The selections of four Cuban for the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol All-Star Game are not the big story today, the two Cubans that were snubbed by the Mexican midsummer classic seems to be the bigger news. For the Zona Norte squad right-hander Yoán López (Unión Laguna) and outfielder Yadiel Hernández, while Peter O’Brien and Yasiel Puig made the Zona Sur team.
The game which is scheduled for Saturday, May 25th in Veracruz will be missing one of the league’s leading homerun hitters (Leonys Martín) and one of its top pitchers (Elían Leyva). It’s kind of perplexing how players with inferior statistics are on these rosters. The kicker is that Martín wasn’t even on the ballot during the election process.
Inexplicably @leonys27martin and @ElianLD were left off the Zona Sur All-Star Team in the @LigaMexBeis. Martín is second in the LMB in homers, while Leyva is second in the circuit in wins.#LMB #AllStar #Cubanbaseballdigest pic.twitter.com/YPjWjfZnRY
— Cuban Baseball Digest (@CBaseballDigest) May 16, 2024
In the case of Martín, the outfielder is second in the circuit in homeruns (12), third in OPS (1.202) and is fourth in RBI’s with 32. The Cuban is also hitting .337 on the season. The native of Villa Clara, Cuba also sports a .416 OBP, is third in the league in slugging (.786) and is also third in the circuit in runs scored (29). Yasiel Puig in his own right was elected to the game over Martín yet his numbers are half as good as the sluggers’
Leyva on the other hand is second in the LMB in wins (4), has a 3.16 earned run average and sports a sparkling 1.13 WHIP. In his 25 ⅔ innings pitched the hurler has fanned 15 batters. The right-hander is second in the circuit in starts with five. Their are plenty of pitchers on the Zona Sur squad that Leyva has twice as many wins as, making his exclusion from the game bizarre.