Report: Liga Mexicana de Beisbol Changes Rules, Tries To Keep MLB Teams From Signing Players Away

For players outside of Major League Baseball and its affiliated minor league clubs, the Liga Mexicana is a good destination.

You’re a flight or two away from home, the level of competition is high, the pay is good, and there are plenty of MLB scouts looking to see if they can find young talent or perhaps a reclamation project. This has meant, though, that foreign players who come to the Liga Mexicana are signed away by MLB organizations as the season goes on.

Now the LMB is changing the rules on how MLB organizations can contact foreign-born players playing in Mexico’s summer league, according to a post on X by BeisbolPuro, which reported that the LMB now requires MLB organizations to contact the league, which in turn will contact the LMB team, which can decide whether or not they’ll let the player leave. Should the player leave on his own, he would be placed on the LMB’s restricted list, with his LMB club retaining his rights should he choose to return to play in Mexico later.

LMB Y SU NUEVO SISTEMA DE TRASPASO DE PELOTEROS

Desesperados por no tener forma de retener a los peloteros no nacidos en México que recibían ofertas para firmar con organizaciones de Grandes Ligas en plena temporada, los directivos de la Liga Mexicana de Beisbol lograron un… pic.twitter.com/nafyLxjb8P

— Beisbolpuro (@Beisbolpuro) May 8, 2026

The new LMB policy became known this week when the New York Mets signed lefty Maxwell Green away from the Charros de Jalisco after he made four appearances for the club, posting a 1.59 ERA and 0.529 WHIP in 5 2/3 innings of work with six strikeouts and no walks.

An eighth-round pick of the Detroit Tigers in the 2017 MLB Draft, Green pitched five seasons in the Tigers’ system. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May 2022 and missed that entire season, and was released in 2023 after throwing 13 innings at Class-A Lakeland with an 11.77 ERA. He regained form with Lancaster in the Atlantic League, throwing 199 1/3 innings over the last two seasons in the independent league, posting a 4.70 ERA, 195 strikeouts and 75 walks.

Green was placed on the Restricted List by the Charros after he decided to leave for the Mets’ organization.

Similarly, the Mets signed former MLB starter Xzavion Curry away from the Tigres de Quintana Roo and Jack Weisenburger from El Aguila de Veracruz over the past 10 days.

Curry, who has appeared in 62 MLB games with Cleveland and Miami, threw 20 1/3 innings for the Tigres over four starts, posting a 1.180 WHIP and 17 strikeouts. Weisenburger threw 9 1/3 innings over two starts for Veracruz with a 0.857 WHIP and 12 strikeouts against just two walks. He previously rose as high as Double-A in the Oakland A’s organization, throwing 70 innings for Midland of the Texas League across parts of four seasons with a 4.11 ERA.

Like Green, Weisenburger and Curry were both placed on the Restricted List by their respective LMB clubs, meaning that should they elect to return to play in Mexico, Weisenburger would have to go back to Veracruz and Curry would have to go back to Quintana Roo.

Weisenburger made his Triple-A debut with Syracuse in a rain-shortened 3-2 loss to Rochester on May 5, allowing three runs on three hits in four innings. Curry and Green have yet to make an appearance for the Mets organization.

While the change may make sense in the short term for the LMB, which obviously wants to maintain a high level of competition and needs foreign-born pitching to be able to do that, it could potentially make signing foreign players more costly in the future, as teams might have to offer higher salaries to foreign-born players to convince them to play in a league where they might not be as free to leave for an opportunity with a big league club.

Photo:  Xzavion Curry signed with the New York Mets after a brief excursion to pitch for the Tigres de Quintana Roo of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol. (AP Photo/Nick Cammett)