José De León
"A decade after his major league debut, José De León is still on the mound — just in a league most American fans have never watched a single inning of."
José De León made his MLB debut in September 2016 — and roughly a decade later he's still pitching professionally, now for Caliente de Durango in Mexico's top league, wearing No. 87, a number almost never assigned to an established pitcher.
De León's continued career in the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol — a league formally folded into MLB's player development pipeline since 2021 — is a live example of how blurred the line has become between 'the majors' and the rest of professional baseball.
American fans often read a former big leaguer pitching in Mexico as a career in decline, but since 2021 the LMB has been a recognized part of MLB's official development system, with some clubs holding Triple-A affiliate status — it isn't the informal, off-the-radar league American coverage often implies.
De León was born in Isabela, a Puerto Rican coastal town known internationally for its surfing beaches — Playa Jobos hosts international surf competitions — rather than for a baseball academy system. Not every Puerto Rican major leaguer comes from a dedicated 'baseball town' in the way Japanese fans might assume of the Dominican Republic's academy pipeline.
Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, De León entered professional baseball through the same annual MLB Draft that players born in the fifty states go through — not as an international free agent signed at sixteen, which is the path for players from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. That distinction shapes an entire generation's route through amateur ball, typically via Puerto Rican high schools or U.S. colleges rather than island academies.
José De León, a right-handed pitcher born in Isabela, Puerto Rico, debuted in Major League Baseball on September 4, 2016. Nearly a decade later, he continues his professional career with Caliente de Durango in Mexico's Liga Mexicana de Béisbol, wearing the unusual number 87 — a small detail that hints at how far a career can wander after 'the show.'
| Year | Team | G | W–L | ERA | IP | SO | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | BOS | 1 | 1–0 | 4.05 | 6.2 | 8 | 1.65 |
| 2023 | MIN | 12 | 0–1 | 4.67 | 17.1 | 17 | 1.21 |
| 2021 | CIN | 9 | 0–1 | 8.35 | 18.1 | 33 | 1.80 |
| Career | — | 35 | 5–2 | 7.13 | 72.0 | 92 | 1.68 |
Source: MLB Stats API · regular season
A Debut, and What Came After
José De León threw his first major league pitch on September 4, 2016 — a milestone reached by only a small fraction of the pitchers who ever sign a professional contract. What distinguishes his story from the tidy prospect-to-stardom arcs that box scores tend to favor is what came after: years of continuing to pitch professionally, in leagues that rarely make American sports pages. Today he pitches for Caliente de Durango, a club in Mexico's top professional circuit, the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol. Stripped of context, that might read as a step down. It isn't, so much as it is simply where a long career has led, a decade removed from that debut.
Isabela, on the Northwest Coast
De León was born on August 7, 1992, in Isabela, Puerto Rico, a municipality on the island's northwest coast better known outside Puerto Rico for its surfing than its ballfields — Playa Jobos, one of its beaches, draws competitive surfers from across the Caribbean. It isn't one of the towns most closely associated in the mainland baseball imagination with the island's long pipeline of major leaguers. That pipeline is nonetheless real, running back generations before Roberto Clemente became Puerto Rico's defining sports figure, and continuing through a structural detail easy for outsiders to miss: since 1990, Puerto Rican-born amateurs have been subject to the same annual MLB Draft as players from the fifty states, rather than signing as international free agents at sixteen, the route taken by players from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela.
In baseball, uniform numbers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are conventionally reserved for non-roster spring-training invitees or players on the periphery of a big league roster — high numbers are rarely worn by established pitchers. Seeing No. 87 on a player with major league experience, as with De León at Durango, is a small but telling signal of roster hierarchy, whether or not it was chosen deliberately.
A Right-Hander's Frame
At six feet tall and 220 pounds, De León throws and bats right-handed — a build suited less to overpowering hitters with sheer size than to durability across a long season, or in his case, a long career. Height, weight, and handedness rarely explain much about a player on their own, but set against the length of his professional timeline, they sketch a pitcher built for the sport's unglamorous middle stretch: not necessarily a star turn, but sustained relevance in a profession where relevance is hard to sustain at all.
The Life After the Spotlight
Pitching for Caliente de Durango places De León in a league most American fans encounter only in passing, usually as a passing footnote when a former big leaguer's name turns up in a Mexican League box score. The LMB is a full professional summer league with a history stretching back more than a century, and since 2021 it has been formally incorporated into MLB's player development pipeline, with several of its clubs designated as Triple-A affiliates. For a pitcher who has already reached the game's highest level, continuing to play there is not an ending forced upon him. It's simply the next chapter of the same job.
Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, players born there have, since 1990, entered professional baseball through the same MLB Draft as players from the mainland — not through international free agency, the system used for prospects from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and elsewhere in Latin America. This shapes everything from signing age to whether a player develops through high school and college ball rather than a team-run academy.
The LMB is not an informal or lesser tier of baseball in the way it's sometimes portrayed in American coverage. Since a 2021 agreement, it has been recognized as part of MLB's official player development pipeline, with a subset of its franchises holding Triple-A affiliate status — meaning a pitcher's presence there reflects the sport's current institutional structure as much as it does individual circumstance.
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José De León Gear — Official MLB ShopThis profile was written by AI (Claude Sonnet) using publicly available sources. Interpretations and cultural notes are AI-generated and may not reflect the views of the player, their team, or MLB. This page contains affiliate links.