox flew into Monterrey and shelled the Sultanes de Monterrey pitching staff Monday night.
Former New York Yankee Luis Cessa started the game for Monterrey and lasted 1 1/3 innings, giving up three runs on three hits and three walks. In total, the Sultanes only kept the Red Sox from scoring in three innings and allowed 10 runs on 14 hits in the contest.
Game two of the series is tonight at 7:10 p.m. EDT.
Other Transactions in the LMB
Bravos de León – Signed RHP Pedro García and RHP Christopher Vallimont.
Saraperos de Saltillo – Signed RHP Ernesto Zaragoza. Released LHP Fernando Abad.
Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos – Sent the rights to IF/OF Travis Blankenhorn to the Rieleros de Aguascalientes. Signed LHP Theron Denlinger.
Caliente de Durango – Signed RHP Héctor Pérez.
Leones de Yucatán – Signed IF Héctor Mora, RHP Trevor Kelley, LHP Ryan Sherriff, and IF Aledmys Díaz.
Acereros del Norte – Signed RHP Diego Higuera and IF José Martínez.
Photo: Tomohiro Anraku delivers a pitch for the Diablos Rojos del Mexico. (Photo: Getty Images)
