The Royals were determined to bring in a leadoff hitter during the offseason, which led to the addition of Johnathan India and the end of the Brady Singer era in Kansas City. I am not sad that this trade was made, but India has really not been good this year, though he keeps leading off. He hit seventh last night – smacking a three-run home run, so perhaps this will get him going. But so far, he has not been what the team has needed or expected.
From a hitting perspective, it is pretty clear where the drop-off in production has come. Johnathan India’s walk rate dropped from 12.6% in 2024 to 9.2% so far in the current season. That lower rate should not surprise anyone as his career rate is only 10.3%, so this year is closer to the career rate than last year’s. The second problem is a drop in power. India’s ISO is sitting at .107, a full .037 below last year. That is a large drop. It is the lowest ISO of his career by quite a lot. Here is the fun part – there is no underlying explanation as to why that is.
Moving from Cincinnati’s home run-friendly park and into spacious Kauffman is definitely going to sap some home runs from almost any hitter, and it has. India has six home runs on the season and is on pace for nine for the year, compared to 15 last year. But his home/road splits are not to blame for the power outage. He has two home runs at home and four on the road along with a home ISO of .095 vs. .117 on the road. Power has come a little bit more on the road, but not enough to really explain anything.
It might largely be that Jonathan has been hitting into rather bad luck:
2024 expected and actual – .266 xBA/.412 xSLG vs. .248/.392 actual
2025 expected and actual – .263 xBA/.400 xSLG vs. .238/.345 actual
His average exit velocity, max exit velocity, and hard hit rates all look roughly like last season. The launch angle is a touch higher and the barrel rate is a little lower, but for the most part, he looks like the same hitter as last season just with fewer walks and fewer strikeouts. The BABIP is 13 points lower and expected home runs are -2, where they were +3 in 2024. That is enough to explain the difference in the expected stats above. He has not changed significantly in broad terms, but it just isn’t translating into the above-average hitting profile he has had most of his career. What doesn’t make sense is that he has been below 100 wRC+ every single month, so it has been pervasive in a way that makes me a little hesitant to say just keep doing what you are doing and it will come around.
Beyond hitting, there are other issues. The left field and third base experiments of the early season were understandable, but India did not do well at either of those positions, and his defensive metrics are pretty atrocious because of it. His OAA in left field and third base combined for -7 in slightly under 300 innings played, which is horrifically bad. At second base, he has always been slightly below average, and that continues this season, sitting at -7 OAA again over only 429.1 innings. I am willing to give him a bit of a pass on all of this. Yanking a not-great fielder around was probably not the best plan to begin with. However, he needs to be better at second than that, and has seemed more consistent over there over time, at least to my untrained eye.
The weirdest change in India, or most expected if you have watched this team all year maybe, is the large drop in baserunning value. Based on Fangraphs, he has been a very average base runner throughout his career, a little negative a couple of years, and a little positive a couple of years. This year, he is a little negative, but the way he has gotten there is strange. India’s stolen bases by year go 12, 3, 14, 13, 0. That’s right, he has yet to steal a base this season and has been caught 4 times. He was caught in 11 out of 53 before this year, so zero for four is very strange. I do not know how the Royals became such a terrible base-running team between last fall and this spring, but India is not the only one to be way less successful on the base paths this season. The drop in Maikel Garcia’s baserunning is much more pronounced for instance.
The main rub here is that even if it is partially luck-driven, Jonathan India has been a negative run producer at the plate. He has, as expected, been a negative in the field, but to a much higher degree than would have been expected. Even on the base paths, he has been a negative. This season has been very bad for India, leading to -0.6 fWAR and -0.1 bWAR. This is not what the team was looking for when they made that trade. He is under team control for another season, and the team has no answer at second base, so he will likely be there again next season. Maybe not being yanked around in the outfield will help, or motivation as he heads toward free agency, or maybe just plain old regression to the mean will get him back to his typical production. Any way you go, he needs to be better than this.