18-Year-Old Daniel Espino Dreams His 100 MPH Heat Can Make Mariano Rivera Proud
For Daniel Espino, a thud against the wall came before the pop of the mitt. The Georgia Premier Academy senior is the hardest-throwing prep pitcher in next week's MLB draft, unleashing 100 mph fury from the mound the same way he used to let loose in his living room.
His father is a doctor, so there was always an available stash of medical tape in their Panama home. Espino and his oldest brother would return from school and adhere a strike zone to the wall. They would take baseballs and fire away, to the detriment of family members seeking siestas.
"My grandma used to sleep on the other side of the wall, so in the afternoons, she was taking a nap," Espino said with a laugh. "And I would throw it until late in the night, and she would get mad at me."
Espino grew up in Panama City, tagging along to his brother's baseball games. He dressed up in catcher's gear for fun. He watched Yankees games, idolizing local legend Mariano Rivera. He first came to the United States to play baseball when he was 10, staying with an uncle in Miami, and then moved for good at the age of 15. Espino recently graduated from Bulloch Academy, where he attended classes every morning before training and playing in the afternoons at Georgia Premier in Statesboro.
While his parents were debating whether he was ready to live abroad, Espino emerged from his bedroom with his bag packed and said he was ready.
"For me, it was for baseball," he said, "but for my parents, it was for education."
The right-hander's fastball sits between 94 and 96 mph but hurries up against the best competition. At the 2018 Under Armour All-American Game at Wrigley Field, Espino fired a heater clocked at 99. That broke the game's velocity record set by Reds prospect and 2017 No. 2 overall pick Hunter Greene two years earlier.
During last summer's East Coast Pro Showcase in Hoover, Alabama, Espino opposed pure-hitting outfielder Riley Greene, a projected top-five pick from Hagerty High School in Oviedo, Florida. Espino's second-pitch fastball tailed just wide of the strike zone, but its impact in catcher Jonathan French's mitt reverberated around a back field of the Hoover Met Complex. Scouts looked at their radar guns and, for the first time, saw a third digit. Espino had thrown 100. (He later struck out Greene with a 98 mph dart down and in.)
Baseball America has written that Espino "has—easily—the best pure stuff in the 2019 draft class," and the magazine quoted one evaluator as saying the right-hander has a "90-grade fastball" on the 20-to-80 scouting scale. PitchingNinja, a popular aggregator of pitching dominance, tweeted video of Espino's fastball-slider combo with the reminder that high school kids are trying to hit that.
Espino won all nine of his senior season starts at Georgia Premier, throwing 44 innings and allowing only two runs for a 0.41 ERA. He gave up only eight hits and seven walks. He struck out 109. Espino faced top-300 high school draft prospects 27 times; those hitters went 1-for-25 with 17 strikeouts and two walks.
"I've been around a lot of good high school baseball players," said Georgia Premier head coach Gene Reynolds, a 2003 ninth-round draft pick by the Rockies, "and he's the best I've seen."
The sight of 40 big league scouts crowding around one of his bullpen sessions wasn't uncommon, but for games, organizations often sent two evaluators apiece—for a total of 60—and there wasn't sufficient seating behind home plate.
"They brought in bleachers for the scouts to be able to watch him behind the plate," said Eddie Phelps, Espino's summer league coach with the GBSA Rays. "It's been almost like rock star status."
When Espino arrived in Georgia during summer 2016 before the start of his sophomore year, he weighed 156 pounds. He stood about 5'10". He threw in the low 80s. He had never lifted weights. He barely knew what long tossing was.
Reynolds and pitching coach Gary Cates Jr., who played 10 years of minor league ball, employ a modified version of the Alan Jaeger throwing program with daily long toss, extensive resistance band work and a heavy emphasis on stretching. Espino was already limber—"He can stretch almost like a pretzel," Phelps said—but had plenty of frame to fill out.
In a year's time, Espino added more than 30 pounds and 10 mph of velocity. In his first intrasquad batting practice in January 2018, just before his junior season, he jumped to 96, where he remained for the duration of that season before escalating to 100 that summer.
"He gets into his legs really well and takes a lot of the stress off his arm," Reynolds said. "That's what allows him the ability to drive with the power to throw as easily as he does without having to stress too much."
