This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
— Henry David "Marvelous Marv" Thoreau

The MLB.com site has an interest article on the Mexican League. It details the difficulty of prying a player free from the league:

"[P]layers from Mexico cannot be signed as free agents and later placed in academies funded by big league teams… [The Mexican League has] a system similar to Japan's, all players are first affiliated with a Mexican League team…[Major League teams] first must negotiate with a team owner to attain temporary or permanent rights to a player."

The Mexican League is aberration in organized ball today, a maverick that works within the system. The Mexican League started in 1937 (though the author says it is celebrating its eightieth anniversary). After collecting Negro League stars in the Forties, it turned its ambitions toward raiding the Majors and establishing itself as a separate major league. As troops were returning home from World War II, many players jumped to Mexican teams. Danny Gardella was probably the most famous case: he signed with a Mexican team but after changing his mind, discovered he was banned from organized ball, initiating a major court case (one of the major assaults on the reserve clause before Curt Flood).

Anyway, the Mexican team overextended themselves the league dissolved and was swallowed up by the Arizona-Texas League in 1953 (to become the Arizona-Mexico League). When the old Mexican League was reorganized in 1955, as a sop it was allowed to enter organized ball as a Triple-A team (actually Class A, then the triple-A equivalent).

Ever since, the Mexican League has been allowed to operate on its own. Aside from a Fernando Valenzuela or a Rico Carty attaining some success, very few players sneak over the border (Maybe Homeland Security should contact the league). The last to make a splash was a 40-year-old Julio Franco, who used the Mexican League as a stepping stone back to the majors.

The Mexican League is baseball's West Bank, a tricky situation fraught with hazards. However, in this case, baseball should be rushing in, not pulling out.

The league itself though a cash cow for the owners is in retrograde in its development of local talent:

Curiously, the Mexican League of summer is a member of the National Association of Professional Leagues -- it is considered Triple-A, although most consider the league at Double-A level -- and is the only league in Mexico that can sell players to Major League teams.

It's considered a Triple-A league because of its past. But it is becoming rarer for a Mexican League player to step right into the majors even though the Mexican clubs have working agreements with major-league teams.

Meanwhile, the majors are too preoccupied right now plumbing other countries' depths for talent. Ever since Ichiro, Japan has been a hot spot. It doesn't hurt that it also opens up a lucrative market to MLB as well. Japanese players are being courted even though the Japanese teams make it more difficult to jump (they have to finish their Japanese contacts, essentially becoming veteran free agents like in the US).

I thought it would be interested to look at the growth of major leaguers from "Latin"—is that term still acceptable?—countries (especially Mexico) as compared to the growth for Pacific rim—is that still even a term?—players (especially Japan). Let's start with the 1930s when the first Mexicans reached the majors. This table lists the number of player-years per decade. If Fernando played for the Dodgers from 1980 to 1989, Mexican gets credit for ten player-years for him in the Eighties:

Cuba and Mexico, those were the two "biggies". Here are the Forties with the percentage increase over the previous decade. Venezuela gets in the act, Cuba is becoming a major producer, and Mexico is declining just as the Mexican League wars heat up. Meanwhile, the Pacific is yet to get into the act:

In the Fifties, Cuba continues to grow. The DR gets into the act and many other countries continue to grow. Mexican shows some growth as the war ends:

With expansion came more opportunities. The Virgin Islands became a brief hot spot and the DR went through the roof. The Pacific is delved for the first. Meanwhile, Mexican major leaguers were dwindling. And Leon is getting laaaaarger:

In the Seventies, the influx overall of Latin players stalled, due mostly to the political situation in Cuba (53% decrease). Though Mexico made a brief comeback an many of the other countries witnessed steady growth:

The Eighties saw the influx of Latin players stall. Cubans were almost non-existent. A number of countries, including Mexico, saw their major-league number dwindle. And the twilight of Bahamian major-leaguers was witnessed:

The Nineties saw good steady growth in players from South and Central America. Cuba returned strong. The DR, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela should strong growth. Mexican player-years increased by 20% as well. However, the big growth markets were Japan, Australia, and a number of new Asian markets. Their number were still considerably smaller, but this is when baseball's eye started to wander.

So far this decade (2000-2004), Japan and Korea constitute baseball's new fertile crescent. Baseball is definitely going more international in general, but the Latin growth of 42% is dwarfed by the Pacific's 184%. Compare Mexico and Japan, two countries with similar labor issues, even as Mexico saw a growth of 69%, Japan is closing the gap between the two quickly growing by 304%.

Take a look at the grand total columns and the final column which displays the percentage of player-years for each country in the 2000s. No South/Central American country, besides Aruba, saw half their player-years occur in the last five years. In contrast, the Pacific countries averaged 58% of their years in the last five:

I'm not sure how this will all play out. Baseball's getting more and more international. The process seems to have accelerated as the salaries for draft picks climbs. Japan seems the linchpin now.

If MLB can turn the trickle of Japanese players joining the majors into a stream, then I think one of two things will happen. Either MLB will subjugate the Japanese leagues like the NFL did to the once-uppity Canadian Football League, and use the league to feed talent. Or the Japanese leagues will have a power play to keep the players for themselves. Maybe the second scenario will play out and accelerate the first. Then again, with our administration, the economy could collapse and we could by siphoning talent to the Tokyo Giants.

Whatever happens, after baseball gluts itself on Japanese players, even though Korea and Taiwan are fairly new territory, I think that Mexico becomes a prime target. The mismanagement of the players and the vast untapped potential makes it the logical choice. Only MLB could screw things up any worse than the Mexican League owners.