Jonathan India is Missing His Chance to Lead the Cincinnati Reds to Glory

Jonathan India is Missing His Chance to Lead the Cincinnati Reds to Glory

the Reds have struggled mightily at the plate which should have opened up an opportunity for this specific player to change his legacy only problem is he has not Rose to the [Music] occasion you are locked on reds your daily Cincinnati Reds podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day you are locked on reds and welcome in my name is Jeff Carr and I’m glad you’re alongside me today I have loved the Cincinnati Reds since birth seriously I got the baby pictures to prove it and this is my sixth season hosting the lock on reds podcast on a daily basis we are part of the lock on podcast Network your team every single day lock on reds is for everyone we try to be positive about our favorite team because well let’s be face it that’s The Road Less Traveled these days um and every day we’re going to discuss the big thing on every Reds Fan’s mind we’ll dive into geeky number numbers and overreact to Everyday movements of the marathon that is the MLB regular season I’m glad you’re with me here today because uh I’m going to look at a possible trade that the Reds could do later on in today’s episode I’m G to tell you why Nick Martinez isn’t as bad as a starting pitcher as you think he’s just unlucky but we must start first with the player who honestly has had a real shot to be a hero so far this season and he’s not taking advantage of it before we do that I wanted to let you know today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time download the game time app and create an account use the code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase terms apply let’s start first with the man who is not rising to the occasion and this kind of stinks I I try to bring positivity as much as I possibly can I mean the Reds lose again last night seven to3 they’ve lost eight of their last nine home games they’ve lost four or sorry 16 of their last 20 games overall this has been a horrid stretch for this team for the team that had expectations to take a step forward this year to be a playoff Contender to even contend for the division now injuries have played a part in that but but there are still some guys that have the ability to step up and I’m looking squarely at the guy who if you’re watching on YouTube you can see him on my shirt Jonathan India and if you’re not watching on YouTube it’s Jonathan India uh Jonathan India has not been a part of the solution this season and that’s disheartening we’re talking about a guy that he was the Rookie of the Year he had a real shot to maybe flip the script a little bit this season his last two years has has been marred by injury he’s he’s been marred by ineffectiveness largely um but he’s not a part of the solution right now and that is kind of what sort of I don’t know if it vexes me but I it’s a bummer let’s put it that way because we’re talking about a guy who after his rookie season it was clear he’s going to be the leader of this ball Club he’s going to be the leader of the the core group of players into the next era of winning Red’s Baseball and he he’s been anything but that for the last three years and and and and look last night was a tough game where I don’t necessarily know you can blame the lineup Padres went off uh every single thing that they touched with the bat found a hole found a gap and turned into a base hit for him and they got seven runs on 14 hits absolutely clobbered Nick Martinez however Nick Martinez was getting unlucky we’ll get to that a little bit later on but this lineup continued to really just disappear for long stretches it looked like they might try to come back later on in the game but then nothing happened and this has been a similar narrative this year that the Reds need someone else besides Ellie De La Cruz to step up and it’s never been consistently the same person it feels like for a small stretch that was Spencer steer for a couple of games here and there it’s been jamer candelerio Jamon candelerio was the only guy that was really hitting the ball hard last night but Jonathan India has not been that guy and coming into the off season we looked at him we said all right well Matt McLean’s playing second base so don’t think that’s going to happen so are you going to move him to DH well you got plenty of guys you can put in the DH spot um where else can he play okay first base well CES is going to player so candelerio all right you going to move him to the Outfield yeah see if we can move him to the Outfield then all these injuries happen and and amid trade speculation where honestly at the end of the day we said boy it’s a good thing that the Reds didn’t trade Jonathan India with all these injuries but what would they have gotten for him would it have been better because it certainly feels like they’ve missed that window now I don’t know what you trade JN India for now like he’s he’s becoming a change of scenery guy and after winning the Rookie of the Year that is just it’s just a huge bummer but and and I hate to start the show off on this this foot today really I mean the Reds losing it’s not as if we were going to find a whole lot of Happiness to start the show with but I I find this interesting because nobody’s really talking about Jonathan India so far this season Jonathan India statistics ICS have been kind of bad okay not kind of bad he’s slugging under 300 he is a li hitting second baseman right now and his batting average is super low 212 not going to help he has just six extra base hits on the season and when you look at his baseball Savant page I always try to do this to be like okay well let’s look at the peripherals what do they say he’s not hitting the ball hard he’s hitting below League average on the average exit velocity League average is 88 he’s at 87 he gets on base just under a third of the time and his plate discipline has been immaculate there’s no doubt there he’s he’s been fantastic at the plate as far as pitch recognition goes but it’s when he has to swing the bat he is not a threat to the opposing pitcher and that more than anything has been the biggest