Daniel Espino is looking like another product of the Guardians' pitching factory

Four years ago, Daniel Espino was the top prospect in the Guardians’ farm system. Every pitch seemed to pop out of his hand, and he made pitching look like an art form. 

But then the cruelness of the sport took his paintbrush away thanks to a series of arm and elbow injuries that essentially robbed him of three years of competition. 

But he made his return to the diamond last September and has slowly been building himself up with Triple-A Columbus this season, where he’s passed every test as he works his way back to health.

His latest test has been pitching on less rest, which he did last week when he pitched on May 19 before coming out of the bullpen again on May 21. 

Not only was that the first time he had pitched in his career on one day of rest, but he tallied 1 2/3 scoreless innings across those two outings with all five of his outs coming on strikeouts. 

Daniel Espino is finally healthy and producing for the Guardians

Although Espino’s 4.11 ERA doesn’t jump off the page, that number’s a bit inflated thanks to one outing at the beginning of the month where he allowed four runs in 1/3 of an inning. He followed that up with four scoreless innings, including the aforementioned scoreless outings on a single day’s rest. 

It’s also important to remember this is Espino's first year working as a full-time reliever after beginning his career as a starter. He also opened the season pitching every three or four days in an attempt to limit his injury risk. 

While that’s smart in the micro sense, it put a clear cap on his ability to help the Guardians’ big league bullpen since there wouldn’t be any room for a single-inning reliever who was only able to pitch once or twice a week. 

As we’ve seen over the past week, the lower-leverage guys are always the first ones called upon when innings need to be eaten, and Espino’s limited usage impacted his appetite. But he took a huge step toward being an MLB factor this season with his work earlier this year. 

That said, his MLB path also got a bit easier thanks to Cleveland’s decision to DFA Peyton Pallette, who was a Rule 5 pick and limited the amount of flexibility in Cleveland’s bullpen.

Still, it’s hard to imagine a world where the Guardians add Espino to their bullpen without having an additional longman option like Logan Allen in the fold as insurance. 

The Guardians have already shuffled through Pallette, Allen, Franco Aleman and Will Dion in their final bullpen spot, so it stands to reason that they could eventually decide to pull the trigger on Espino, who is already on the 40-man roster. 

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