Royals Shamed For Offseason Failure Amid Newest Star's 2025 Struggles

The Kansas City Royals built some serious momentum as a franchise in 2024, and they're now scratching and clawing to maintain it the next season.

If not for one incredible 16-2 stretch, the Royals would be nine games under .500. That's not an effort to erase history, but to illustrate that there are real flaws for this team, and some might argue those flaws could have been better addressed this winter.

The obvious issue with this Royals team was offense, and specifically, they couldn't get the leadoff hitter on base in front of superstar Bobby Witt Jr. That prompted the front office to trade away starting pitcher Brady Singer to nab former Cincinnati Reds Rookie of the Year winner Jonathan India.

India hasn't lived up to the billing so far, and he's also struggled to learn two new positions (third base and left field) on the fly. That, plus the lack of other impactful trades/signings, has one baseball writer bellyaching about the Royals' inaction.

On Tuesday, Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller named one "offseason mulligan" that he speculated every team wishes it could have, and named "not doing more to upgrade the offense" as the Royals' biggest blunder.

"The Royals traded for Jonathan India early in the offseason and traded for Mark Canha just before Opening Day. They also took a flyer on Cavan Biggio. So, they at least tried to do something," Miller wrote.

"Unfortunately, all three of those acquisitions had amounted to a negative bWAR at the start of play on Monday. 35-year-old Salvador Perez has also taken a huge step backward, posting a sub-.600 OPS for a team that almost ranks dead last in the majors in scoring at 3.31 runs per game."

India, 28, is slashing .240/.333/.317 through 44 games, which amounts to -0.5 bWAR when accounting for his subpar defense. The fact that his OBP is still fairly high hints at the potential for improvement, but you also can't have a hitter at the top of your order whose OBP is higher than his slugging percentage.

And unfortuantely, the Royals put most of their eggs in the India basket this winter, because they're obviously not a big market team who can go after the Juan Sotos and Alex Bregmans of the world. India is going to have to improve for this offense to help bolster a playoff run.

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