Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (LMB)

What is the Mexican League?

The Liga Mexicana de Béisbol — Liga Mexicana de Beisbol Banorte, after its sponsor — is Mexico’s professional summer baseball league and, dating from 1925, the country’s oldest running professional sports league. It was a member of Minor League Baseball for 66 years, at Double-A from 1955 and Triple-A from 1967, and left the affiliated system in MLB’s 2021 restructuring; since then it has been an independent league, and its teams are not the farm clubs of any MLB franchise.^{[1] [5] [6]}

How does it work?

Twenty teams play in two zones, Norte and Sur. The 2026 season opened on 16 April with a 93-game schedule; the top six in each zone go to playoffs in which every round is a best-of-seven — a first round, a Serie de Zona and a Serie de Campeonato — and the two zone champions meet in the Serie del Rey. Rosters of 38 may include 18 foreign players in 2026, down from 20, leaving 20 places for Mexican players, naturalised included; the league plans to cut the foreign quota to 16 for 2028.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Since when does it exist?

The league was founded in 1925 and celebrated its 101st season in 2026. Diablos Rojos del México, whose 2025 sweep of Charros de Jalisco was the club’s 18th title, won back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025; Toros de Tijuana, Leones de Yucatán, Pericos de Puebla, Acereros de Monclova and Sultanes de Monterrey have all won in the last decade, and the Diablos’ eighteen titles are the most in the league. The pandemic cancelled the 2020 season and 2018 was split into Primavera and Otoño tournaments.^{[2] [5] [7]}

Serie del Rey winners of the last ten seasons; no season was played in 2020, and 2018 had two short seasons.

Why does it matter?

The LMB is Mexico’s top summer league and, by the league’s own account, supports 11,000 direct and 28,000 indirect jobs. For immigration purposes its status has to be stated precisely: it was an MLB-affiliated Triple-A league from 1967 to 2020, and it has not been since 2021. It is not the winter Liga Mexicana del Pacífico, whose champion goes to the Caribbean Series, and not Liga MX, the football league.^[2] [6]