A Grave Deception: The Failure of Due Diligence in the Dominican

In the long history of the Dominican Republic as a talent pipeline, we've seen our share of creative bookkeeping. But what recently surfaced regarding a Cleveland Guardians prospect isn't just a case of fudging a birth date; it is a cinematic level of fraud that should leave every front office in baseball shivering.

As reported by The Guardian and CBS Sports, Major League Baseball has suspended a prospect who was part of a calculated plot to appear nearly two years younger than his actual age. The player, known to the Guardians as David Severino, is actually 16-year-old Daury David Severino Damaso. In December 2025, the Guardians entered into a $2.8 million pre-deal with the player, believing he was only 13 or 14 years old. Because of that perceived age, the deal was not set to be finalized until 2029, when the player would have been 17 and eligible to sign.

**Opinion: The desperation to escape poverty is a tragedy, but the fact that this scheme worked is a professional embarrassment. When a scout or a trainer can be fooled by a literal fake grave, the system isn't just broken—it's negligent.**

According to reports from The Guardian and CBS Sports citing ESPN, the deception was orchestrated by the player's former trainer, Francisco Nieves, with the approval of the player's parents. This wasn't just a matter of forged papers. Nieves allegedly falsified school and medical records and created a fraudulent birth certificate to establish the identity of "David Severino." To seal the lie, Nieves reportedly filed a fake death certificate claiming Daury died of a respiratory illness on May 5, 2012, two years after his birth. He then went a step further by planting a fake tombstone at a gravesite in La Romana, a municipality in the southeastern Dominican Republic.

Even those within the inner circle were played. John Pereyra, a trainer who runs the Futuro Big Leaguers academy in Santiago and has sent over 70 players to MLB, told ESPN (via The Guardian) he was led to believe Severino was 11 when he first saw him work out. Pereyra paid Nieves $20,000 for the player's rights and trained him for two years. While Pereyra admitted to some initial suspicions regarding a late birth certificate filing, he told ESPN that visiting the supposed grave of the "deceased" brother eased his concerns.

According to Wilber Sánchez, as cited by CBS Sports, the Guardians terminated the agreement in May after discovering the truth. The player had not yet played any affiliated games for the organization. This is not the first time Cleveland has been burned by identity fraud; CBS Sports notes that in 2012, pitcher Fausto Carmona was revealed to be Roberto Hernández, who was three years older than he had claimed.

While Pereyra suggests to ESPN that the plot was driven by a desperate need to escape poverty, the sheer scale of the fabrication is, in his words, "movie stuff." It is a stark reminder that in the race to secure the next big arm or bat, the rush to sign can easily blind a team to the most obvious red flags—even those carved in stone.