{"id":225260,"date":"2025-10-19T19:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/225260\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:46:08","slug":"former-mlb-catcher-jesus-montero-dead-at-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/225260\/","title":{"rendered":"Former MLB catcher Jesus Montero dead at 35"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jes\u00fas Montero, a former top-10 prospect with the Yankees<\/a> and a catcher for New York and the Seattle Mariners<\/a>, died on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Yankees organization confirmed Montero’s death two weeks after he was involved in a traffic accident in Venezuela. He was 35 years old.<\/p>\n

Born in Guacara, Venezuela, Montero played five major league seasons, one with the Yankees and four with the Mariners. He also excelled during his one season with the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>‘ triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons, in 2016.<\/p>\n

Montero signed with the Yankees for a $1.6-million bonus in 2006 and steadily rose through New York’s minor-league system over the following five years. The six-foot-three backstop had a career .308 average, .852 OPS and 122 home runs during his time in affiliated ball.<\/p>\n

Montero was included in a rare swap of top prospects, going to the Mariners for pitcher Michael Pineda during the 2012 off-season. He played a career-high 135 games in his first year with Seattle, hitting .260 with 15 home runs. The next season, Montero struggled, hitting .208 and eventually being sent down to triple-A Tacoma. <\/p>\n

Montero sustained two more setbacks that season, as he was suspended for 50 games for violating MLB’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs as part of the Biogenesis scandal that also resulted in the suspension of Alex Rodriguez. The following off-season, Montero suffered a hand injury in a car accident in his native Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The next two seasons, Montero played only 44 games with the Mariners and did not return to MLB after that. He finished his career with 28 home runs and a .253 average over 226 games. Montero continued to play professionally until 2021, splitting time between the minor leagues, the Mexican League and the Venezuelan Winter League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jes\u00fas Montero, a former top-10 prospect with the Yankees and a catcher for New York and the Seattle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-225260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}