disappointment because his glove was never going to be the best part of his game we know this even during his Rookie of the Year campaign he was just average at second base so he’s got a hit to be valuable and he’s not doing that in fact I mean you you can expand this performance out cuz you know we always say the thing right like small sample size if we get too excited about a guy in a small sample size we try to temper our expectations if somebody’s doing really bad in a small sample size we say look he still got plenty of time to prove us wrong let’s expand this out to a hug huge sample size three years the last three seasons for Jonathan India 1,134 plate appearances that ain’t a small sample size his spash line he has a 242 average 332 on base 379 sluggy he’s a light hitting second baseman and I hate to say that because it feels as though he was positioning himself to be a Le of this ball Club he would be a guy that if you’re like okay who would you want to step up in a clutch situation somebody who could really take over the game for the Reds you would want Jonathan India to be on that list and in his rookie season he was but since his rookie season he has been as far away from that list as you can be because right now on a healthy ball Club the performances that he has put up over the last three years he is a bench bat and he’s a bench Bap that lacks pop so that’s kind of tough I mean even over the last three years those 1,134 plate appearances even then his average exit velocity is still 87 it’s three years of light hitting I think at this point we know who Jonathan India is and the biggest problem with that is the Reds have missed their window to trade him I if if you were on the train of boy the Reds could really get something good for Jonathan India this off season you know being last off season then you’re probably kind of mad right now cuz I don’t know what value you would get if you look to trade him and certainly the reds are far too hurt to set Jonathan India down they need him and he’s just not stepping up it’s the hardest part about this because he is a guy that had the ability to to flip his narrative because his narrative was headed in that direction at the beginning of the season and there’s still plenty of time obviously it’s early on in the season and all this other stuff but seeing the trends that he has put forth these last three years and seeing the fact that they are even worse to begin this season how confident are we that he’s going to turn that ship around it’s unfortunate but I I I think I think this this could have been the bounceback party and it’s proven anything but that for Jonathan India you know let’s let’s let’s turn things around let’s give some hope because Nick Martinez is not a bad starting pitcher and I’ve got the numbers to prove it coming up next today’s episode is brought to you in part by game time my favorite way to get to the ballpark 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your favorite podcast app in case you can’t watch us on YouTube and you’re taking us with you on your drive or on your run or something like that we are available everywhere you get your podcast and always for free all right let’s dive into a little bit of positivity first segment a little bit of disappointment second segment let me give you a little bit of Hope because last night Nick Martinez didn’t have the greatest of starts but if you look past the one number the one number everybody can’t look past earned runs if you look past that you see a guy that’s actually a pretty decent pitcher earn runs are partially a pitcher’s fault but it also requires the defense to be making plays behind him and it requires a little bit of luck or in this case unluckiness because Nick Martinez as a starter has been unlucky let’s let’s break this down though because he has pitched six games as a relief pitcher and he’s pitched five games as a starter in six games as a relever he’s tossed 17 in the third Innings only allowing two runs on 10 hits and two walks compared to 14 strikeouts was pretty good and then five games of as a starter you look at that 25 and 2/3 Innings pitched with 21 earned runs allowed on 39 hits with four walks and 17 strikeouts obviously he’s better as a relever right dig deeper a little bit because so far this season he has had the lowest walk rate of his career the lowest homers per n Innings so the lowest home run rate of his career the highest batting average on balls in play of his career and the lowest amount of left on base percentage so that is a statistic of you know when the inning ends how many Runners were on base when or you know how many Runners into the Inning on base as opposed to scoring and if you you know if you end the inning without giving up any runs and there’s guys on base then your left on base percentage is 100% his left on base percentage for the season so far 61% league averag is somewhere in the 70s so he’s getting unlucky this is a real thing League average batting average on balls in play is 299 his bab up as a starter is 395 you buy that and now you’re saying well but he’s he’s giving up all this stuff what I’m telling you is to this point he’s been unlucky and if you’re going to throw the baby out with the bath water you should probably understand where the bath water’s coming from he’s been getting unlucky and I think too you know maybe the Reds employ an opener strategy whenever they have to start Nick Martinez because Nick Martinez is a luxury that this team has never had or at least hasn’t had in a very long time in that if and Nick Lolo has been the guy that’s been injured off and on but if there is a pitcher that goes on the injured list for a short amount of time you can put Nick Martinez in that spot and not miss a Beat and maybe you employ an opener strategy if you have to use Nick Martinez as a starter because then you don’t really have a true Bullpen day you can use one opener maybe even two openers like the Reds used in the last outing they actually used three openers and then they got to Nick Martinez and he pitched almost as much as a starter would pitch anyway and you’re getting deep into the ball game and you’re not