Skodnick: History For Diablos Rojos del Mexico, Robinson Cano, Trevor Bauer In Historically Dominant Season

Alfredo Harp Helu, center, celebrates winning the Serie del rey with the Diablos Rojos del Mexico. (Photo courtesy of the Diablos Rojos del Mexico)

How do you quantify dominance?

Mere wins and losses can show success, but do they show just how successful a ballclub was over the course of the season?

For the 2024 Diablos Rojos del Mexico, a 71-19 mark in the regular season was indicative of the success that manager Lorenzo Bundy and his staff got from a team that saw 20 players who had previously appeared in Major League Baseball don a scarlet jersey this season.

But beyond the wins and losses, the Diablos dominance of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol was historic, with Mexico City scoring 261 more runs — nearly three runs per game — more than its opponents, scoring an average of 7.27 runs per game. As a team, the Reds batted .301/.401/.500 with a .900 OPS.

They had four regulars in the lineup with an OPS greater than 1.000, 11 regular players who batted over .300 and two that batted .400 over at least 100 plate appearances, and three players with more than 60 RBIs. One of the two .400 hitters, 18-year MLB veteran Robinson Cano, won the batting title, hitting .431 over 360 PAs, and also hit 14 homers and drove in 77 runs.

On the mound, Trevor Bauer went 10-0 in the regular season with a 2.48 ERA, 1.077 WHIP, and led the league in strikeouts with 120. It was somewhat expected that Bauer, the 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner, would be a dominant force in a league where the level of play is somewhere between Double-A and MLB.

Over the course of the season, the Diablos Rojos never lost three consecutive games. It took until the Serie de Campeonato, the third round of the LMB playoffs, for them to lose three straight, dropping the first three games of the best-of-seven series to the Guerreros de Oaxaca. The Reds responded by winning four consecutive elimination games, including the final two games of the series in their last at-bat, to get to the Serie del Rey.

And when they reached the series for the Copa Zaachila, they didn’t flinch, demolishing the Sultanes de Monterrey in a four-game sweep, outscoring them 37-8 and trailing for exactly one inning in the entire series.

Which is to say, it was never close.

Outside of the series against Oaxaca, a seven-game nailbiter, there weren’t many bumps in the road for the Diablos, who steamrolled the competition in 2024.

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Early in the season, Robinson Cano made it clear to World Baseball Network that he wasn’t in Mexico City to make money.

“The goal is for the team to win a championship. You know, like I said, I mean, I don’t care about personal stats. It’s just, you know, my commitment was to come here and help the team to win a championship,” Cano said before the Diablos’ season opener against Quintana Roo on April 16.

The goal was accomplished, quite obviously, but it also put Cano in rare company: He’s now won a World Series with the Yankees in 2009, a World Baseball Classic with the Dominican Republic in 2013, a Caribbean Series with the Tigres del Licey of LIDOM in 2023, and now the Serie del Rey.

Cano, 41, is almost certainly finished in Major League Baseball, but has been rejuvenated over the last 12 months, batting .357/.400/.536 in the Caribbean Series for the Tigres del Licey and being named to the All-Tournament first team, and then tearing apart LMB pitching this summer.

He’ll likely be back in LIDOM over the winter, where he has appeared in six winter season with the Estrellas Orientales in his hometown of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic.

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On the mound, Trevor Bauer led the Diablos Rojos to their first LMB title in 10 years, and while he didn’t win the pitching triple crown (leading the league in ERA, strikeouts, and wins), he came close.

Bauer still hopes to return to Major League Baseball, where he served a 192-game suspension, reduced from 324 games, under the league’s domestic violence policy  following an MLB investigation into allegations of sexual assault made by a San Diego woman and two women in Ohio.

At 33, Bauer may still have serviceable years left in his arm, but it seems unlikely that an MLB club is going to risk the bad publicity that could come with signing him, even though at least one of his accusers has since been discredited and charged with fraud in Arizona, and the pitcher has never been indicted, arrested, charged with, or convicted of any crime.

