The Cleveland Guardians terminated a $2.8 million agreement with a Dominican prospect in May. That prospect, David Severino, has been issued a suspension by MLB, reports ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez.
In a piece for ESPN, Gonzalez detailed an elaborate plot conducted by Severino’s family and his trainer, Francisco Nieves, to falsify his age. The player’s birth name is Daury Severino Damaso, and he is actually two years older than his listed age. He had been going by his younger brother’s identity.
That led to the Guardians agreeing to a $2.8 million bonus with Severino for the 2029 International Free Agent class. Once the club found out about his falsified age, they terminated the agreement.
After further investigation by MLB, the player was suspended. The Guardians, likely as much a victim in this situation, will not face discipline from the league.
Former Guardians Signee Suspended by MLB for Lying About Age
The plot to falsify David Severino’s age was much more elaborate than that of your typical Dominican or Venezuelan player lying about his age. This one included a fake gravestone and falsified records of Severino, in an effort to make him look younger to MLB clubs.
What happens is teams agree to these deals multiple years in advance, which in itself is a questionable practice.
They work them out at 13-14 years old and try to project how they’ll physically develop. It’s even riskier than the domestic draft held every July, even with the signing bonuses growing to similar levels.
In Severino’s case, he agreed to a deal in 2026 that would have taken effect when the 2029 international window opened up. He has since been reclassified for 2027.
In Gonzalez’s piece, he noted several teams grew suspicious of Severino’s age.
“I had a scout tell me this Severino kid could really play,” a team executive on the international side told Gonzalez. “I went to see him and the first thing I thought was, ‘There’s no way this kid is the age he says he is.'”
“The face was older,” said another executive. “You could just tell he was older.”
As it turned out, those suspicions were not unwarranted.
Unfortunately, this is a common practice in the Dominican Republic, one that MLB is hoping to crack down on. It’s unclear what the terms of the suspension are, but considering the plot, they may want to make a clear example out of Severino and his handlers.
David Severino Suspension Casts Light on Shady International Practices
The Severino suspension puts further light on exactly how shady the practices are in the Dominican Republic. With 30 MLB teams scouring the island for baseball talent, that’s created opportunities for some people to devise fraudulent schemes to secure life-changing money and a career.
There is a spending cap on how much teams can spend on international players in a given year. Smaller market clubs, who might rely more on player development to build their roster, get a larger pool.
In the last Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations, both MLB and the MLBPA agreed to an international draft. However, the two sides couldn’t agree on how to run it, so the current system stayed in place.
However, that could change after the next round of CBA negotiations. That process could be a bumpy ride for different reasons.
Ex-Guardians $2.8 Million Prospect Receives Harsh Sanctions from MLB