using a ton of guys out of your Bullpen because yes last year we said we never want to hear the words Bullpen day ever again on lockdown Reds and I stand by that because the bullpen day that the Reds used last year was everybody in the bullpen pitches one inning that’s not feasible with Nick Martinez you don’t have to do that in fact with Nick Martinez and with Brent Suter you don’t have to do that in fact let’s take it even a step further with Nick Martinez Brent Suter and Carson spers who actually pitched pretty well last night three and a third Innings of sh out ball with those guys you can employ a different type of Bullpen day but I’m saying this is there there’s a lot of people out there right now that are basing the split of Nick Martinez as a starter versus Nick Martinez as a relever to prove that this was somehow a bad get for the Reds that that Nick Martinez is not the pitcher that they should have went for and while his ground ball rate is St very strikingly different from it was last year last year was 53% ground ball rate and I loved it this year it’s in the 30% range and I hate it I think that’s going to tick up we see him being very good at limiting weak con or limiting hard contact and forcing weak contact it’s just he’s getting babed to death every time he’s out on the mound as a starter so I believe that there’s some unluckiness going on there and I believe that that turns around quicker than and maybe the turnaround is what we see when he comes in as a relief pitcher but this is how water Finds Its level with a player right the babip the left on base percentage that stuff normalizes it’s the things that he can control his strikeout rate which his strikeout rate isn’t amazing but his walk rate is his walk rate is Elite and if he can keep that up the rest of the year while raising his ground ball percentage up he is going to be every bit the pitcher that we hoped he could be in whatever situation that the Reds employ him in so don’t look at some of these starts and think that he’s not a good pitcher he’s been getting unlucky as a starter and he is a good pitcher all right coming up next I’ll give you the trade that Nick crawl should be crawling should be calling around uh the league for right this moment there’s so many ways to get into the baseball season this year but Chief among them is prize picks because they’re the number one daily fantasy sports app you got to check them out today and this is a great way to take advantage of Ellie Del La Cruz performances because prize pick has all the different options whether you’re talking about statistics for for more or less because all you have to do you get on the prize pick app you pick your favorite players you pick your favorite stats you click 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talk.com I’m riding over there James or Pine’s riding over there Steve’s riding over there a lot of great folks Austin Elmore uh Rick uchino everybody’s over there writing some good stuff about the Cincinnati Reds all right uh we’re getting into the season it’s still early it’s still maybe about a month early to be talking about trade season but with the Padres in town and Lis arise on the other side of the field where on opening day he was a Marlin not a padre everyone’s wondering are the Reds going to make a trade this year I I still think that if the reds are making any sort of trade it’s going to be for a right-handed outf bat this is something that they should have addressed this past off season they had plenty of opportunities to do so in free agency and they didn’t and it’s clear that they still need to do it there’s not a situation here where I’m where I’m thinking that the reds are good with the right-handed Outfield bat because they continually employ another left-handed guy in the outfield on the bench whether it’s Conor capable or Nick Martini they they keep having their fifth outfielder as a right-handed bat so if you go trade or as a left-handed bat so if you go trade for that right-handed bat I feel like you stabilize this Outfield and quite frankly The Outfield is the one group that we really had questions about coming into the year on the position side of things the unfield always looked fine catching group we knew what we were going to get out of them hoping that we were going to get more but we knew what the Baseline was the Outfield was full of guys that look like platoon players and then there’s TJ Fredo who can play every day and Spencer steer who can hit well we just hope he can play The Outfield he’s looked okay in the Outfield but without TJ fredel this Outfield has just been a hodgepodge of Hope whether it be steuart Fairchild in the best shap best shape of his life will Benson can definitely hit left-handed pitching although he’s starting to look like he can’t Jake fry just hoping he can stay on the field as well the Reds really don’t have a Surefire thing so either go get a right-handed platoon guy or go get a everyday guy that’s right-handed because there’s two guys that I’m looking at here and and look I don’t necessarily think that a trade right now would fix everything this trade is to help bridge the gap to when there’s a healthy roster because let’s look at it this way you’re not going to get a player an everyday player at a position where somebody is coming coming back from an injury the Reds aren’t going to go get a second baseman so as much as we might wonder and him and Hall about could the Reds have gotten Louis arise from the Marlins instead of the Padres it wouldn’t have made sense they got plenty of infielders they aren’t going to go get a second baseman they aren’t going to go get a first or a third baseman they’re they’re going to wait that out they’re going to wait out those injury situations plus you’ve also got noie Marte it’s going to be back at the end of June as well the infields fine so they’re not going to go get that they’re not going to go trade for a catcher that that’s just not going to happen plus Tyler demon is really starting to hit the ball well so go get a right-handed Outfield bat and there’s two guys that I’m looking at number one is Tommy fam from the white socks quite frankly about