Jose Alvarado slams an insane amount of espresso every morning and honestly, I respect that

Somewhere in the depths of Citizens Bank Park, Jose Alvarado is turning himself into the most caffeinated man in professional sports.

Jose Alvarado slams six espressos before the sun’s fully up – a steady drip of coffee throughout the day, and by first pitch, he’s basically a walking French press with a 99-mph sinker.

José Alvarado starts his day with SIX espressos.

José Alvarado starts his day with SIX espressos.

He has a tattoo of a small mug on his left hand with words, "coffee is life."

(Via: @MattGelb) pic.twitter.com/mqlErtVyyX

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) April 11, 2025

This Can’t Be Legal… Right?

Look, no one’s saying coffee is a banned substance. But when you’re sucking down double-digit espresso shots before you’ve even broken a sweat, we’re inching closer to pharmacological territory.

You can only funnel so much caffeine into your bloodstream before you’re less of a reliever and more of a performance-enhanced espresso machine.

José Alvarado closes it out for the @Phillies and is PUMPED 🫡 pic.twitter.com/Fwi2whjHiU

— MLB (@MLB) April 10, 2025

Adderall? Illegal in Major League Baseball (Shoutout Carlos Ruiz)
Caffeine? Perfectly fine, regardless of the amount

The effects are similar. Dialed in focus, elevated heart rate, hyper-alertness… sound familiar? Let’s just say if Alvarado’s cutter starts breaking into different time zones, the league office might start sniffing around his Yeti cup.

I Can’t Judge. I Get It.

Honestly, I understand the need for an absurd morning routine. I used to take literal shots of espresso to start my day but that was really to trick my brain into a Hair of the Dog type of effect and now, I have a more standard routine, beginning at 6 AM each morning.

I wake up, dry-swallow 30mg of Adderall, slam a Celsius, then stare at myself in the mirror like a demon in a David Goggins fever dream, slapping myself until my eyes stop twitching and the anxiety takes over in the most productive way possible.

That’s just life in the modern age.

So yes, I respect the grind. I respect the grind of the beans, the buzz of the brain, and the bullpen heater that looks like it’s been shot out of a trebuchet. But even I know when the line between “locked in” and “legally dead” starts to blur.

MLB Drug Test Dept. Be Like: ☕️

We already know MLB has zero clue how to police substances. Pine tar? Ejectable. Spider Tack? Scandalous. Ten cups of dark roast with enough caffeine to make a rhino’s heart explode? Totally fine. Carry on.

But eventually, someone is going to pull Jose Alvarado’s biometric data and realize his resting heart rate is 150 BPM and his blood type basically Caffeine.

Let Jose Alvarado Brew, Baby

As long as Alvarado keeps getting outs and not combusting on the mound like a microwaved Red Bull, we ride. The league’s probably too scared to open the “is coffee a PED?” conversation anyway, because half the relievers in baseball would vanish by June.

Just keep the espresso machine in the dugout and pray he doesn’t move into nitro cold brew territory. That’s when we start entering black site energy levels.

Until then, let him brew and give us more of those 99 mph heaters that fire past your cleanup hitter with the power of pure Venezuelan chaos.

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