It’s not as easy as it may seem.

The lightly spoken-of elephant in the room here needs mention first: Jonathan India has not been healthy for most of the last two seasons. The one season he was truly healthy (2021) was stellar for both him and the Cincinnati Reds, and he hit his way to the National League Rookie of the Year Award while being the most valuable position player on the roster (per Baseball Reference).

While it may not be the sole cause for me actually having to write an article about ‘finding’ a place for him in the Reds lineup, there’s at least a chance that if he stays healthy he will obviously be good enough to be in it everyday. Thing is, the previous two seasons provided him with nary a roadblock to the opportunity to prove he could get back to his 2021 level, while the 2024 Reds roster might well have put in enough fail-safes to not provide him with a ton of chances to do so.

The options around the infield abound. Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Matt McLain, Elly De La Cruz, Jeimer Candelario, Noelvi Marte, and Spencer Steer all don’t just exist, but they exist as players who can hit right-handed, as well. At least three or four of them project as potentially above-average defenders, too, something that India has yet to show in any season – even 2021. As a result, manager David Bell began speaking about getting India time at positions other than his usual 2B throughout the 2024 season as a way of getting his bat into the lineup.

The knee-jerk reaction is to suggest he, a right-handed hitter, get stacked into the lineup somewhere when the team faces LHP. With TJ Friedl, Will Benson, and Jake Fraley all left-handed hitters in the outfield, slotting him into a corner spot opposite, say, Spencer Steer would seem to make sense on paper, but that’s a key conundrum with India.

He’s the owner of a career .732 OPS against LHP, while he’s hit righties at a much more impressive .783 clip. That career .732 OPS against LHP just so happens to be the exact same number as Kevin Newman’s mark against LHP, for the record. Just 7 of his 48 career homers have come against southpaws, and among the 80 right-handed MLB hitters who have logged at least 400 PA against LHP since the start of 2021, his .380 slugging percentage ranks 75th.

Of the 102 right-handed MLB hitters who’ve logged at least 250 PA against LHP since the start of the 2022 season, his .345 slugging percentage ranks 98th. Since the start of the 2022 season, he’s the owner of just a .303 wOBA against LHP – that ranks just 14th among the 21 Reds hitters who’ve logged at least 60 PA against southpaws in that time, and ranks well behind, say, Stuart Fairchild (.343 wOBA in 152 PA in that time).

Fairchild, as we’ve seen, can play some pretty decent defense in the outfield, too. That would seemingly put India behind Fairchild on the ‘OF against LHP’ pecking order, and since Friedl has excelled at hitting LHP despite hitting lefty himself, that sure makes it sound like an outfield of Steer, Friedl, and Fairchild is the way to go on days when a lefty makes a start against them.

Despite India’s relative struggles against southpaws, it’s worth pointing out that nobody struggled against them more at the big league level last year than Elly De La Cruz. On the same list of 21 Reds who logged at least 60 PA against southpaws since the start of the 2022 season, Elly’s meager .221 wOBA against them ranks dead last – he hit just .184/.231/.263 with a 40.2% K-rate against them in 122 PA last year. The question then becomes whether India’s more ‘proven’ struggles against LHP would make him a better option for an infield spot than letting Elly, a switch-hitter who mashed RHP much better than LHP, get the opportunity to work through his and get more experience.

In this light, if you squint, you can maybe see an infield alignment against LHP that features CES at 1B, India at 2B, McLain at SS, Marte at 3B, and perhaps Candelario – a switch-hitter who’s hit LHP better for his career than RHP and about the same in 2023 – could DH for the day.

Still, ‘2B against the short-side of a platoon when it’s not even what you do best’ seems like a misuse of India. As we mentioned earlier (and has been mentioned all over), he’s not a great defender out there, and for a pitching staff pitching in a bandbox who’s trying to keep balls on the ground as much as possible, sacrificing up-the-middle defense just to get a guy in the lineup vs. LHP who’s not even that good at hitting LHP seems a bit forced.

Therein lies the problem. Despite India’s solid-enough .781 OPS and .341 wOBA against RHP during the 2023 season, that ranked just tied for 7th best on the Reds – and it ranked behind each of Marte, CES, Candelario, and McLain (while being virtually tied with Steer’s .779 OPS and .341 wOBA). Elly, for the record, checked in with a .799 OPS and .338 wOBA. Each of Will Benson and Jake Fraley ranked higher than India in both, while Friedl was a push with a .785 OPS and .338 wOBA (with elite CF defense, of course).

In other words, he may have found himself in the odd scenario of ‘probably being good enough to deserve to start in situations where he’s not at his best’ while also ‘not good enough to start in situations where he can put his best skills on the table.’ Barring injuries to other spots on the roster, I’m not sure exactly how you rectify that if you’re David Bell.

Injuries. That’s the ultimate rub here, I think. It’s hard to look at the 2-year, potentially $10.95 million contract that the Reds gave India this winter that avoided arbitration without thinking that he’s got more in the tank, when healthy, than what those numbers show over the last two years. If they truly believed that’s all he was, after all, it would’ve made a lot more sense on-paper to keep the right-handed hitting, lefty-mashing infielder/outfielder they drafted in the 1st round two years before him for a lot less money instead.

At whose expense does enough playing time to prove that come, though? Does it mean they option Marte to AAA to begin the season? Would they really sit Elly against LHP, stunting his switch-hitting when as recently as 2021 he actually hit better against LHP in the minors than against RHP? Will his foot, which had another flare-up this winter that has kept him sidelined through Cactus League play so far, ever actually let us find out?

According to The Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith, we may begin to find out as early as Friday.