Ken Rosenthal writes that the Royals are getting calls about starting pitcher Brady Singer
MLB Trade Rumors: Brady Singer of the Kansas City Royals is drawing interest around the league, according to Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic, who says that Jonathan India of the Cincinnati Reds is a hitter that the Royals are targeting.
The Royals, a surprise playoff team in 2024, are flush with pitching, particularly after they extended veteran Michael Wacha on a 3 year, $51 million deal on the eve of the free agent market opening up officially. Rosenthal notes that Wacha, Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans are “essentially off-limits,” but the Royals are willing to listen on their other starters, which also include Kris Bubic and Alec Marsh.
The Royals had a rotating cast of characters at second base for them in 2024, with Michael Massey starting 70 games, Maikel Garcia moving over from third base to start 29 games, and Adam Frazier, Nick Loftin and Garrett Hampson combining for the other 63 starts there. Using some of their starting pitcher surplus to grab someone like India from the Reds would provide Kansas City with some stability at the position.
Of course, as a Rangers fan, seeing a team that has controllable starting pitching available to deal for a young hitter is going to get my attention. and Singer is the type of pitcher that I imagine the Rangers would be interested in this offseason. Singer’s ERA has fluctuated dramatically the last four years, from 4.91 in 2021 to 3.23 in 2022 to 5.52 in 2023 to 3.71 last year, but his FIP has been much more steady, ranging from 3.58 to 4.29 in that span. As a result, his fWAR has ranged from 2.0 to 3.0 over the past four seasons.
If you are Texas, I imagine that you’d be willing to talk to Kansas City about either Josh Smith or Ezequiel Duran in a deal for Singer. Smith is the same age as India, Duran is two years younger, and both players are cheaper (neither being arbitration-eligible yet) and have four years of team control remaining, compared to two years for India. India is a better hitter than Duran or Smith, though he hasn’t graded out well defensively at second in the advanced metrics the last several years, and either Ranger guy would likely be a defensive upgrade over India.
As we have discussed before, the Royals and Rangers share the Surprise spring training complex, so the teams would each appear to have a greater familiarity with the other team’s players compared to the rest of the 28 teams in MLB. That sort of familiarity can make trades between the teams more likely to occur.
There’s also the fact that Chris Young spent several years at Kansas City when current Royals general manager J.J. Picollo was the Assistant General Manager, Player Personnel for Kansas City. Since Picollo took over as g.m. at the end of 2021, the Rangers and Royals have made three deals, all, interestingly enough, involving swaps of pitchers (Albert Abreu for Yohanse Morel, Aroldis Chapman for Cole Ragans and Roni Cabrera (the lone position player in the mix), and Walter Pennington for Michael Lorenzen).
Singer is probably a #4 starter on a good team — he’s not going to be, for example, an equivalent replacement for Nathan Eovaldi, should Eovaldi not be re-signed. But he would be a reliable innings eater at a relatively low cost (MLB Trade Rumors projections have his salary at $8.8 million for 2025, and he’d also be arb-eligible in 2026), and if they could land him in a deal headlined by Duran or Smith, Texas would be dealing from an area of depth.
Just something to think about on this Sunday afternoon.