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Report: Phillies Have Verbal Agreement with Ronald Acuna Jr.’s Brother
Published:
MLB Insider Hector Gomez on X:
A reported verbal commitment, four years away, doesn’t mean much, but if 2028 comes around and this guy is just 65% as good as his brother, then let’s #DoTheDeal. I know everyone does the “Philly always gets the lesser brother” joke, but would you rather have Austin Nola right now?
International free agents need to be 16 years old when they come to MLB, so people are reverse engineering this to realize that Kenny Acuna has to be 12 or 13. That’s not gonna fly with the portion of folks who think it’s way too young for anyone to be giving any kind of future commitment. “Predatory” is what they’ll call it, and the reality is that international free agency is a shit show. There’s no international draft, so domestic players come into the system in a completely different fashion than foreign players. This was a topic during the last CBA negotiation and did not result in a resolution, so it will come up again during the next bargaining session.
Meantime, in the NL East:
Photo: Reddit user “kaehvogel”
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com