Jonathan India appears set to return to the Kansas City Royals in 2026 after agreeing to terms shortly before the deadline for teams to tender contracts to their controlled players this afternoon.
It appears that India has agreed to return to the team at $8 million for the upcoming season. Some outlets had him projected at $7.4 million or so, but many analysts pointed out that his salary for 2025 was higher than the estimates were listing, and so he should expect more than that. Most of those estimates had him in the $9-$10 million range, so while this might look like a higher payout than initially expected, it’s probably actually lower.
That said, it’s an $8 million gamble that Jonathan India, who showed no ability to play defense even once he was moved back to his natural position of second base, can bounce back to be a productive hitter for a team that has outwardly claimed they’ll likely spend around $140 million on their roster in 2026. A team that has outwardly admitted they probably need to add at least two strong hitters to their roster and is now rapidly approaching that threshold, while many hitters who would fit their bill seem likely to cost $20 million or more in free agency, or be prohibitively expensive in terms of pitchers or prospects via trade.
Perhaps in celebration or preparation for this deal, Jonathan India will sport much shorter locks in his second season with the Royals.
It could work out; there’s a reason many people were excited for the India acquisition last winter, and perhaps if the team doesn’t ask him to try to learn two new positions on the fly, he’ll be able to focus better on his hitting. Emmanuel Clase isn’t going to be able to hit him in the face with a cutter in the season’s first week, either.
There are a lot of reasons to think it might not work out, too. After his rookie season, he hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire with his offensive abilities, and a lot of his underlying metrics in 2025 more closely resembled tose of 2023 than 2024, when he was a competent hitter in large part due to a much higher ISO, perhaps driven by playing in the Great American Ballpark, which allows many home runs that turn into routine flyouts in the cavernous outfields of the AL Central division.
Kansas City still might trade him, but it stands to reason that if they were going to be able to do so, they’d have already done it.
In any case, this is a massive gamble by the Royals’ front office. One that the Royals simply cannot afford to miss on if they’re really not going to drastically increase the roster expenditures and want to return to the playoffs in 2026.
