Law: Jonathan India, Brady Singer trade could help both teams

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I admit it — I was bored and I wanted someone to make a trade. And the deal sending Jonathan India and Joey Wiemer to Kansas City for Brady Singer is definitely a trade. It’s very tradey. And I could see it going south for either or even both teams, although I do like one side a bit more than the other.

If you’ve been following the news at all, or least any news coverage that has bothered to talk to professional economists, you may have heard of the concept of comparative advantage. The United States might be very good at making widgets, but not so good at making doohickeys. Japan is extremely efficient at producing doohickeys, but the widgets, not so much. So it makes more sense for the United States to trade widgets to Japan for doohickeys, and vice versa, than for each country to try to manufacture the items it’s not very good or efficient at producing. This trade seems like a comparative advantage trade as well — two teams with surpluses and differing core competencies have lined up to help each other with the things the other team doesn’t do as well.

The Reds have been very good at producing position players in the past five-plus years, to the point that they have a clear surplus, particularly in the infield. India was already stretched for playing time as it was, and with Matt McLain and Christian Encarnacion-Strand both returning from injury next year, Elly de la Cruz locked in at shortstop, Noelvi Marte ready for another shot at the roster and Jeimer Candelario still inexplicably here, there were negative at-bats left for India in 2025. And that’s without considering the Reds’ various infield prospects likely to see the majors in 2026-27.

India is about to turn 28 and should be in his offensive prime, and he’s coming off a year when he hit .248/.357/.392 and generated 2.8 WAR playing second base almost every day for the Reds, even though there was at least a concern before the season that he was going to be squeezed out of a job. The Royals were above the AL median in run-scoring, but they finished with a below-average OBP at .306; India’s 2024 OBP of .357 would have been second on the Royals behind superstar Bobby Witt Jr., and even India’s career rate of .352 would have ranked second as well. I can see concerns that India isn’t going to hit as well away from Great American Ball Park, but if he plays just average defense at second — which he did last year, but hadn’t done previously — and hits .241/.341/.381, which is his career line away from GABP, he’s going to help the Royals by getting on base in a way most of their hitters haven’t.

The Royals, meanwhile, have turned out to be masters of pitching, although their biggest successes have come from outside of the organization — Cole Ragans, snagged in a brilliant trade; Seth Lugo, maybe the best signing for team value of the 2023-24 offseason; and Michael Wacha, recently extended to keep him away from free agency. Singer was the jewel of the 2018 draft class, when the Royals crushed college pitching in a draft that seemed replete with it. With Kyle Wright returning from injury this year, one hopes, Singer was, if not quite superfluous, at least the rotation member most valuable in trade to try to boost the lineup.

Singer comes with a lot of question marks, at least. I included him on my list of players I got wrong this year because he’s been so valuable so far despite his chronic issues with left-handed batters, who hit .291/.367/.488 off him in 2024 and have hit .262/.343/.442 off him in his major-league career. He’s a low-slot righty who doesn’t have a pitch for them — in 2024, he threw a changeup 2 percent of the time, and everything else was some sort of fastball or slider. His arm slot makes it hard to throw a changeup or splitter, and it gives lefties a very long look at the ball.

Singer has also benefited no small amount from the Royals’ reasonably pitcher-friendly home park, with about a 75-point split in slugging percentage in his career and a 60-point difference in 2024. This might not be a huge concern were he not heading to one of the majors’ best home run parks in Cincinnati; Great American Ball Park was the best ballpark for home runs in 2024 at plus-28 percent, and it was worse (better) for left-handed power at plus-42 percent. Singer’s ground-ball tendencies might mitigate this somewhat — he’s at a 50 percent ground-ball rate for his career, and his low arm slot helps him sink the ball — but when lefties do get to elevate the ball, it’s going to result in a lot of damage in the Reds’ home park.

The Reds did need starting pitchers, with every guy in their rotation an injury risk of some sort, and only one member of that crew a reliably above-average starter (Hunter Greene). Singer, while healthy his whole career going back to high school, presents some performance risk that might be higher than they’re expecting. At the least, I’d say this is a high-variance addition to a rotation that could use some certainty.

I haven’t mentioned the other player the Royals are getting, outfielder Joey Wiemer, in part because it’s a little easier to conceive of this deal as a hitter for a pitcher, one established big leaguer for another, and both India and Singer are known quantities to a large extent. Both are young enough to improve and old enough for us to say they are what they are. Wiemer is a wild card, and I say that in a good way, even though he’ll be 26 next year. Wiemer’s a tremendous athlete who hits it pretty hard and is a plus-plus runner, but breaking stuff has bedeviled him in the majors and he didn’t get much of a chance in 2024 to make any adjustments. He needs to play every day and show he can pick up breaking pitches or else end up a nice fourth or fifth outfielder. The Royals got nothing from their outfield last year — no outfielder on their roster had an OBP over .300 or slugged over .400 — so Wiemer would be an easy upgrade. The most obvious place for Wiemer would be to replace Hunter Renfroe, but Renfroe has a guaranteed contract for 2024 and the Royals would have to acknowledge that that deal hasn’t worked out and relegate him to platoon or pinch hitting duty. Regardless of where Wiemer might play, let’s hope that acquiring him means the Royals intend to play him, as he offers more total upside than any other outfielder on the roster.

I can see this deal going sideways for either club, but right now, I’d rather have the Royals’ end of it. India gives them an OBP boost they sorely need, and while his batted-ball data doesn’t support any upside, he can slug .390 and still help this team. Wiemer’s a lottery ticket of sorts, and while I contend that the lottery is just a tax on people who are bad at math, if you’re handing me a lottery ticket with Wiemer’s 2025 stats on it underneath whatever that scratch-off substance is (probably hemlock juice or cyanide), I’ll take it. I’ve taken the L on Singer, but that doesn’t mean I want his next three years; starting pitchers with chronic platoon-split issues will always worry me. I hope I’m wrong about him, but I see a lot of homers from left-handed batters in his near future. My crystal ball has had bad reception before, though, so don’t fret too much.

(Top photo of Brady Singer: Ed Zurga / Getty Images)