Arizona Diamondbacks' prospect Kristian Robinson’s career in limbo after sentencing

Diamondbacks prospect Kristian Robinson was sentenced to 18 months probation on Tuesday for assaulting an officer last year, a ruling that likely puts his playing career in jeopardy for the foreseeable future.

In April 2020, Robinson, an outfielder from the Bahamas and one of the top prospects in the Diamondbacks’ farm system, was picked up along Interstate 10 about an hour outside of Phoenix after law enforcement received calls of a man meeting his description seen walking in traffic.

According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety incident report, Robinson initially agreed to get in the backseat of an officer’s vehicle. Soon after, he tried to exit the vehicle and punched the officer. Robinson said in a statement earlier this year that he was experiencing mental health issues at the time and has since sought treatment. He never has denied hitting the officer.

Robinson had been hoping to get the charges designated as a misdemeanor, which his representatives believe would have made securing a work visa far easier. Instead, it was listed in the plea agreement as a “Class 6 undesignated felony,” leading to some confusion as Robinson’s current status.

Michael Kimerer, Robinson’s attorney, said early Tuesday afternoon that his understanding is that because it is “undesignated,” it is neither a misdemeanor nor a felony, and that it will be considered a misdemeanor once he completes probation or become a felony if he doesn’t. He hopes this technicality will allow Robinson to secure a new visa in place of his current one, which expires next month.

However, a spokeswoman from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office pointed to an Arizona statute that says “the offense shall be treated as a felony for all purposes until such time as the court may actually enter an order designating the offense a misdemeanor.”

Kimerer said he will seek guidance from Robinson’s immigration attorney to determine the next steps. If Tuesday’s ruling creates legitimate visa concerns, Kimerer said he might look to ask the judge to reconsider the sentence.

“If they say he’s stuck — and they’re going to probably say he has to go back to the Bahamas — how can he do probation if he can’t get back in the country?” Kimerer said.

Robinson’s plea agreement includes 150 hours of community service, Kimerer said.

Robinson’s agent, Kris Glazier, said he was disappointed by the ruling in part because of how proactive Robinson had been since the incident.

“Kristian has done a tremendous amount of hard work to get himself over the past year from counseling to random drug testing," Glazier said, "and we had hoped and thought that that would weight more into the judge’s decision of who he is as a person instead of defining him by one night and one incident."

Glazier continued: "As the son of a 30-year police veteran, I certainly understand law enforcement as much as anybody can imagine. I’m not trying to downplay what he did. I even said it in court: I publicly thanked the trooper involved. Kristian did the same thing. I’m thankful of the job he did that night. He might have saved Kristian’s life that day. This could be a whole different story that we’re writing.”

Robinson has not played in an official minor league game since the end of the 2019 season. He entered this season as the No. 93 prospect in all of baseball according to Baseball America.

This is the year Robinson has to be added to the 40-man roster in order to be protected from the Rule 5 draft; it is not immediately clear what his legal situation would mean to his chances of either being protected or being selected by another team.

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.