At the end of this month, participating teams of the Serie del Caribe will be known

From February the 2nd to the 8th, the Serie del Caribe will be played in Zapopan, Jalisco, in Mexico. This is the second year in a row that the tournament is held in that country. National Teams from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and the defending champions, Puerto Rico, will face each other to try to get the most important title in the zone, talking about baseball. These National Teams are, actually, the champions from each winter leagues from every mentioned country.

Playoffs for the title are about to start in all countries mentioned, but Puerto Rico. In Cuba, the Serie Nacional de Béisbol is arriving to the end of the regular season, with six teams in the run, where four of them have the chance to reach the playoffs. At this moment, with the league practically defined, those four teams are, in order, Las Tunas, Matanzas, Industriales and Granma. Champion will be known after these four team play the postseason; so, one of them will play at Charros’ de Jalisco homefield.

For its part, in Mexico, the hosting country, the champion from winter league, the Liga Mexicana del Pacífico, is the one who gets the wright to play the Serie del Caribe. This Liga del Pacífico is played by eight teams, and it’s considered as the most important winter tournament in Mexico, considering that current MLB-players are hired by the teams, adding their talent to minor leagues players, as the Mexican League (Liga Mexicana de Béisbol) and some from AAA, affiliated teams to the MLB. By the end of this month, the four playoffs teams will be known. Postseason will start on December the 30th, playing the Wildcard game. At this point of the season, four teams in playoff seed are Aguilas de Mexicali, defending champions, Venados de Mazatlan, and the Tomateros de Culiacan. For their part, Wildcard may be disputed between local team, the Charros de Jalisco, and the Naranjeros de Hermosillo.

In Republica Dominicana, six teams are playing the winter championship, which is called the Liga de Beisbol Profesional de Republica Dominicana, and which playoffs also begin in January. Aguilas Cibaeñas, Gigantes del Cibao, Leones del Escogico and Tigres del Licey are the teams in the postseason positions, with only a few days missing to reach the end of the regular season.

On December the 29th, the Liga Venezolana de Beisbol will get to the end. In this league, the Navegantes del Magallanes are the leaders, followed by the Cardenales del Lara. With a few matches to be played, the postseason chart is completed by the Leones del Caracas and the Aguilas del Zulia. It’s important to remember that this country was chosen to held the Serie del Caribe from this year, but according to the political and financial moment, the Confederación del Caribe chose to postpone this decision to the next year.

Starting on January the 6th, the Liga de Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente will be played, so the defending Puerto Rico National Team will be known at the end of that month.

The Serie del Caribe is a tournament organized by the Confederacion del Caribe de Beisbol, made up with the countries mentioned above. This Serie is started with a round-robin; after that, first four teams play the semifinals (1st seed vs 4th; 2nd vs 3rd). The winners from this leg of the tournament will define the Serie del Caribe Champions on January the 8th, when they face each other at Estadio Panamericano, Charros’ de Jalisco homefield.