Espino (shoulder surgery) out 12-14 months: 'It's just unfortunate'

NEW YORK -- Once again, the Guardians have received less-than-ideal news about their top prospect.

On Tuesday, right-hander Daniel Espino underwent right shoulder surgery (anterior capsule repair) in Los Angeles. He's expected to return to game activity in 12 to 14 months.

“Daniel is such an extraordinary worker,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. “It’s one of the things we gravitated to when he was a high school player. He does everything he possibly can to control the controllables. … It’s just unfortunate that his body responded this way to the stress of pitching.”

It has been over a year since Espino first went on Double-A Akron's injured list with patellar tendinitis. As he was recovering from that, Espino ended up suffering a shoulder injury that has kept him on the sidelines ever since. He has yet to even throw off the rubber.

The Guardians were hoping that Espino was finally on his way back over the last few months. He had another setback with his shoulder before Spring Training got underway, but he was able to begin some light baseball activities. As Espino increased the intensity and distance in his catch routines, his shoulder flared up again. That's when the organization determined it was best for him to visit a doctor instead of just giving him more down time.

On Monday, Espino visited with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who determined it was best for the right-hander to undergo surgery. So now, after having already missed the last year, he'll be out of game activity for at least another 12 months.

“There are pitchers that have gone through [similar things]. This specific procedure, I’m not quite sure,” Antonetti said. “But Dr. ElAttrache does have experience performing this procedure and has had successful outcomes. So we are confident and hopeful that Daniel will be one of those.”

Espino was so impressive before he landed on the IL that he was named MLB Pipeline's top Guardians prospect. He also entered the year as the No. 14 prospect on Pipeline's overall Top 100 list. He pitched to a combined 3.73 ERA with 152 strikeouts in 91 2/3 innings between Single-A Lynchburg and High-A Lake County in 2021. At the beginning of ’22 with Akron, Espino racked up 35 strikeouts in 18 1/3 frames, including a 14-strikeout performance on April 23 -- just before he was shut down.

Espino just turned 22 years old in January. He has time to bounce back, but it’s going to be even harder now that he’ll have missed two consecutive years of development. Will he be able to pick up where he left off? Will he be able to remain a starter and take on a heavy workload?

“It’s premature to kind of think about that,” Antonetti said. “I think everything is on the table. Most importantly, we want to help Daniel get back to being healthy and then hopefully put his body in a better position to withstand throwing. What role that leads to we’ll just have to continue to assess.”