Major League Baseball has suspended a low-level Cleveland Guardians prospect after uncovering evidence of falsified age and identity, ESPN reports. The Guardians originally signed a prospect known as David Severino in December of 2025 as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic. At the time, the Guardians believed he was 13 or 14 years old, which meant the $2.8 million deal would not be completed until 2029.
According to Wilber Sánchez, the Guardians terminated the agreement in May of this year after learning that Severino was two years older than he had claimed. According to ESPN, the prospect's real name is Daury Severino Damaso. Now comes the ESPN report on how much deeper the deception ran.
Here's an excerpt: "The MLB investigation uncovered a series of extreme efforts by the player's handler to make him appear nearly two years younger than he actually is, including faking a birth certificate to create a new identity, falsifying medical and school records, filing a fraudulent death certificate and even creating the gravesite scene, according to sources. "Two years after the birth registration had been made, according to sources, a fraudulent death certificate was filed for Daury. It said he had died of a respiratory illness on May 5, 2012, two years after he was born.
A fake tombstone was created and planted in a gravesite in La Romana, a municipality on the southeastern part of the Dominican Republic, 75 miles from the capital of Santo Domingo." The scam was alleged to have been orchestrated by Francisco Nieves, Severino's former trainer, with "the approval of the player's parents," per ESPN. The player had not yet participated in any affiliated games within the Guardians organization when the agreement was terminated. This isn't the first time the Guardians have been subject to such alleged machinations.
In 2012, Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona, while in the process of renewing his visa in the Dominican Republic, was revealed to actually be Roberto Hernández. He was also revealed to be three years older than he claimed.
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