Former A's Pitcher Stuck Between Mexico and Minor Leagues

Former Athletics pitcher Daniel Mengden has been pitching in Mexico this season, and earlier this week he signed a minor-league contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks. And yet, he's still sitting at home in Texas trying to figure out where he needs to go next.

According to a source, the team he has been with in Mexico, Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos, is refusing to give up his rights which has led to Major League Baseball voiding the deal that Mengden had signed with the D-Backs.

The hangup appears to be over $100,000. The way that the Mexican Leagues work is that if a player signs with a Major League team after July 1, then the MLB club has to pay $100,000. Before that time, there is zero buyout that has to be paid by the acquiring team.

Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos appears to be trying to wait out the clock so that they can collect that cash from the Diamondbacks, or another team, though his contract with them has since been voided since Tecoloates wouldn't release his rights. Other former big-leaguers on the roster that have been offered minor-league contracts throughout the year have already reported with their new organizations with no issue.

The difference being that instead of just disappearing on his team, Mengden and his representatives said that he'd stick with his club in Mexico, if they matched the offer he'd received from the Diamondbacks. They wouldn't lose him, and Mengden would earn slightly more that way. The assistant GM of the Tecolotes said they needed three days to decide, while the Diamondbacks had provided Mengden 24 hours to make a decision of his own.

After the 24-hour period lapsed, his representatives contacted the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos assistant general manager, who claimed that he had no recollection of what was being discussed, even though he'd be the one that was spoken with the previous day.

It was at this point that Mengden left Mexico to return to his home in Texas, where he waits to see where the next step in his journey will take him--back to Mexico, or landing with one of Arizona's affiliates.

Major League Baseball was told that the player and his representatives were trying to blackmail the club, though their stance is that this process was contract negotiation while they tried to find the best situation for their client. The Mexican club has refused to answer phone calls, leaving everything very much up in the air.

Mengden was selected by the Houston Astros in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB Draft, and was traded to the Oakland Athletics less than a year later along with Jacob Nottingham in the Scott Kazmir deal. He climbed his way through the A's system and debuted on June 11, 2016 in Cincinnati. He'd get to the big leagues every year from 2016-20, when the A's ultimately released him after the season.

Mengden made a brief appearance with the Kansas City Royals in 2022, tossing seven innings across five appearances, but was released by the club in the summer of 2023. He'd move on to the Washington Nationals system for the rest of the summer, and spent 2024 pitching for CTBC Brothers in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.