Guardians Prospect Faked Death, Age in $2.8M Deal MLB Now Voids

Major League Baseball has suspended a Dominican baseball prospect who allegedly faked his own death, adopted his younger brother's identity, and shaved two years off his age to lock in a $2.8 million agreement with the Cleveland Guardians. The scheme, which authorities say included a forged birth registration, a fraudulent death certificate, and even a fake tombstone placed at a Dominican gravesite, has already cost the 16-year-old his deal and will delay his path into professional baseball by at least another year.

The player, whose real name is Daury David Severino Damaso, was competing and signing under the identity of David Severino, the name of his real younger brother, according to a reported investigation cited by the Akron Beacon Journal. MLB opened its investigation into the alleged identity-fraud scheme, according to ESPN, after questions arose about the player's age and background. The younger David Severino was reported to have died of a respiratory illness in 2012, per a fraudulent death certificate ESPN says was filed for Daury David Severino Damaso as part of the cover story.

Daury's parents allegedly consented to the creation of the false identity, and a trainer allegedly helped construct the fiction that positioned David Severino Damaso as Daury's own younger brother. A fake birth registration was made under that assumed identity, allegedly accompanied by falsified medical records, and Daury allegedly used the younger brother's identity to appear younger and inflate his prospect stock. As part of the deception, a fake tombstone was created and placed at a gravesite in the Dominican Republic, according to ESPN.

How the Fraud Was Built, Trainer by Trainer

The Guardian reports that trainer John Pereyra, who runs the Futuro Big Leaguers academy in Santiago, paid $20,000 to Severino's former trainer, Francisco Nieves, for the player's rights after being told the boy was 11 years old. Pereyra says he trained the prospect for two years without knowledge of the falsified documents. The scheme itself listed a Dec. 20, 2011 birthdate for David, when the player was actually born April 2, 2010, according to TSN, which also reports that the fake tombstone was placed in a cemetery in La Romana, a coastal municipality about 75 miles southeast of Santo Domingo.

Under the false identity, the player was reportedly identified as a switch-hitting infielder around age 14 and had agreed to a $2.8 million deal with the Guardians. That agreement would have been finalized in 2029, when the player, under his real identity, would turn 17. TSN reports the Guardians severed the preliminary agreement in May, three months before MLB issued its formal suspension, cutting financial ties as soon as the age discrepancy surfaced. The Guardians have issued no official comment on the matter, and per the report, the team faces no MLB discipline for having agreed to the pre-contract in the first place.

Why Teams Make Deals With Middle Schoolers

MLB's suspension will force Severino to wait an additional year before entering the international amateur market, delaying his eligibility to officially sign with any team. International baseball executives told Heavy Sports that scouts grew suspicious of the player's age due to his physical maturation, noting that facing 13- and 14-year-olds gave a 16-year-old an artificial performance advantage that inflated his evaluation.

The case exposes a structural quirk in how MLB scouts Latin American talent. Because league rules bar international amateurs from formally signing until age 16, teams routinely strike non-binding verbal agreements with prospects as young as 12 or 13, according to Baseball America. That creates a multi-year gap between handshake deal and official signing during which document fraud frequently occurs, since younger-appearing, more physically advanced players are more valuable on paper.

A Familiar Pattern for Cleveland

Cleveland has been down this road before. In January 2012, pitcher Fausto Carmona was arrested outside the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo while renewing his visa after Dominican authorities discovered his real name was Roberto Hernandez Heredia and that he was 31, three years older than his team listing, per Sportsnet. Hernandez had a tremendous 2007 season for Cleveland, going 19-7 as the team fell one win short of reaching the World Series that year.

After a court-approved community work program in the Dominican Republic, Hernandez received his U.S. visa in July 2012, accepted a pay cut, served a three-week MLB suspension, and returned to Cleveland's rotation that August, according to NBC Sports. He went on to pitch four more seasons in the majors under his real name. A similar case emerged in September 2011, when Florida Marlins reliever Leo Nunez was arrested in the Dominican Republic and revealed to be pitching under a false identity, his real name, Juan Carlos Oviedo, surfaced along with a 100-game suspension in 2012, and he returned to pitch for Tampa Bay in 2013, per Sportsnet.

The Severino case is also not an isolated one in recent years. In November 2024, MLB voided a verbal $4 million agreement between the San Diego Padres and prospect Cesar Altagracia after determining he was 19, not 14 as represented, according to MLB Trade Rumors. That same year, the league expanded its Latin American investigative protocols, leading to voided agreements or formal investigations tied to the Padres, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, and Houston Astros, per the East Village Times, with MLB increasingly relying on civil registry audits and bone density scans to catch fraud.

MLB's enforcement has intensified, but the underlying incentive structure remains unchanged: early, unbinding agreements struck in countries with vulnerable civil registries continue to create the conditions for document fraud in Latin American baseball development, according to Baseball America. For a 16-year-old now facing an extra year on the sidelines, that structural flaw came with a very personal cost.