"You're never going to leave this hospital. You're going to die here." - How one Cleveland Guardians pitching prospect rebounded from near-death to a professional baseball career

The Cleveland Guardians know how to draft pitchers. They drafted the right-hander New Yorker Triston Mckenzie when he was 18 years old and relatively unknown. He's now 25 and an enviable starting pitcher.

Shane Bieber was another one. The Cleveland Guardians drafted him in the fourth round of the 2016 draft when he was 21. He's now one of the league's elite starting pitchers.

The Cleveland Guardians signed another youngster named Frank Lopez in February 2020. He was a 17-year-old righty from the Dominican Republic who evidently showed promise. COVID-19 shut Major League Baseball down shortly after. Teams canceled all Spring Training events and told new prospects to stay home. Lopez stayed in the Dominican Republic and waited things out.

When 2021 rolled around, things weren't looking much different for Lopez. Spring Training resumed for major leaguers, and players geared up for a full season, their first in two years. But Lopez was stuck. The Cleveland Guardians baseball academy in the Dominican Republic was still closed due to COVID-19. Lopez continued to work on his pitching in hopes of catching a break.

He went cliff-jumping one day in March 2021 at a river with some friends. They took turns diving into the water and experimenting with various diving forms. One of Lopez's friends dove into the water and disappeared beneath the waves. Lopez didn't see him and jumped off the cliff head-first. He landed directly on his friend's back and immediately felt a snap. His friends pulled him ashore. Lopez felt close to dying. He had broken vertebrae in his back.

How Cleveland Guardians pitching prospect Frank Lopez rebounded from near-death to a professional baseball career

Frank Lopez, a Cleveland Guadians pitching prospect, almost died at 18 years of age

They rushed him to the nearest hospital, which took over two hours. Lopez's mother was nearby and jumped in the car with them. She thought it would be her last two hours with her son alive.

They arrived at the hospital. Doctors frantically negotiated how to handle the situation. The Cleveland Guardians medical team was also on the job. They tried to gage Lopez's condition from thousands of miles away and pay for the proper treatment. They opted for a neck brace costing over $15,000 (US). Flying him to Cleveland wasn't an option yet. The doctors put Lopez in a neck brace and waited.

As Lopez lay on the medical bed, barely conscious and in excrutiating pain, one doctor approached him.

"You're never going to leave this hospital," he said. "You're going to die here."

Words like those could've broken the spirit of anyone in Lopez's position. It was a personal attack against his will to survive. The 18-year-old didn't respond, but he remembered those words. He would tell them to Brittany Ghiroli, writer for "The Athletic," two years later as she researched his story. Those words drove Lopez to survive.

"You’re never going to leave this hospital,” a doctor in the Dominican Republic told him last spring. “You’re going to die here.” The incredible, inspiring story of Cleveland Guardians pitcher Frank Lopez" - @ Britt Ghiroli

The Cleveland Guardians flew Lopez to an American medical clinic in May 2021. Doctors inserted screws into his skull to hold it steady and placed a new neck brace on him. They performed surgery on his spine to re-straighten it. It was still broken and would take months to heal. When conscious, Lopez watched the Netflix show "Love is Blind" to help his English speaking progress. His eye was still on the goal: pitching in the major leagues.

His will was set, but his body languished. He could barely bring himself to eat. He couldn't move. His muscles melted away from weeks of inactivity.

“My whole throat was stopped up,” Lopez said. “I would try to swallow and it would feel like my entire neck was exploding.”

Life was pain for the the 19-year-old. But he kept progressing.

He completed a rehab assignment in Arizona a few months later. He focused on regaining the muscles he needed to walk. He began to regain the sixty pounds of weight he'd lost. He kept the neck brace on at all times. His pace was painfully slow.

"#Guardians 19yr old LHP prospect Frank Lopez first bullpen since neck injury. Lopez was signed 2/7/20 out of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In May 2021 Lopez broke his neck in a diving accident jumping into a river. He's had to overcome two surgeries almost a year of rehab." - @ Guardians Prospective

A few months passed and Lopez had gained thirty pounds back. He worked out every day, always taking the suggested weight and length to a higher level. Cleveland Guadians fitness coach Mo Cuevas said Lopez tried working around the clock towards his goal.

"This kid was raring to go 24/7, to get a little more, get a little more," said Cuevas. "It’s 115 degrees out for games, and he’s sitting there with the brace, with everything on and can’t move and he’s still into the game.

"We have guys that would rather eat dinner and not come to the game. He has the mental state of a Navy SEAL. There’s no other way to describe how mentally there he had to be to go through all this and not just be OK with normal function, but now put a glove on and compete with everyone else that’s here.”

Now, Lopez is back to relatively full health. He's throwing like a pitcher again, although with decreased velocity than what he was previously capable of. He's gearing up for a season in the Dominican Summer League. If all goes well, he will probably join the Cleveland Guardians for Spring Training in 2023. If not, he will try for 2024. There's no stopping Frank Lopez.