Minor league pitcher Yorman Landa passed away last night, the Twins announced. The cause of death was a car crash in Landa’s native Venezuela, the Pioneer Press’ Mike Berardino writes. Landa’s father was driving and his car struck a fallen tree. Landa was 22.
“The Minnesota Twins are deeply saddened by the heartbreaking loss of Yorman Landa early this morning in Venezuela,” said Twins executive Derek Falvey in a statement. “On behalf of the entire baseball community, we send our sincerest condolences to the Landa family as well as Yorman’s many friends, coaches and teammates.”
The Twins originally signed Landa in 2010. They had recently non-tendered him, but they re-signed him to a minor league deal just this week.
Landa pitched in 2016 in the bullpen for Class A+ Fort Myers, demonstrating control problems but also strikeout ability. He ranked 20th in MLB.com’s list of the Twins’ top 30 prospects, with MLB.com noted his mid-90s fastball and potential to become a big-league setup man.
frankthetank1985
Blue jays
So said
He’s to young
ThatGuy 2
Too
CowboysRangers4
Sad
Blue jays
I mean SAD
Sucre is goat
Rip Yorman
fs54
WOW he was pretty young. Sad to see life end so short.
TMoneyDogVIP
Rest in Peace. Sad to see so many young baseball players dying in tragic ways.
Michael L
Seems like this happens at least once every year to minor leaguers when they return home to visit family in South/Central America. The roads are hazardous down there.and fatal car accidents are very common.
MrMet19
RIP
pickandersen
So sad. Rip. Awful to see so many young pitchers dying in accidents
24TheKid
It really is extremely sad, trying to figure out how to word this but has this been normal throughout baseball history having so many young players die? Jose last season, 2 years ago it was Tavares and Sanchez and before that I know the Mariners had a center field prospect die but idk about other teams. It just seems like so many more deaths lately, but most importantly RIP Yorman Landa.
Twins_guyTJZ
Greg Halman was his name
Nola Di Bari 67
I remember a former Chicago Cubs pitcher who died while walking on a beach in I believe Venezuela.He was hit by lightning,of all things.I believe his name was Carmen Guzman? Not sure, but yes,the tragedies continue.
davidcoonce74
Not remotely true. Look at the late 1800s/ early 1900s if you really want to read about baseball deaths.
datrain021
So young, so tragic. Praying for his family and teammates. Can’t imagine how hard it will be for them.
jonathanc09
Rip
soxfan1
RIP
jd396
It’s always sad when these guys go so suddenly and young like this, but a little more so when it happens to guys on your home team, or in the MiLB system at least.
cplovespie
Regardless of who he was RIP to a young man who had infinite possibility ahead of him
altuve2017mvp
Money and youth dont mix good. Numbers seem to be steady every year of young prospects dying in accidents. Hope his family is taken care of.
bagsmd
The vast majority of minor league baseball players are living below the poverty line. They could literally make more if they quit and went to work at McDonald’s flipping burgers, and they wouldn’t have to ride buses all day and live out of hotel rooms. When they are ‘home’ in the town where their teams are based, they stay with families (arranged by their minor league teams) who take them in because they can’t afford their own places to rent. They keep scraping by as long as they can in hopes of making it to the Majors and making big money, even then, the real big money wouldn’t start until they reached their arbitration years.
beyou02215
May God bless you and may you RIP.
Michael Macaulay-Birks
Condolences to the family, rest in peace
grandplatinum
R.I.P
kent814
Only the good die young
andrewgauldin
RIP
unsaturatedmatz
Rest in Peace, Yorman. We lost you too soon.
matthewalan09
did his father survive? either way, so terrible. rip bro
twins33
Yes and I think there were a few other people in the car from what I’ve seen snippets of. Yorman is the only one who died.
deadmanonleave
RIP. 🙁
jwarden15
His family are in my prayers. How sad for his dad to be driving.
RiverCatsFilms
Did his dad die?
twins33
No
Michael L
Time for a reporter to investigate whether his dad had a life insurance policy on his son.
halos101
RIP
RiverCatsFilms
MLB.com goes into further detail. The ambulance took a while to come and he was the only one to sustain a major injury. 4-5 others were in the car
JFactor
Such awful news
nrd1138
Wow.. RIP