Border Crossing
Mark Weidemaier and a band of baseball lifers meet in Mexico
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It’s probably not great when the first player you associate with a league is a fictional character. Let’s give it a try. Ready?
The Mexican League.
I still go straight to Jake Taylor. The first glimpse we get of Tom Berenger’s character in Major League comes courtesy of an unwanted wakeup call from the Indians general manager. Hungover and otherwise occupied, Taylor is less than enthused about an invite to Major League camp with Cleveland.
No bueno.
Given the timing of the call, Taylor must have been in winter ball.
Today, the regular season (Liga Mexicana de Beisbol) begins in Mexico for all 18 teams. The Mexican League features a 90-game regular season that runs through early August. The season concludes in mid-September with a champion crowned in the Serie del Rey.
I’ll be rooting for the Saraperos de Saltillo.
To be honest, I didn’t even know what a sarapero was until yesterday. In English, it’s serape, a long blanket-like shawl often brightly colored. So, let’s go colorful blankets!
Their manager this year is baseball lifer, friend, and former colleague Mark Weidermaier. It’s been a couple years since Weids was mentioned in this space; at the time, he was coaching in Korea. Since then, he’s had a quick stint in Mexico, served as the pitching coach for the Long Island Ducks, and now he returns south of the border.
Tonight, I’ll be following the action from Estadio Panamericano in Jalisco, Mexico, where Weidemaier will be in the visiting dugout, leading the Saraperos against the Mariachis de Guadalajara.
The Mexican League was a classified Triple-A league through 2020, before MLB reorganized the minor leagues. It operates independently now, though the talent still bears some semblance to a Triple-A roster with a number of players carrying Major League service time. These players, however, are on the downside of their career arcs.
The roster composition makes Weidemaier a great fit for the league. He’s a passionate teacher and student of the game, and I wouldn’t dare let his more than 40 years of experience in professional baseball determine where he is on his career path. He has scouted, coached, overseen international academies, served as the Major League advance scout for the White Sox, Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Reds, and traveled the globe sharing his passion for the game.
I worked with him very closely in 2011, when the D-backs won the NL West. Weids traveled nonstop, staying one series ahead of the big league team and producing detailed scouting reports of upcoming opponents. I remember waking up to three-minute-long voicemails that he left me in the middle of the night while he was on his way to the airport. Usually, he was pissed off because of one bad pitch that had been thrown the night before. One pitch could sure draw a lot of emotion out of the man at 4:15 in the morning. (Thanks to Weids I now turn off my ringer at night.)
The advance scout has a strange — potentially unhealthy — relationship with his big league club. He spends the entire season watching opponents, looking for areas to exploit, but rarely sees his own team in person. It’s not for everyone.
Weidemaier thrived on it. He’s a sleep-when-I-die type of person, fueled by his love of the game, his love of the people in the game, and caffeine.
Consider the emotional and metabolic state of someone who drinks five 5-hour Energy shots in one day. I’m not sure if that’s a math problem, a biology problem, or a drinking problem, and I know better than to try and solve it.
The Saraperos skipper and I had a chance to catch up during his team’s eight-hour bus ride to the site of their opener, and we shared an appreciation for the small world that baseball creates.
Tonight’s matchup features two Cuban-born starters, both of whom pitched against the Kia Tigers when Weidemaier was serving as Matt Williams’ bench coach in Korea.
Lefty Ariel Miranda takes the ball for the Saraperos, and he’ll face Odrisamer Despaigne. If those names sound familiar to you, well, welcome to the Mexican League. Also, if you recognize those names, you’ve got a home here at Warning Track Power.
Miranda signed with the Orioles in 2015 after defecting from Cuba. The following year, he was traded to the Mariners for — wait for it — Wade Miley. From Seattle, Miranda continued his career in Japan, then China, then Korea. Hey, Sea-Tac has some competitively priced nonstop flights to Asia!
Despaigne defected from Cuba while competing in an international tournament in Europe in 2013. He traveled from Spain to Mexico — where he had a brief stint in the winter league — and arrived at the Peoria Sports Complex in February 2014 for a showcase in front of scouts. I happened to be in attendance that day. I wrote him up as a fifth starter — a poor man’s El Duque — but not a pitcher who would be counted on to win a postseason game.
The Padres signed the right-hander for $1 million, an amount that was actually a bit less than I thought he’d receive. Despaigne spent two years with San Diego — he performed around league average over 96 innings in his rookie year — before making stops in Baltimore, Miami, Anaheim and the south side of Chicago.
After three seasons in Korea, he now returns to pitch in Mexico. It’s been a nine-year journey during which he logged 1,300 innings and tens of thousands of miles.
Other familiar names on the Saraperos’ roster include Henry Urruitia, a former Orioles prospect who was on that special Surprise team in the Arizona Fall League; Jenrry Mejia, who pitched out of the Mets bullpen on and off for five years; and Mallex Smith, a former prospect with the Braves and Padres, who led MLB with 46 stolen bases for the Mariners in 2019. That wasn’t all that long ago.
The team’s hitting coach is Carmelo Martinez, the longtime Padres outfielder who was part of the 1984 team that won the pennant. Hector Mercado, who pitched for the Reds and Phillies around the turn of the millennium, is the pitching coach.
Weidemaier’s bench coach is none other than Mario Mendoza. Yes, that Mendoza. The man for whom a line is named.
Mendoza famously batted between .180 and .221 from 1974-1979 before breaking out in 1980 with an average of .245. The man could really play shortstop.
Once the Tecate starts flowing, there are sure to be some great stories told on the bus rides.
So, Saltillo plays in Tijuana in mid-May and again in mid-July. Who’s up for a road trip?
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