{"id":577964,"date":"2026-02-17T18:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577964\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T18:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:59:20","slug":"royals-doubled-down-on-jonathan-india-and-the-pressure-is-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577964\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals doubled down on Jonathan India \u2014 and the pressure is on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan India appeared to be a big addition for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/kansas-city-royals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> not too long ago.<\/p>\n<p>The trade of Brady Singer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/cincinnati-reds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cincinnati Reds<\/a> to acquire India was supposed to bolster Kansas City&#8217;s batting order.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, India struggled mightily.<\/p>\n<p>But despite that, the Royals signed India to an $8 million contract for the 2026 MLB season to see if he can get back to a better place.<\/p>\n<p>There was a question of whether India would be non-tendered, but the Royals decided to bring him back after a down year. India hit .233 with a .346 slugging percentage in 2025 across 136 games played. He hit just nine homers and didn&#8217;t steal a single base.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The second base job is his to lose, but it\u2019s still a prove-it year for India, not just to put his first season with the Royals behind him, but also because he\u2019ll be a free agent at season\u2019s end,&#8221; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/mlb-players-with-most-to-prove-in-2026-spring-training\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MLB.com&#8217;s Anne Rogers wrote<\/a> in a new article on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/pittsburgh-pirates\/news\/theres-one-question-pirates-phenom-konnor-griffin-needs-answer\/e52ced688826dcf440f9eae9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">There&#8217;s one question Pirates phenom Konnor Griffin needs to answer<\/a><\/p>\n<p>India is really an X-factor in whether the Royals sink or swim this season.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve got proven standouts in Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, Maikel Garcia and Salvador Perez.<\/p>\n<p>The outfield, on the other hand, is almost an entire question mark.<\/p>\n<p>India falls somewhere in the middle. He has been a solid hitter in MLB before, but he wasn&#8217;t in his first season with the Royals.<\/p>\n<p>If he can lift his game back to better levels, India could help Kansas City contend in the AL Central Division. But if not, it&#8217;ll be bad news for the futures of both India and the Royals.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan India appeared to be a big addition for the Kansas City Royals not too long ago. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-577964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116087512822728847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}