Breaking Down the Brady Singer - Jonathan India Trade: Spoiler…I Hate It
Someone explain to me how this makes sense?
Ahead of the non-tender deadline Friday night, the Kansas City Royals & Cincinnati Reds swung a trade. Jonathan India was long speculated to be moved. The Singer for India swap has been an awaited move for weeks since they were connected. A lot of people seem to like this trade and I have not seen many criticize or stand up against it. Granted I did start writing this shortly after the announcement came, but still. I’m here to explain why I hate this trade, specifically for the Reds, and why I can’t wrap my head around how this is beneficial for them. I’m sure many will disagree and I would love to hear why, bring it on.
Jonathan India
For starters, I don't know why the Reds really wanted to get rid of India in the first place. Despite the looming trade rumors and noise, India had a phenomenal bounce back year. In this video, he CRUSHES an inside FB off Alex Vesia, one of the best LHP in the game, at 105.8 mph for a game winning grand slam…
India has been a leadoff stalwart for the Reds since debuting in 2021. He’s led off for the Reds in 341 of his 523 career games. India blew past his production lines from the last two seasons on his way to having his best year since winning rookie of the year in 2021. He was an on-base machine for the Reds in 2024, proving to be a valuable asset at the leadoff spot.
In 2024, India ranked 21st among qualified MLB hitters in OBP with a .357 clip. Furthermore, he ranked 15th among hitters with a minimum of 600 PAs. On top of that, the foundations of India's success have been a high BB%, low chase% & high Sweet-spot%. His league percentiles have improved in those categories each of the last three years.
The longstanding desire of trading India stems from the organization's depth and plethora of great infield players/prospects. With the likes of Matt McLain (India’s 2B successor), Elly De La Cruz, Noelvi Marte manning 3B, Jeimer Candelario at 1B and pushing Christian Encarnacion-Strand (CES) into a more involved DH role, the Reds have a locked and loaded infield. However, with the exception of Spencer Steer, the Reds outfield is rather lackluster
Jake Fraley is a right field with Stuart Fairchild. TJ Friedl has served as the everyday center fielder, but had a terrible 2024 after a breakout campaign in 2023. Looking to add versatility to his profile because they valued the bat that much, the Reds had even tried India out in a corner in 2023. Spencer Steer was playing 1B, 3B & LF in 2023, but the signing of Jeimer Candelario shifted him into the OF full time once Noelvi Marte returned from his suspension.
With all that going on with the roster, the Reds can realistically move Steer and his above average arm strength to RF full time. That would allow India to have LF to himself where he can learn the outfield. Friedl can stay in CF and hope he bounces back, at least defensively.
For some reason, if the Reds wanted to keep Steer in LF, India could learn CF. He's not small, listed at 6'0 200lbs & had a 28.0 ft/sec sprint speed this year. Regardless, India doesn't even have to be a good CF. Friedl, in a bad year, was in the 14th percentile in OAA with poor arm value. Here's Friedl's Baseball Savant dashboard.
The Reds would upgrade their roster more by moving India to CF as opposed to the AL Central for their 7th starter. I'm fully aware of Friedl's injuries in '24, but this was his third year in a row with a hamstring injury. Minor or not, hamstring injuries don't just go away. They tend to make a recurring appearance in a player's career and can be a problem. Despite a down year likely impacted heavily by injury, I'm not calling Friedl bad or saying Cincy should trade him. However, if I had to take one of them, India is the better player in my opinion. Those are just some possibilities of how the Reds can get more creative with their roster. They would be deeper offensively and still have a full rotation.
Brady Singer
Switching over to the pitching side of things, the Reds already had 6(!) SP before acquiring Singer. Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, Nick Martinez, Rhett Lowder & Graham Ashcraft are all rostered and MLB ready. Before anyone wants to try making the argument, Nick Martinez is definitely a starting pitcher for this organization. They do not offer him the $21.05 million qualifying offer if they didn’t think he could be a full time starting pitcher. The only exception is if they trade him this offseason.
In my eyes, Singer is not a big time needle mover. He's a durable, inning eating, ground ball merchant. There is not anything wrong with that, but for a team with six starting pitchers, five of which are cheap & under team control for years, he is not a great fit.
Singer’s contact quality is consistently at or near the bottom of the league & he's far more susceptible to home runs than people think.
Coming from the extremely pitching-friendly AL Central, he's allowed 60 home runs over the last 3 years. Averaging 20 home runs allowed a season is not the best look, let alone for a ground ball pitcher in the AL Central. Somehow it gets worse. Here are his expected home runs by park over the last 3 years, per Baseball Savant.
