CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Indians selected Daniel Espino with the No. 24 pick in Monday night's Major League Baseball Draft.
Espino, 18, allowed just two runs in 44 innings pitched last season at Georgia Premier Academy. He gave up 10 hits and finished with 106 strikeouts as a senior. He threw 99 mph during the Under Armour All-American game last summer.
“He’s an extremely special kid,” said scouting director Scott Barnsby. “He’s extremely athletic. He’s loose, he’s flexible and he’s got a power arm. We’ve seen Daniel up to 100 mph – pretty special arm strength. He’s got two different breaking balls, both the slider and the curve ball have depth, angle, finish and bite to them.”
Espino is
ranked 25th in Baseball America's prospect rankings. They say he has "the best pure stuff in the class." They also note that he could end up being a reliever in the big leagues.
Espino says he's been clocked at 100 mph twice in his life. The Indians view him as a starter and expect him to continue to develop his changeup
The hard-throwing youngster committed to LSU, but will join the Indians' minor league system if his agent can reach an agreement with the organization.
Espino grew up idolizing New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera. Both pitchers are from Panama, which made it easy to look up to arguably the greatest closer in baseball history.
"I used him as a role model," Espino said. "How he was able to be calm and just come in the ninth inning with just one pitch and control the game and get dudes out at the highest level in baseball. Not only that but as a person, he's humble and he's a great guy."
Watch highlights of Espino, including a breakdown from Trevor Bauer in the videos below:
Daniel's arsenal includes:+ 4-seam fastball+ 2-seam fastball+ Curveball+ Slider+ ChangeupStudent of the game, @BauerOutage, breaks down the young gun's stuff ... pic.twitter.com/XSKLuSKG4q
— Cleveland Indians (@Indians)
June 4, 2019 Daniel Espino:If you have an upper 90s Fastball (T98mph yesterday), you can get some really funny ABs in High School with your Plus breaking stuff (mid-80s Slider & mid-70s Curveball). -- #Unfair pic.twitter.com/nOfueP38BB
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja)
April 5, 2019
