The Royals have signed infielder Jonathan India to a one-year, $8MM deal for the upcoming season, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. India, projected for a $7.4MM salary by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, had been widely viewed as a non-tender candidate on the heels of a poor first season in Kansas City, but he’ll return and hope to rebound in 2026. He’ll be a free agent next offseason.
India, 29 next month, posted career-worst marks in most categories during his first season as a Royal. The former NL Rookie of the Year was traded to Kansas City alongside Joey Wiemer in a deal that sent right-hander Brady Singer back to Cincinnati. India’s .233 batting average, .323 on-base percentage, .346 slugging percentage, nine home runs and zero stolen bases (in four attempts) were all career-low marks — despite the fact that his 136 games played and 567 plate appearances were both the third-highest totals he’d tallied in five seasons.
Despite those downturns, India posted better-than-average walk, strikeout and contact rates. His 18.7% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career. Unfortunately, he also popped up at the highest rate of his career, hit line-drives at the lowest rate of his career, and continued to post sub-par exit velocity and hard-hit marks.
The move to Kansas City and the spacious Kauffmann Stadium always seemed like a dubious fit for the former first-round pick. India hit .266/.364/.444 at the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park during his four years as a Red, compared to just .241/.341/.381 on the road. He hit 54% of his home runs at GABP despite the fact that only 48% of his plate appearances in that time came at home. India homered roughly once every 32 plate appearances at home compared to once every 39 on the road. Statcast ranks GABP as the second most homer-friendly park in the game for right-handed hitters; Kauffman Stadium is 19th.
Kansas City also gave India his first major league experience at positions other than second base, with 146 innings in left field and 149 at third base. (He’d played third base in college and in the minors.) Neither experiment went well. Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved panned his glovework at both spots and at his customary second base, where he’s never graded as even an average defender.
There’s clearly a track record of better results with India, who entered 2025 as a career .253/.352/.413 hitter. A disproportionate amount of his career production, however, came in a rookie season that now looks like an outlier. India was a deserving Rookie of the Year in ’21 when he hit .269/.376/.459 with 21 homers and 34 doubles in 651 plate appearances. But from 2022-24, that production slipped to .247/.343/.393 with 42 homers in 1597 plate appearances.
The Royals are betting on that track record and hoping that he can at least return to his 2023-24 form. There aren’t many positive trend lines on which to base that hope, when looking at his 2025 season, but the Royals believed in India enough to trade a solid mid-rotation starter and apparently haven’t soured on him after the poor season.
India’s return locks him in at second base and/or left field. Maikel Garcia has seized third base as his long-term home with a terrific 2025 breakout showing. Which of those positions India plays more regularly hinges on the remainder of the Royals’ offseason moves. They’ll be in the market for offensive upgrades both via free agency and trade, but keeping India around means they’ll have even fewer resources available to pursue that goal. The Royals’ projected $143MM payroll (per RosterResource) is already higher than last year’s mark.
Royals just wasted 8M dollars. JJ Piccolo just couldn’t admit that he lost the Singer trade.
Well he definitely lost year one of the trade but I think his hands are tied, there’s not much out there or internally in his MI that’ll help improve the team. If he lets India go and he reverts to normal after having given up so much in Singer, he’d be a double boob. India had good obp skills, I think they’ll return. If not it’s only money.
I don’t mind keeping him, but it seems like they could have paid about 750K less.
Or $750k total (Reds fan here)…
Sometimes you have to look in the mirror and make a conscious decision to double down on mediocrity. Well played KC…
Unbelievable he’d spend $8M on India. Can’t the Royals spend that money more efficiently?
It’s similar to the Orioles keeping Mountcastle at his $8 million projected salary. But at least India has more defensive versatility.
India’s defense is offensive.
I’d hardly call it versatility.
Wasn’t he projected at like $7.4M?
Maybe Piccolo thinks paying India a little extra will motivate him more and therefore make it more likely that he improves in 2026?
Just spitballing here because I don’t quite understand why you’d offer him the projected amount, much less an extra $600k on top of it.
Imagine a.233 hitter getting over 7 plus million-smh
.233 isn’t a problem. A .669 OPS with poor defense is a problem.