three or four weeks ago he was from free agency so you wouldn’t had to trade anybody for him but ever since he started playing with the wh Sox he’s not played enough to like qualify for some stats but what he has done so far is he’s hit the ball really freaking hard the the slugging percentage is good his average exit velocity is good he is he is looking like a dude who you could slot into the middle of the order or at least in the five6 spot against the left-handed pitcher and feel really good about it how many guys on this roster can you currently say that about there’s a lot of guys that you’re squinting really hard to say well I think they can hit a lefty pretty good Tommy fam can and we know it we don’t have to squint for it but I’m going to tell you this the the guy that I want the Reds to go get and I forget I I feel like I saw this out on Twitter so if somebody’s thrown this out on Twitter um I’m shouting you out sort of I just don’t remember who it was that did this but go get Brent Rooker from the Oakland A’s Brent Rooker is a right-handed Outfield bat he’s 29 years old he’s having the best season of his career make no mistake about it what he’s doing so far this year is a lot different than what we’ve seen the rest of his career but to say that is the cash in on that because maybe you don’t have to break the bank to go get a guy like Brent Rooker plus he’s not even arbitration eligible until 2025 he’s not a free agian until 2028 multiple years of Team control I think you could probably get him you might still have to give up a decent Prospect for him but you’re not going to have to trade the farm and you can make the argument that you can play him a little bit more than just a right-handed platoon bat and you could definitely put him in the middle of the order he’s slugging over 500 right now he’s hitting over 280 right now and according to baseball saon all of his expected numbers actually show he’s not getting lucky they’re right there where his numbers are and when your expected numbers line up with your actual numbers that means that you’re doing something good and Brook Brent Rooker is doing something good now the A’s are kind of fluttering around could they be interesting could they not be interesting interesting they’re probably not in cell mode currently although what am I saying they’re the Oakland A’s they’re always in Cell mode see what I did there but I I I feel like the Reds could go get him because again he’s 29 years old that’s not a guy that if you’re a normal rebuilding team you think we’re going to build around a 29y old player but the Reds could probably offer up a decent Prospect or maybe a couple of pretty good prospects and go get Brent Rooker not exactly sure what those would look like I I want to have Doug Gray on here and maybe I’ll do that here in the next couple of days um to kind of look at all right where we at with the Red’s farm system right now who would be a player that you would offer up in a trade things like that that might be a good conversation to have with him um because early on this early on the season where we’re at right now it’s pre-trade season the the the the Louis arise deal and I keep coming back to that at least in my mind I don’t know if you do or not um but you probably hear it on the broadcast and think wow the Padre’s went and got somebody already it’s really rare that a big trade like that happens now and actually that happened like a week ago or two weeks ago very very early in the season the Marlins are such a strange franchise I don’t know what’s going on with them go check out Peter Pratt over at lockdown Marlins he has more insight to it and it’s it’s he has a lot of fun talking about it too um but yeah I I just don’t know that the Reds can make a trade this early but somebody they should be looking at is Brent Rooker and I really think that he would help transform this lineup even just a little bit during the doldrums of this injury riddled beginning of the Season where it just feels like if we’re being quite honest with you like if I’m being honest with you if you ask me what do the Reds have to do they just got to stay the course just got to get healthy and I know every time we hear a general manager say that every time we hear a manager say that we roll our eyes so hard that they can hear us that Great American Ballpark but that’s really what they got to do you’re not going to go out and get a brand new roster right now you’re not going to go out and get an everyday infielder right now you’re not going to go out and get a middle of thee order bat right now because number one it’s going to cost you a lot Brent Rooker could be that middle of the bat order but again I’m telling you he’s playing a lot a lot out in front of his skis right now he could come back down to earth a little bit but that’s still a guy that would help out this lightup but for the most part you’re not going to break the bank because you’ve got a lot of talent that’s getting ready to come off the ilil here in the next couple of months it’s just you want to tread water as much as you possibly can during this time Brent Rooker helps you do that much better than a Stuart Fairchild or a Nick Martini or a Connor capable or insert name here or a Mike Ford Brent Rooker is better than all those guys go get them I think it would work and that’s where we’re going to end today’s podcast thanks everybody so much for checking out this edition of the lockdown Reds podcast as always if you’re not an everyday or make sure you become one by subscribing right here on YouTube and following us on your favorite podcasting app because we’re going to be with you every single day when or lose because we are locked on reds every single day

Jonathan India was gifted a new lease on his career when all the injuries piled up for the Cincinnati Reds. India has not taken advantage of the opportunity, though. The Reds really need him to step up and lead this team and India is missing the mark.

Also, Nick Martinez is an unlucky pitcher. And the Reds should make a trade for a right-handed outfield bat like Brent Rooker from the Oakland A’s.

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