The Reds announced Wednesday that 2018 No. 5 overall draft pick Jonathan India has made their Opening Day roster. He’ll need to be added to the Reds’ 40-man roster to make the move official.
At this point, India winning a spot shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s been apparent that the Reds expected him to play a prominent role in their infield since the club decided to move Eugenio Suarez back to shortstop and slide Mike Moustakas over to third base. India will likely open the season as Cincinnati’s everyday second baseman on the heels of a .313/.441/.604 showing through 59 spring plate appearances.
Headed into the 2019 season, the now-24-year-old India ranked among the game’s Top 100 prospects at Baseball America, MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs. At the time, India was regarded as a potential above-average defender at the hot corner who also possessed an above-average hit tool and above-average to plus raw power. His stock has tumbled a bit since then, however, despite a solid showing between two pitcher-friendly levels in 2019 — .259/.365/.402 between Class-A Advanced and Double-A. He still ranks third among Reds farmhands at Baseball America, fifth at MLB.com and seventh at FanGraphs.
India hasn’t shown much of that raw power since being drafted, although he’s of course only had one full minor league season due to last year’s circumstances. He still has just 145 plate appearances of Double-A experience under his belt and none in Triple-A, so he’ll be making a fairly substantial leap to the big leagues with today’s announcement. That said, India did homer three times and collect five doubles in his 59 Cactus League plate appearances, and his power could be aided by playing his home games at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. At the very least, he gives the Reds an intriguing collection of bats in the infield, even if there are some questions surrounding the group’s defensive outlook.
um…he isnt on their 40…
Yup — total goof on my part. I updated seconds after publishing. Not really sure what happened in my head there.
Luckily you have about a million editors waiting to help you out.
read the second sentence
yes Steve changed it.
Yeah, I definitely wrote that he was on the 40-man. Hit publish, and then immediately thought, “Wait — what?” and corrected right away. Just a weird brain fart. Apologies on the confusion.
lol….Brain Farts are my way of life
Starting 2B?
Has the final 26 man roster for TExas been published anywhere you have seen as of yet?
Not sure, not here i checked, maybe it’s on a rangers article
I can just hear the public address announcer reading off the starting lineup during player intros now…
Leading off and playing Center field: 3rd baseman Nick Senzel
Batting second and playing Right field:former 3rd baseman Nicholas Castellanos
Batting third and playing 1st base: Joey Votto
Batting fourth the shortstop: 3rd baseman Eugenio Suarez
Batting fifth and playing actual 3rd base: once again 3rd baseman Mike Moustakas
Batting sixth and playing left field: former little league 3rd baseman Jesse Winker
Batting seventh and playing third base….wait no playing second base: the 3rd baseman Jonathan India
Batting eighth and catching for the Reds: backup 3rd baseman Tucker Barnhart
And pitching for the Reds: Luis Castillo. (Fun fact ‘Castillo’ means third base in ancient Peloponnese
And the manager for the Reds: former THIRD BASEMAN David Bell.
Should be an…. interesting season
at least your manager isn’t a drunken moron like the one managing the White Sox.
He’s a sober moron.
Correct
Well he may not be a drunk but a moron nonetheless
@millerpark that “drunken idiot” in cws has won 3 ws with 2 teams and appeared in at least 5 others. iirc that “drunken idiot” beat the brew in 6 games and eventually a ws in 11. tbh i’ll gladly take a “drunken idiot” if it means he gets us a ws
And they will finish no better than 3rd
I wonder how many more times we hear this before it gets old…Already
Votto was drafted as a 3rd baseman
Votto was drafted as a catcher, believe it or not.
Bored?
Glad it’s shaking out like this. I was too crazy about the other SS options. I like to think positively for the most part and Geno returns to his former self at the plate, and the kid handles his job well or even a little exta…this could be a flat out genius move.
This team is like the Brewers a couple of seasons ago when they had to play Jonathan Schoop at shortstop and Travis Shaw to 2B because they acquired Mike Moustakas.
With this debacle of a lineup defensively, and a debacle of a starting rotation I hope manager David Bell is looking ahead in finding new employment come the off-season. It’s not stacking up well for him.
I’m so confused. What’s wrong with the rotation when Gray and Lorenzen come back in a week? It’s easily top 5 in the NL
Lorenzen??? You talk like Reds are missing Randy Johnson. Lolol He’s nothing but workout nut. He needs to focus more on baseball than biceps.
Lorenzen is a more than solid #5. As I’ve mentioned before, some guy named John Smoltz thinks the healthy version of the Reds rotation is well above average. But what does he know …
Lieutenant Dan? Is that you?
They are rushing India, just like Garcia the year before, and Senzel the year before that. Hopefully it will workout better than those 2 instances. I am not trying to be negative. I think he has a very good skill set, but he missed season of development, and has only playing 34 games at AA.
Ksoze, as we’ve discussed before, Senzel played, and hit, at every level of the minors AFTER playing college ball. He wasn’t rushed. Garcia obviously was rushed. We’ll see with India and Tyler Stephenson. Both got rave reviews at the alternate site last year.
Was Mike Leake rushed?