For now, he’ll have the laurels of his season in Mexico to rest upon until he picks up a baseball again — which could be very soon.

The Naranjeros de Hermosillo selected Bauer with the first selection in the Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacific import draft last month, which gives them the rights to sign the pitcher for the 2024-25 season. Based in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, the Naranjeros won the 2023-24 LAMP title and appeared at the 2024 Caribbean Series in Miami, where they finished sixth in group play with a 2-4 record.

Reports have indicated that Bauer has also been contacted by teams in LIDOM and Venezuela’s winter league, the Liga Venezolana de Beisbol Profesional.

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While I don’t have a vote towards the LMB’s postseason awards, here are my predictions.

Lanzador del Ano (Pitcher of the Year) – Trevor Bauer didn’t win the pitching triple crown, tying for the league lead in wins and finishing second in ERA, but he was still so absurdly dominant — he set the league record for strikeouts in a game with 19 and threw an immaculate inning in the same game — that it’d be a travesty to see the award go to anyone else.

Most Valuable Player (Regular Season) – Robinson Cano is, again, an easy choice, seeing as he batted .431 and drove in 77 runs. Art Charles of Yucatan, who led the league with 33 homers, Yurisbel Gracial of Queretaro, and Julian Ornelas of Mexico City all could receive consideration, too, but Cano’s prowess at the plate this season would earn my vote.

Manager of the Year – It’d be easy to pick Lorenzo Bundy, seeing as his Diablos Rojos set a league record for regular season winning percentage, but Roberto Kelly of the Sultanes de Monterrey is my choice for Manager of the Year. Kelly led the Sultanes to the Zona Norte title in both the regular season and the playoffs and lost in the Serie del Rey to the absolute buzzsaw that was the Diablos. That the Sultanes, 53-37, took the regular season title in the Zona Norte, a division where the top five teams finished within 2 1/2 games of each other says a lot about Kelly’s ability as a manager to squeeze out wins whenever possible.

Most Valuable Player (Playoffs) – There are so many choices here, but Jose Marmolejos of Mexico City led the playoffs in RBIs with 33 and drove in the Serie del Rey-winning run with a three-run homer in the first inning of game four.

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For the second consecutive season, an LMB club has drawn over half a million fans to the ballpark. In 2023, the Leones de Yucatan accomplished the feat, drawing 506,765 to Parque Kukulkan Alamo in 48 games, an average of 10,558.

This year, the Diablos Rojos drew 505,726 to Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu over 44 home games, averaging 11,494 per game.

The LMB’s two new expansion clubs struggled at the gate, however. The Dorados de Chihuahua drew 72,193 in 48 games for an average of 1,504, and the Conspiradores de Queretaro, playing in a park that was still under construction, drew 84,945 to their 45 home dates, an average of 1,888.

That is, perhaps, doubly disappointing for ownership in Queretaro, a city of 1.5 million that saw (or judging by the attendance, perhaps didn’t see) the Conspiradores finish second in the LMB’s Zona Sur behind a talented, scrappy lineup.

Ask any sports executive how long a team — at any level — can last drawing under 2,000 fans a night, and they’ll tell you that team’s days are numbered if things don’t change. Four teams drew under that number in the LMB this season: Queretaro, Chihuahua, the Piratas de Campeche, who averaged 1,354 over 45 home dates, and the Generales de Durango, who drew 1,693 per game, but also underwent an ownership change and sudden rebranding weeks before the season began.

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With the LMB season wrapped up for 2024, it’s on to winter ball. The Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico season starts early next month, and player signings are starting to hit the news. There’s not much of an offseason in Mexico, and the No. 2-ranked country in the World Baseball Rankings will also be hosting games in the WBSC Premier 12 in both Guadalajara and Tepic in November.

The summer may be over, but baseball season never really ends south of the border.