Exactly! He doesn’t have a position where he isn’t disastrous – still getting paid based on a good rookie year (nothing of value since)…
I can’t believe after the season he just had that they didn’t cut his salary. In other words offered him like a $4 million dollar contract and tell him if he didn’t take it they cut him.
There needs to be more GMs that take this approach. No way he gets much above league minimum on the open market. Might have only gotten a minor league contract offer had he hit free agency.
Can’t cut non-FAs more than 20% I think, so it wouldn’t happen that way.
NYY in LA I thought the same but he earned 5MM last year. So technically this situation may have worked out. Surprising to see such a raise for this season though.
And every Royals fan screams… NO!!!
One of the more interesting cases this season.
I figured he’d be either traded or non-tendered.
He still could be traded.
But the Royals might have to eat some money if they do. Bizarre move.
What a waste of money
He’s NOT good defensively at 2B. He doesn’t like playing LF and is not good there either. He could be a DH, but doesn’t hit enough for that to make sense. What is KC doing here besides blowing money they could use for somebody else?
Wow. Name value still carries a lot of weight. He’s a borderline bench bat.
He must still have a paneer of talent.
i see what you did there. good work!
I figured he’d be naan tendered.
Royals must be trying to curry favor with his agent.
He hasn’t been worth a damn since his Rookie of the Year season, which must have been a fluke. This guy just does not pass the eye test for me. Supposedly good in the clubhouse though. (When you don’t hit for power, can’t walk, can’t defend , and can barely hit singles, what can you do my man?)
They still believe in his potential?
He’s got all the financial incentive to perform his way into a good few year FA deal somewhere. That could be KC’s angle. Happens a lot.
It’s when one gets paid the same guaranteed amount on a fixed contract year to year regardless of performance that one should be concerned since it goes against human nature for incentives.
Yeah, but $8M????
They better fix their outfield woes now for sure.
WOW! I’m so suprised. This is too much for Jonathan India.
The First Law of Holes.
Wipe them well?
You are a complete disgrace JJ. What a waste for a small market club
Sunk Cost Fallacy in full effect here.
I hope this works out for the Royals but it seems to me more a decision motivated by fear or stubborn pride than reason.
To be fair to India, he was hurt most of the year even though he never really went on the IL. He got hit a lot and had a bunch of weird plays in the field where he got banged up a ton. Not to mention the fact that they tried to make him (a notably poor defender) into a utility player. If they keep him at second base, he’ll have a chance to bounce back at the plate. At least im praying.
Watch Singer get even better next season while India is awful again and paid a raise to make the trade hurt even more for KC fans.
How the hell does Adolis Garcia get nontendered and KC gives this trash a raise!?!?
We have a lot of similar problems in Cleveland, but I have to say I’m heartened that the Tigers spent over $22m for Gleyber Torres and the Royals brought back India for $8m. Misery loves company! But at least we’re not throwing money out the window.
All things are relative, the Guards just blew 2 million (that’s like 6 mill to the rest of the circuit) on Nolan Jones. I used to like Nolan but he lost his mojo, slipped a disk, something. The money isn’t the biggest part of the issue, even for us, it’s who gets pushed aside to accommodate such largesse because Nolan is out of options. For one I read several times that our FO seems to think they’re entitled to get a 4th option year on Brito, the guy we traded Jones for.
Now I thought 4th options were granted for both player and team when bad stuff happens. Brito was ready a year ago, he had 700 PA at AAA with great results coming into the season with power a 14% BB rate just a 17% K rate. Given how horrid both 2B and RF were for us he really should have been milking both money and time served on a MLB IL, not the minors version. At least half the teams out there would gobble Brito up quickly but no, the great stall keeps up and we keep trotting out tired second hand stuff. A 4th option year indeed. Alert the union, just say no!
And ps I’m all for overlooking one bad year like India just but not two. I argued this last year in support of Polanco who I wanted the Guards to pick up. I felt he was insurance in.case we dragged our feet on Brito, who most agreed was MLB ready. That had been our M.O., even Eric Longenhagen called the org out on its slow pedaling of prospects, hitting ones esp.
Cleveland will get (and is completely entitled to) a fourth option on Juan Brito unless you consider his health issues in 2025 as somehow fraudulent.
Jones is cheap outfield insurance against injury. He’s out of options, may not even make the club, could be dealt. I’d reserve my ire for other issues.
