Ryan Costello: Minnesota Twins prospect found dead aged 23
Minnesota Twins prospect Ryan Costello was found dead on Sunday in his hotel room in New Zealand. He was 23.
The Connecticut native was in New Zealand to play for the Auckland Tuatara of the Australian Baseball League. Preliminary indications suggested Costello died of natural causes, according to multiple reports.
“On behalf of the entire organization, the Twins send their most sincere condolences to Ryan’s family, friends, coaches and teammates,” the Twins said in a press release Monday.
His ABL team also released a statement. “The Tuatara would like to express their deepest condolences to Ryan’s family back home in the United States and to the whole Minnesota Twins organisation,” the statement read. “Support is being offered to the Tuatara players, who are naturally devastated at the moment.”
Costello was originally drafted in the 31st round of the MLB draft by the Seattle Mariners in 2017, and was traded to Minnesota in July 2018. He played minor league baseball for the Clinton Lumberjacks and later for the Fort Myers Miracle during their 2018 championship run.
In an interview with Twins Daily in October 2018, Costello said that his greatest strength is “my ability to stay positive through tough times and understand that it’s part of the game and ups and downs are going to come.”
He spoke of his desire to spend time with family after his first professional season in 2019. “My dad has a bass boat and has had it since I was a kid,” Costello said. “The first thing we do when I go home is go fishing. I’ve been home for seven days, I’ve been out fishing about four of those days. I live about five minutes from a river, the Connecticut River, so we go fishing on the river a lot.”