Former Campbell All-State pitcher of the year and Hawaii Hall of Honor inductee Ian Kahaloa was released by the Cincinnati Reds on Monday.
Kahaloa, who served a 50-game suspension to start the season after testing positive a second time for “a drug of abuse,” was a fifth-round pick of the Reds in 2015.
According to a story posted on Cincinnati.com, Reds farm director Jeff Graupe said Kahaloa did not do enough to show the team he was trying to take care of his issues.
“I don’t want to get into the specifics of what our requests were and how the program went, but in the end we just didn’t see what we needed to see,” Graupe said.
Kahaloa spent two seasons in Rookie ball and was 3-2 with a 2.35 ERA in 20 games with 17 starts. In 76 2/3 innings, Kahaloa allowed 56 hits and 20 walks with 83 strikeouts.
He was listed as the Reds’ 26th best prospect by Baseball America at the time of his suspension.
Kahaloa was also involved in an incident in November 2015 when he claimed to have been assaulted and mugged at Nimitz Beach around 5:30 a.m. according to this KHON2 story.
Too bad. This kid had so much talent, and so much potential. I don’t know if it would have made any difference, but I really think that the MLB should stop taking kids straight out of high school. It’s already a huge adjustment to go from high school to college, but when you go right into the minors, you are surrounded by a bunch of guys that tend to be a lot older, and a lot less supervision.
Hope he turns his life around, he is still so young. Needs support to kick this and hopefully can then make a comeback.
Just another guy from Hawaii unprepared to handle life in the real world off the island