MLB, Mexican league announce 2-year player transfer agreement

Major League Baseball and the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol have ratified a two-year player transfer agreement, according to a news release acquired by Sam Dykstra of MLB.com.

The agreement - the first of its kind between the two leagues - follows a similar arrangement MLB has with Nippon Professional Baseball, Korean Baseball Organization, and the Cuban Baseball Federation in order to better accommodate the transfer of talent between the two leagues.

"Under the new agreement with the LMB," the press release states, "all players who are under contract to an LMB club will be eligible to sign with any MLB club the offseason after the player qualifies as a 'Foreign Professional' under MLB's collective bargaining agreement with the MLBPA (i.e., at least 25 years old and six or more years of professional baseball experience abroad). LMB clubs may also release players to sign with MLB clubs before they reach Foreign Professional status. An MLB club that signs a player who is released by his LMB club will owe the LMB club a one-time release fee of 15 percent of the total guaranteed value of the contract, if the (released) LMB player signs a major-league contract, or 35 percent of the signing bonus, if the released LMB player signs a minor-league contract."

In recent years, Roberto Osuna and Joakim Soria are among the players to make the jump from LMB to MLB.