No, I consider the constant hesitancy they show for deserving prospects on the verge. Last March they had a 23.5 year old who hadn’t missed a game in 3 plus years and who blazed through AAA with flying colors in 2023. He had 4 ST HR in 39 PA and he had just passed the 15 game benchmark whereby he gained that 7th year of service time for the Guardians on April 14, having just hit two more HRs in consecutive games with an ops over.900. He should have been promoted while Rocchio was fumbling all over himself but still the team stalled as they always do.when it comes,to their hitters. As they did with Valera the previous September and like Valera Brito quivkky injured himself while in action, this time a busted thumb while sliding.
It serves no purpose for this particular player to be denied entry where he belongs because MLB wants to bestow favors. This isn’t a case of chronically injured Espino, Valera or Delauter. This is an otherwise healthy kid six years beyond a mere 60 K signing bonus who should start getting paid. Left to their own devices the Guards org will drag it out into June or later. They shouldn’t have that ‘right’ cuz it’s wrong in this case.
OMG, the absurd offense you take where it is not warranted.
Leaving aside the fact that staying healthy is a factor in every determination, it is Brito’s inability to play defense at a major league caliber that has held him back. The very fact that you actually believe his hitting–yet to be determined in the big leagues–to be so good that it renders his defensive issues moot only demonstrates your lack of balance here.
Defense is defense, wherever it’s played; the organization is desperately trying to find a place for the young man where he can play while we determine if he can hit at the major league level. That you actually think this organization which actually traded FOR him and desperately NEEDS offense has held him back for any reason except justifiable ones only shows your lack of perspective and bias against a team that has consistently punched well above its weight for more than a decade now.
Is Cleveland slow in pulling the plug on its young players? Perhaps at times. But you can be sure Juan Brito will earn that same benefit of doubt in future years as he struggles to establish himself, and likely would have been in the major leagues had he not suffered very real and debilitating injuries this past summer. Casting aspersions where there are no reasons to do so is a mark of the unreasonable, which unfortunately typifies many in CLE’s fandom.
Brito was always thought to be a 2B placeholder until Bazzana arrived, then perhaps to LF to take over from Kwan. I had no illusions he was the second coming of Gimenez but nor do I think he’s so deplorable that his defense, warts and all, won’t cover the difference between the constant .620 type ops’s that Rocchio and Arias put up there. If you really think our FO delayed his arrival just because of defense then you pal are not paying attention to this penny and service time grubbing organization. It also went against their own words. Yes, they’re a talented FO but mostly just as it applies to pitching, they haven’t managed to put together one offense above league avg since 2018.
And this oh so unreasonable fan really didn’t like how they presented their case in the press as a fait accompli. Something relatively undefined like this should imo operate more like a mutual contract option, not a hard and fast club option. If Brito and his reps agreed to simply hand away an extra option year then by all means but I very much doubt they would have.
Player options are collectively bargained provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brito and his brethren don’t like it, they can take it up after 2026. Moaning and groaning about the unfairness of it all is ridiculous, almost as absurd as ignoring Brito’s very real defensive issues and guaranteeing he’ll be able to out-hit them. As if Triple A stats are guaranteed to translate to the major leagues. Haven’t we seen enough of that (Owen Miller/Yu Chang/Gabriel Arias/Will Brennan/Jhonkensy Noel/Jonathan Rodriguez/Brayan Rocchio) already? At least Rocchio and Arias can be guaranteed to prevent runs for our pitching staff. Brito can’t. I look forward to seeing Juan in the majors, but to say he has been somehow “held back” by an organization that WANTED HIM and TRADED FOR HIM is an irresponsible observation and can only be offered by yet another whiny Cleveland fan.
This is likely *less* than what India would have been in line to earn via arbitration. I believe MLBTR’s arb-estimate for India was incorrect — he made $7.05M in 2025, and he was likely due for a raise into the $9-10M range if they went to arbitration, not the $7.4M that’s been cited.
Whether he’s worth the $8M they’re giving him is a whole different question, but I just wanted to point that out.
Thanks for the insight.
And here I thought the Brewers made a bad decision tendering Jake Bauers. This is way worse.
Ha, ha, ha…yes, it certainly is confounding how Jake Bauers has managed to carve out a career for himself with his papier mache toolkit…
Watch him have an amazing season
Suits me.
Jonathan India – love child of Frank Zappa.