United States Attacks Venezuela: What Might It Mean for Baseball?

[Seth Stohs]

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Over the weekend, U.S. forces attacked Venezuela, seizing President Nicolás Maduro and killing dozens with bombs dropped on the capital city of Caracas. Venezuela has a rich baseball history and is baseball-mad. How might strikes on Venezuelan soil affect the landscape of the 2026 season and beyond?

Venezuelan Baseball History
In 1939, the Washington Senators called up Alejandro (Alex) Carrasquel. He was the first player from Venezuela to play in the big leagues. The second Venezuelan was Chico Carrasquel, Alejandro’s nephew, in 1950. He was the first Latin American player to start an MLB All-Star Game, in 1951.

Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio debuted in 1956 and won nine Gold Glove awards. Carrasquel and Aparicio began a long line of shortstops to come to the States from Venezuela over the years. 

Over time, more and more players have been signed out of Venezuela. Exactly 500 players from the country have played in the big leagues, and in 2025, there were 93 active Venezuelan players in the majors alone. 

This action will have sweeping ramifications for those players, and for the day-to-day experience of baseball fans at several levels in the months (and perhaps years) to come. Let's explore a few of them.

International Signing Period
The 2026 international amateur free agent signing period begins on January 15. Will MLB teams be willing to send their scouts to Venezuela to sign players? Will Venezuelan players be able to get to the Dominican Republic to sign contracts?

Most of the deals teams will sign this month are already agreed to, and they're likely to be duly executed. Even if it does not affect the 2026 signing period, however, this destabilization has major implications on a longer time horizon. Will American scouts want to continue traveling to Venezuela to decide if 10- or 12-year-olds might grow up and develop into big-league talent? Will teams have the same success engaging local scouts and coaches to discover and develop those players?

World Baseball Classic
A huge part of the increasing popularity of the World Baseball Classic is the passion it showcases among both players and fans from Latin American countries. Venezuela has been a perennial underachiever in the tournament, but they're a thrilling and important draw, especially when (as is true this year) much of the action takes place in Miami—a city home to many, many Venezuelan and Venezuelan-American immigrants.

Will Venezuela want to have a team participating in the United States? How safe will their players and representatives feel, or even, how safe will their opponents feel? Will the country even be allowed to field a team? Sources with multiple teams in the majors couldn't tell us. Right now, that's all up in the air.

Immigration and the 2026 Season
Foreign players (majors or minors) usually have P-1A (athlete) non-immigrant visas. Their teams and/or agents petition U.S. Customs and Immigration Services to receive the work visas. They are valid for the length of the season or event, and extensions are possible in one-year increments. Teams provide proof of the athlete working, which could be as simple as a signed contract. The team also sends the schedule and itinerary for the player. It is also possible for spouses and children to join the player. 

Currently, a presidential proclamation has limited which types of visas Venezuelans can use to visit the United States. P-1A visas are not included in this list of restricted types, but all visas face increased scrutiny. How long will this conflict last, and how long could there be travel bans between the U.S. and Venezuela? Would a player be able to bring his family to the States with him, and if not, could there be players who won’t leave their family alone in Venezuela? Will Venezuela’s leadership (when, indeed, it even becomes clear who will comprise that group) allow players to travel to the U.S.?

An attorney familiar with the specific processes involved in non-citizen players coming to the States each year told DiamondCentric that most well-established players have green cards (which confer permanent resident status, and make both international travel and maintaining residency much easier), but family members are often a different story. Minor-leaguers, as outlined above, face huge new levels of uncertainty.

How Will Major League Baseball Respond? 
In 2019, MLB banned players from participating in the Venezuelan Winter League because the U.S. had sanctions against Venezuela. Until about a decade ago, many teams had academies in Venezuela, and there was a Venezuelan Summer League (like in the Dominican Republic) in the 1990s, but by the early 2000s, teams began leaving Venezuela and doing all of that work and development in the Dominican. It was deemed unsafe in Venezuela. Even teams are still waiting to hear more, and the league has yet to issue guidance on whether players previously slated to play winter ball there can or should do so.

