Cincinnati Reds pitching prospect Ian Kahaloa, a 2015 fifth round selection, appears to have recorded himself snorting what appears to be cocaine. Why did he do this? We're as miffed as you. But the video, which looks like it's from Kahaloa's Snapchat account, was uploaded onto Twitter about three weeks ago, where it was then itself recorded by a Twitter user calling themselves "Reds_1fan."
The Reds fan also posted this vid:
Cincinnati's player development director, a man named Jeff Graupe, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the team has known about the video since it was first posted in March, and added that it's both "alarming" and that they're "really concerned" about it. "We’re working to get Ian the help and assistance that we believe he needs to get his long-term future to a more stable place," Graupe said. "We’re kind of putting the baseball on the backburner."
As we said in the first paragraph, the 19-year-old Kahaloa was drafted in 2015, but hasn't risen above rookie ball since then. Going into this season Baseball America ranked him as the No. 26 prospect in the Reds' system.
On Tuesday he was handed a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy. The suspension was/is Kahaloa's second for testing positive for a "drug of abuse." He is currently in a drug treatment program.