For context of the chart, the top line is the total home runs allowed for his career. The second line is 2024, followed by 2023 & down to 2022. In Kansas City over these last three seasons, he’d allow 54. In Cincinnati though, Singer would have allowed 84(!) home runs over the last three seasons! Excuse my use of multiple exclamation marks throughout that sentence, but holy cow 28 home runs allowed per year is a large number.
Naturally, I'm expecting the Reds front office to see something glaring about Singer's profile that they want to change. I am not here to break down any changes they may or may not make, but I will say that this isn't as simple as “He’s going to a home run friendly park, but he’s a high GB% pitcher, so he should be fine,”. Moreover, I think it’s worse than that. I truly think as things stand, home runs have a good probability to be a big problem for Singer in Cincinnati.
Moving off Singer for a moment, I explored some alternative starting pitchers the Reds could have traded for. A few other starters that don't have as awful home run expectancy that are cheap & controllable include Erick Fedde, Jeffrey Springs & Bryan Woo. I’m pretty skeptical the Reds would trade one of their best players to a division rival in the Cardinals, so they’re out.
I think they would be able to trade for Jeffrey Springs. His luxury tax salary is around $7.5 million, but his actual payroll salary is $10.5 million. Considering acquiring India would save the Rays almost $3.5 million, I think the Reds would be able to net back a prospect as well.
Now for the ideal trade partner. The Seattle Mariners are notoriously deprived of on-base talent. India is a perfect match for them to play second base after the departure of Jorge Polanco. Often talked about as willing to trade one of their young starters, the M’s would be an easy match for an India-Woo deal. Granted, unlike the Rays trade, the Reds would certainly have to include more in the deal to acquire Woo from Seattle. Nonetheless, the trade is very plausible and would have been far more beneficial for the Reds than the Singer trade in my opinion. In honor of what could have been, check out the silky smooth Bryan Woo shove a fastball right over Aaron Judge’s bat…
I mentioned that those are some alternatives for the Reds instead of trading for Singer, but there’s one more…Not trading for a starter in the first place. None of this changes the fact that the Reds have a full rotation of young SP they could be developing instead…for cheaper.
Between Singer, Ashcraft & Lowder, the noticeable difference is Singer's elite extension. All three have poor contact quality. Additionally, Ashcraft actually has a higher ground ball rate than Singer. However, Ashcraft is a project that needs to continue developing. On the plus side, he has way better velocity & two PLUS pitches as evidenced by his Stuff+. Conversely, Singer has held below average stuff+ just about his entire career.
Singer is 28 years old & projected to make $8.8 million in 2025. Meanwhile, Lowder is 22 years old, Ashcraft is 26 years old, and both would be paid league minimum in 2025. Think about Singer as the 5th starter. Compared to Lowder or Ashcraft, I'd rather work with the younger guys to develop them, especially considering I’m trading one of my best bats away for Singer.
Royals
This article is long enough already, so I’m going to shorten the Royals part of this to a synopsis. Even from their side of things, I’m still scratching my head. India is undoubtedly better than Michael Massey (2B) & Maikel Garcia (3B), but they are another team whose holes are in the outfield. Massey has continuously improved every year, including more consistent defensive value at second base than India. Likewise, Garcia is looking to tie everything together offensively, but at worst he’s young & a plus defender at third. Bobby Witt Jr is at shortstop so obviously he can’t play there. Kyle Isbel is a platoon starting center fielder, MJ Melendez is a bad defensive left fielder that is a converted catcher & Hunter Renfroe had his worst career season. Outfield is definitely a need for them more than anything. Maybe they move India or Massey to the outfield, that remains to be seen. I don’t like this trade for either team.
Final Thoughts
Pre-trade, the Reds had a full rotation of promising young starters with a developing pitcher as their 6th starter. They had a deep lineup of young positional players. Their leadoff hitter was bouncing around defensive positions but they had 1-2 lineup holes.
Post-trade, the Reds lengthened an already deep & good rotation, traded their leadoff hitter, and opened up an extra hole in their lineup.
This trade makes no sense to me. I can’t wrap my head around why the Reds wanted to trade India in the first place, at least for a starting pitcher. Without any touted outfield prospects on the cusp of making their MLB debut, the Reds could’ve called the Diamondbacks to trade for one of their outfielders, or just moved India to their own outfield.
The Reds have Brady Singer under team control through 2026, and I would think Graham Ashcraft is now on the trade block. He’s a 26 year old controllable starter with stuff. Maybe they use him to improve their outfield, who knows.
The Royals taking advantage of a Reds team that seemed to be tunneled on acquiring Brady Singer (who I’m not a fan of) is a plus.
India is the better player in this deal in my opinion so good job Royals
At the end of the day, I would not have made this deal if I were either team.
To reiterate the beginning of this article, I’m sure many of you will disagree. So please fill me in on what I’m missing. If you want to argue with me on X/Twitter, you can find me over there @OCBaseball814