Espino said he embraced the gym workouts, medicine ball routines and towel drills guided by the Georgia Premier coaches. Leg workouts were especially important. His lower-body muscles started showing definition. He said he's now 6'2" and 210 pounds—more than 50 pounds heavier than when he matriculated.
When asked about the thrill of throwing 100 and the prospect of receiving draft riches, Espino demurred and credited the support around him and his faith.
"To be honest, I've been working hard for this. I just want to grow even more and get better every single day," he said. "I know what God has done for me. I knew that when I came I always had in my mind I wanted to be the No. 1 pitcher in the nation. I feel I am. The support I have from my family and friends and my coaches here is a blessing, and I couldn't do it without them and without the Lord's help."
Espino has the No. 1 fastball in the nation—and the No. 3 breaking ball, according to Baseball America. His mid-80s slider has a sharp bite. His curve has good depth. He occasionally mixes in a changeup. But is he the No. 1 pitcher in the nation?
The MLB draft is notoriously inefficient when it comes to projecting future potential by selection order, especially with the advent of amateur draft pools and the creative ways clubs disperse their assigned dollars. For example, a college senior may be chosen much higher than expected by a team trying to save bonus money to use on a high-upside signability risk later in the draft.
Baseball America listed Espino as high as No. 6 in an early-season mock draft, but most such resources peg him to be picked near the end of the first round. His own camp is confident he'll go higher than those mocks forecast.
What's hurting his stock is arm action deemed too long, command thought to be inconsistent and a physical frame projected to have peaked. Even the league's official draft analysis site, MLB Pipeline, stated Espino is shorter and lighter than his listed height and weight. (He nevertheless ranked 23rd on that list, and Baseball America placed him 26th.) Velocity is the prime currency of 21st-century baseball, yet some predecessors who threw hard early in their careers had trouble sustaining success.
MLB draft expert Jim Callis noted a longstanding bias against right-handed high school pitchers and said Espino's command is inconsistent, as is typical for a young pitcher.
"There isn't much projection, but at the same time, he's a guy you don't need to project on because his stuff's already good," Callis said. "With him, it's going to be the consistency of the quality of his pitches and where he locates them."
Some believe Espino may be better suited as a reliever than a starter, and though that move used to be perceived as a step down, it is now highly valuable in a modern game of openers and bullpenning. Plus a similar transition worked out pretty well for his fellow Panamanian and idol Rivera.
And Espino's having reached the U.S. when he did made him a mainstay on the showcase circuit, so there's no concern about the competition he faced.
Cates and Reynolds both said Espino has identical arm action to when he came to the U.S. and that this is what works best for him. The only notable change he's made is to include his legs more in his delivery. And, even if his delivery is a little unorthodox, plenty of big leaguers with unique aspects to their games have had great careers.
"I don't think everything has to be a cookie-cutter way for somebody to be successful," Cates said.
Espino only competed for Georgia Premier and never Bulloch, but the assistant head of school at Bulloch, Holly Greeson, and another teacher drove to see their pupil play a game in the fall. His talent was obvious, and Greeson was impressed at how calm Espino was despite the daunting sight of several dozen scouts and radar guns populating the section behind the plate.
After the game, Espino signed autographs and took selfies with all the children who had come to watch him pitch. Then he approached the Bulloch faculty members.
"Even after having all of the attention, he came up to the other teacher and myself and he said, 'Thank you so much for coming to watch me play,'" Greeson said. "To me, that just meant so much. I felt like he was the superstar of the show, but he was so humble and thankful that people had come to see him play."
In school, Espino stood out for the questions he asked. He also took the initiative to be diligent about making sure his coursework set him up for graduation and NCAA eligibility (he signed with LSU).
Espino is traveling to the New York City area a few days before the draft and will sit in the dugout of MLB Network's Studio 42 during the event itself. His whole family will join him, including his parents, brothers and grandmother, eager to watch Daniel realize his dreams.
And what better place for it all to happen than in the shadow of the city where Rivera became an immortal—putting Panama on the baseball map and inspiring a generation of kids like Espino to follow in his footsteps.
.jpg?w=600 "Post-Lawrence Trade Mock Draft 📝")
_0.png?w=600 "Real Winners & Losers At Mania")
