Jesús Montero, a former promising Yankees prospect and five-year major leaguer, has died at 35 after a motorcycle accident.
According to a GoFundMe that attempted to raise money for his hospital bills, Montero had been involved in the accident earlier this month in Venezuela and suffered severe injuries for which he was put into an induced coma. The Yankees, as well as a team in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, announced his death Sunday.
Montero was a rising minor leaguer with the Yankees and debuted in 2011 as the No. 1 prospect in their organization, a big-hitting catcher who had blasted 21 home runs with an .870 OPS in 123 games in Triple-A a year prior.
But he only played 18 major league games with the Yankees, who sent one of the best prospects in the sport to the Mariners to acquire Michael Pineda.
Montero played four seasons with the Mariners but did not pan out as hoped, playing just 226 career major league games in which he hit .253 with a .693 OPS. His last MLB game came in 2015.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
