Four Questions That Will Be Answered During the 2025 Liga Mexicana de Beisbol Season

The 2025 Liga Mexicana de Beisbol season — the league’s 100th campaign — begins tonight at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu when the Leones de Yucatan take on the Diablos Rojos del Mexico at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu.

If you’ve never watched LMB games, the league is interesting. While there are a lot of Mexican players you’ve never heard of, there are also plenty of players from the U.S., Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba who you have heard of. Last year’s champion, the Diablos Rojos del Mexico, have 17 players with Major League Baseball experience and one with time in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Since changing the league’s rules to allow more foreign players, there has been a torrent of players coming into the league with experience in the high minor leagues and MLB, which has elevated the level of play significantly, to the point where it is likely the second-best league in the Americas, and possibly the third-best in the world behind MLB and NPB.

Here are four questions that will be answered during the 100th LMB season in 2025.

1. Can the Diablos Rojos Repeat Their Historic Dominance? Professional baseball — in any country, not just Mexico — has seen very few seasons like the one the Diablos Rojos del Mexico put together last year. They went 71-19 in the regular season. Robinson Cano won a batting title. Trevor Bauer was spectacular in his return to North American baseball, despite pitching at an altitude 2,000 feet higher than the highest Major League Ballpark, Coors Field. to top it all off, they came back from a 3-0 series deficit to beat the Guerreros de Oaxaca and get a berth in the Serie del Rey, where they easily beat the Sultanes de Monterrey for the 17th title in franchise history.

By and large, the Diablos have returned the bulk of their roster from 2024, but Trevor Bauer has returned to Japan’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars in hopes of winning the Eiji Sawamura Award. An outsized personality, Bauer hoped to get an MLB contract last year, but one never came, despite him leading the LMB in strikeouts, finishing second in ERA, and posting a WHIP of 1.04. His return to Japan is either because he knows MLB isn’t going to come calling, and he wants to face the highest level of competition possible, or because the money was better.

To replace Bauer, the Diablos have signed Zac Grotz away from the Acereros de Monclova, who led the LMB in ERA with a 2.35 mark last season, just ahead of Bauer. Grotz may not have the pedigree or accolades that Bauer does, but really, few do. If Grotz can lead the league in ERA again with the Diablos, they won’t miss Bauer, and could be just as good as they were last year.

The Diablos had an easy trip to the title at the 2025 Baseball Champions League Americas, which they hosted. None of the other five teams gave them much competition, nor could they solve the Diablos pitchers. Their performance at the BCL bodes well for the season to come. We’ll find out if they can be as good as they were last year.

2. Will Julio Urias Return to the Mound In the LMB? The LMB has, for a long time, been a place where baseball’s bad boys — those with checkered pasts, off-the-field incidents, or guys who were problematic in the clubhouse — have been able to find contracts when MLB clubs weren’t interested. Trevor Bauer, who served a 192-game suspension imposed under MLB’s domestic violence policy is just the most recent example. Danry Vasquez, the Venezuelan outfielder who pushed his girlfriend down a flight of stairs while in the Houston Astros organization, and Yasiel Puig, who is fighting federal charges related to gambling in California, are others who have found their way to Mexico.

Julio Urias, who is a native of Culiacan, Sinaloa, has been suspended through the All-Star break by MLB under the league’s domestic violence policy in relation to a 2023 domestic violence arrest in Los Angeles. It was the second time he’d been suspended for his off-the-field actions, and the Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t tender him a new contract when his previous deal expired. He hasn’t pitched in a game in more than a year and a half, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if he showed up in the LMB. The Diablos Rojos are a possible landing place for Urias, who is eligible to be signed by an MLB club despite the suspension. However, much like with Bauer’s situation, if no MLB club is willing to take the public relations furor that would doubtlessly erupt were they to sign Urias, the LMB is a place he might land.

3. Can the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos Reach the Top In Zona Norte? The Tecos have finished at or within one game of the top of the Zona Norte each of the last two seasons under manager Felix Fermin. They have a built-in recruiting advantage when it comes to bringing U.S.-born players to the club, as they can live on the Texas side of the border and walk across the bridge to play the half of the home schedule that the team plays at Parque La Junta in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. Fermin has had a lot of success as a manager despite never getting a shot in MLB. He’s won nearly everywhere he’s managed, be it summer or winter, in the Dominican Republic or Mexico. Coming off a 54-39 season that saw them finish in second by half a game and then get bounced in the Zona Norte finals by Monterrey, could this be the year they get through to the Serie del Rey?

4. Will the Teams At the Bottom of the Attendance Ledger See Improvement At the Box Office? Art Clarkson, the late, great former general manager of several minor league teams, would tell anyone who wanted to listen and many who didn’t, “The real game is in the stands!” Meaning, you can win (or lose) all the games on the field, but if the fans aren’t coming in the gates, the team is losing regardless of what it does on the field.

Attendance is up across the LMB in the wake of Mexico’s success at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which saw the national team make the semifinals in a worldwide tournament for the first time — in any sport. No, Mexico has not achieved that feat in soccer.

“We’re always looking for growth, and this season will be no different, especially for the 100th anniversary,” Mexican league president Horacio de la Vega told The Associated Press in a story this week about the success at the box office of the league’s teams. “Our growth comes from the fact that we’re not just selling baseball, but a complete experience.”

But while the league’s attendance numbers are rising, teams near the bottom of the attendance table continue to struggle. According to a report last September by Septima Entrada’s Irving Furlong, despite the league drawing in excess of 2.5 million fans last year — which is a great number, by the way — and six teams drawing more than 150,000 fans, which is an average of 3,333 fans per game, 11 LMB clubs drew fewer than 100,000 last season, with five drawing less than 75,000.

At the very bottom, the Caliente de Durango, who underwent a shocking ownership change and rebranding just before the season, drew just 50,434 over 45 home games for an average of 1,120. The Piratas de Campeche drew 42,018 in 46 home games for an average of 913. And the expansion Conspiradores de Queretaro, who went 50-38 in their first season in the league and 30-15 at home, despite the brand-new ballpark being so brand new it wasn’t completed and didn’t have a full tarp, drew just 36,034 in 45 games — that’s an average of 800.

The health of the league shouldn’t be judged by the attendance numbers at the top of the league, or the league’s total number in isolation. While we don’t know the annual operating costs of an LMB franchise, suffice to say that 800 or 913 or 1,120 fans a game isn’t going to bring in enough revenue to keep the franchise going unless the owner is willing to throw money down a black hole.

This is a league that has 20 franchises spread across a large nation. Tijuana is a five-hour flight to Cancun, and teams can’t make that trip by bus — it would take more than two days of continuous driving if they did. Behind player payroll and insurance, travel is the number one expense in professional sports, and the LMB has plenty of it.

Breaking even requires strong attendance, especially in a league where broadcasting rights deals are generally local, if they exist at all. Looking at the bottom half of the LMB’s attendance figures, there should be some real alarm in the league’s front office if those numbers don’t improve.

Where to Watch – All LMB games are streamed on LMB.tv for a fee.

Photo: Trevor Bauer celebrates during his 13-strikeout performance against Oaxaca in game five of the Serie de Campeonato. Bauer was stellar for the Diablos Rojos del Mexico in 2024, but opted to return to Japan to try and win the Eiji Sawamura Award (Photo courtesy of the Diablos Rojos del Mexico)