Royals' Jonathan India trade looks far less painful after Brady Singer's collapse

Making trades in Major League Baseball isn’t like playing a video game. There’s no option to reload a save file when players don’t live up to their end of the bargain. When the Kansas City Royals and Cincinnati Reds made a deal to swap Brady Singer for Jonathan India and Joey Weimer in 2024, it seemed like a solid win-win type of deal. But just two years later, that deal has both teams trying to hit the reset button. 

India has been a total bust for the Royals. He provided little value to the club in 2025 and an injury forced him to miss just about all of the 2026 season. With a team that couldn’t get out of its own way this year, it’s hard not to be disappointed.

For the Reds, Singer suffered through a dreadful 2026 campaign. Anchored by his pitching collapse, the Reds also suffered through their own disappointment. At the time of the trade, it seemed like a pretty smart deal for everybody. Now it just seems like mutual destruction.

During his five seasons with the Royals, Singer was pretty much the textbook definition of inconsistent. He’d look like a lockdown pitcher one month, and then a batting practice pitcher the next. So when he notched a solid 2.6 fWAR season in 2024, the Royals figured they’d sell high and get the best return for him while they still could. 

Since the team won 86 games and made the playoffs in 2024, Royals GM J.J. Picollo and the rest of the front office saw a window of opportunity to get right back into the postseason contention in 2025. With a surplus of strong pitchers, especially in their starting rotation, the Royals looked to add a splash of pop to their lineup, which had just been about average throughout that season. 

That splash of pop took the shape of India, who was coming off a decent season where he posted a .248/.357/.392 slash line. While he had slightly regressed since his Rookie of the Year season in 2021, when he hit a career-high 21 home runs, India still appeared to be an above-average hitting second baseman. That was more than enough incentive for the Royals to pull the trigger on the deal. 

The Royals have been coping with buyer’s remorse after trading Brady Singer for Jonathan India

It didn’t take long for the Royals to feel the embarrassing sting of a failed trade last season though. India sported a measly .590 OPS through the end of April. Although he saw a slight improvement over the course of the 2025 season, his underlying metrics showed that his steady regression as a hitter was only getting worse as well. 

While India maintained an elite ability to not chase pitches out of the zone, he struggled to drive the ball into the outfield with any consistency. He collected just 38 extra-base hits in 2025 and slugged a career-worst .346, 50 points below his career average. The Royals certainly appeared to get the short end of the stick in the trade with the Reds. Their new second baseman had his worst season as a pro and Singer was still enjoying modest success on the mound. 

In 32 starts for the Reds in 2025, Singer allowed just 150 hits in 169.2 innings pitched. His 163 strikeouts helped him on his way to accumulating 2.8 fWAR. Not a tremendous season by any stretch, but solid enough for the Reds. With an 18-14 record in games started by Singer, the Reds won 83 games and made the playoffs for the first time since 2020. That only added insult to injury for the Royals, who failed to punch their own postseason ticket. 

India played in just 17 games this season before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery in April. Once again, it seemed like the Reds would once again get the last laugh with Singer. However, the 30-year-old pitcher started the 2026 season on a sour note and things only snowballed from there. With a 5.85 ERA and 1.592 WHIP on the season, Singer was among the worst starting pitchers in all of baseball and a large reason the Reds missed out on the playoffs.

Singer has had bad stretches in his career before, but 2026 has been a complete collapse from the former first-round pick. His tough year doesn’t negate India’s injury or his offensive woes in 2025, but it does make the trade just a little bit less painful for the Royals. With both players set to hit free agency after the season, this trade could be considered a lose-lose for both teams now.   

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