The Jonathan India trade might be more significant than we realize. It doesn’t just infuse a righty into a rotation that can always use infusing. It signals a potential shift in how the Reds view personnel-building.
I was asked on X what I thought about the trade, and my response was “I need a minute,” because I am a full-on girl with a stuffed Baby Yoda in her home and a penchant for scented candles, and yeah, I needed a minute to digest that this was actually happening. The departure of Joey Votto was manageable because it was expected and indeed rehearsed for via long injuries, but the front office never seemed truly committed to dealing India, so it didn’t seem worth the time or energy to consider a team without him.
Jonathan India put himself forward as a clubhouse leader in the absence of Votto, but he wasn’t Votto, and that is because no one can be Votto. They are different men with different ideas of how to conduct themselves as public faces of a ballclub.
The Hug Dispenser
Once Votto began agreeing to in-depth interviews and expressing himself more openly on social media, he revealed a deeply thoughtful man whose quirky sense of humor was overshadowed by a sense of obligation to the ethos of his rookiedom: Shut up, keep your head, down and hit. He is emotionally aware, but not in the way India seems.
Votto was the man you would go to if you needed pointers on your stance and perhaps a word of advice on how to get your neighbor to stop parking across your driveway. India was the hug dispenser.
Over his brief career, India subtly integrated himself with the team such that seeing him in a Royals hat fetched the universal online verdict of looking weird. “Gut punch” was the trending term. It is understandable that the front office was reluctant to deal him.
Teammate Most Emotionally Aware
Every clubhouse needs at least one hug dispenser, but ours hit slightly above the league average and could be counted upon to avoid arrest, which, in modern athletics, is quite the thing.
India was on the team for a scant four years, but it felt like longer. He was a dependable member of a clubhouse in transition and fan upheaval, and seemed the most emotionally aware of the more public Reds. That’s an intangible quality, but at the MLB level, intangibles are sometimes the difference between what gets you traded and what gets you rostered.
So it was easy to become attached to India; no one really hated him, he was a solid if not spectacular asset, and everyone accorded him a nice fellow who avoided insulting entire rival cities. In the position the Reds have occupied for the past few decades, that was enough to sit on the plane rather than the bus.
But with Terry Francona in town, perhaps it’s no longer good enough.
How to Win
The addition of Francona was such a shocker that I wouldn’t be surprised if he stipulated a certain say in retaining or releasing personnel. Here is a man who knows how to win. He doesn’t strike me as a particularly unkind person, but Francona apparently understands that the nice guy isn’t necessarily the best guy in a lineup.
So if this is the new way of life on the riverfront, we are going to have to come to terms with saying goodbye to those who we have come to view as inevitable parts of the family. Reds management has long been accused of favoring sentimentality over sense, and to the extent that this team is almost spiritually anchored to the populace, that’s a little understandable.
But it doesn’t make for more World Series trophies next to the ones we already cherish so dearly. To pick up a championship, it’s well past time to empty our hands of what we were already holding too tightly.
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