DET
Jonathan India, IF
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Scouting report
The Reds opted in to the data and video sharing agreement from the alternate sites, and without a summer of games to see, pro scouts spent a lot of time parsing and writing reports off of video in 2020. These evaluations are especially important drivers for my opinion regarding India, who was coming off a nagging wrist injury that impacted his performance and ultimately ended his 2019 season (a lat issue ended his 2020). I've been a fairly staunch India skeptic, pointing to his draft year campaign as the anomaly among seasons of otherwise pedestrian output. There's renewed scout confidence in India's bat, at least from a contact perspective. He squared up the player pool pitching at Prasco Park pretty well but the exit velo data from the site is middling, at least at the top end of India's exit velocities. He also may not throw well enough to play third base, or have the range to play second, so I think there's increased risk that he ends up spending most of his time in left field, and I don't think he will have the power to profile as an everyday player there. But I think he might accidentally back into some prized defensive versatility by virtue of the Reds trying him all over the field, and end up playing a valuable multi-positional -- but ultimately bat-centric -- role. He just turned 24 and still hasn't had meaningful at-bats above A-ball. (Alternate site)