Response by Players
Without knowing too much detail yet, it will be interesting to see the thoughts of players from Venezuela. Most players will want to remain quiet on the topic, but when pressed, what will players or coaches say? Did some support the Maduro regime? We know that some—most famously, former Cubs closer and current Mets reclamation project Adbert Alzolay—fiercely opposed the highly anti-democractic Maduro. Alzolay tweeted several times about the illegitimacy of Maduro's reelection in mid-2024. As we know, though, opposition to Maduro is not tantamount to support for the U.S.'s heavy-handed action against him, and since the attacks, Alzolay's only tweet affirmed his safety and kept the focus on his rehabilitation and preparation for the coming season.

Speaking of which, how will this affect Venezuelans' play on the field? It would certainly be understandable if this proved a forceful distraction for many players, whose homeland is in a greater state of upheaval than ever and who might have a harder time either seeing or communicating with their families.

Each of the DiamondCentric sites' teams could be affected to varying levels by this. For instance, the Minnesota Twins have 31 players of Venezuelan descent. A couple of their prospects (Jose Salas and Bryan Acuna) were born in the United States, but grew up in Venezuela. They are dual citizens. Pablo López is from Venezuela, but he isn’t the only player on the Twins' 40-man roster. Catcher Jhonny Pereda and outfielder Gabriel Gonzalez are his countrymen. Newly signed Orlando Arcia is from there, too. The Twins (along with multiple other teams) say they've been in touch with their Venezuelan players to ensure their safety, but for those much less firmly attached to a team than the above-mentioned notables, it's too early to know what comes next.

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There could be other important issues that go above and beyond this initial list. Please feel free to respectfully discuss the baseball aspects of this situation. With Maduro and his wife arrested, maybe things go back to “normal.” We can certainly hope so.

Best wishes to the citizens of Venezuela and all of those in the States with family in Venezuela. For now, though baseball is an interesting and disproportionate part of a huge story, it's still a relatively insignificant one. Much larger things are at stake.

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[bean5302]

I actually immediately thought of this. I felt a little bad about thinking about it, too. In the grand scheme of things going on, it seems a little shallow to think about baseball. Even then, it's worth considering what MLB means to Venezuelan boys and men looking to get what would be a completely life altering opportunity through a signing. It's a complicated issue even though it seems like it shouldn't be.

I would think MLB teams have local scouts with feet on the ground. There is already a do not travel advisory for Venezuela in place since March 2019. I don't think MLB teams will be heavily impacted in a direct way.

[Michael Trzinski]

It was not an attack on the country; it was a raid to capture Maduro. The US did not attack Venezuela. Yes, there were some deaths and it was unfortunate, but the US achieved its stated goal of taking a narco-terrorist out of power. I'm not sure how any American would be against that.

Based on what I have heard from various news outlets over the last few days, a large number of Venezuelans are happy with the capture of Maduro. Unless a player lost family or friends, I would suggest they would be happy with the removal of Maduro as well.

[olerud]

What do you mean U.S. attacks venezuela???? Cmon they just went and got that thug criminal Maduro! Which should've been so years ago!!!!!

[nathanj42]

Thanks for the article. The situation in Venezuela is so complex, while this was a very good article, it's hard to summarize everything going on there in just 6-7 sections/paragraphs. Players have to worry about kidnapping, not just themselves, but also their families. It will take a lot of improvements for Venezuela to get to "normal" (at least in our US mindset of normal). No matter what side of the aisle you prefer, removing a dictator that received less than 20% of the vote in their last election is likely good for the country, hopefully. 

[Michael Trzinski]

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I don't think MLB teams will be heavily impacted in a direct way.

I agree. I think teams will continue to do 'business as usual.'

[harmony55]

On 1/6/2026 at 10:35 AM, olerud said:

What do you mean U.S. attacks venezuela???? Cmon they just went and got that thug criminal Maduro! Which should've been so years ago!!!!!

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/03/world/americas/maduro-capture-venezuela-strikes-maps.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C1A.FXcF.YMRzXnHH8xjb&smid=url-share

[Hrbowski]

Most scouts in Venezuela are citizens of Venezuela, and most MLB players from Venezuela are residents of the US. I don't think it will have much of an impact on baseball.

[jkcarew]

On 1/8/2026 at 10:04 AM, harmony55 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/03/world/americas/maduro-capture-venezuela-strikes-maps.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C1A.FXcF.YMRzXnHH8xjb&smid=url-share

The NEW YORK TIMES?? Not serious.

[harmony55]

On 1/17/2026 at 9:58 AM, jkcarew said:

The NEW YORK TIMES?? Not serious.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/inside-lightning-us-strike-overwhelmed-venezuelas-defenses-seized-maduro