Rumors started circulating earlier this week about a possible trade involving Brady Singer for Cincinnati second baseman Jonathan India, and I was able to analyze a bit on this blog.
On Friday, at the non-tender deadline, the Royals and Reds finally pulled the trigger on the deal.
The Royals acquired their leadoff hitter in India and gained a toolsy outfielder in Wiemer, who’s shown potential but didn’t quite put it together in the Brewers and Reds organizations. Kansas City didn’t have to give up additional pieces for the pair of Reds position players beyond Singer.
I will break down the Royals’ return in a separate post. Instead, I wanted to specifically focus on Singer, his legacy with the Royals, and what JJ Picollo and the Royals front office will do next this offseason with shaping up the rest of the rotation for 2025.
Singer A Workhorse for the Royals Rotation Since 2020
Singer has had a polarizing legacy with the Royals since being drafted in the first round of the 2018 MLB Draft. Even though he was drafted 18th out of Florida, many draft experts felt that Singer was comparable to Auburn’s Casey Mize, who went No. 1 overall.
Since 2020, when Singer debuted during the COVID-shortened season, the former Gator has outperformed the former Auburn Tiger (and current Detroit Tiger) by a considerable margin, based on Fangraphs metrics.
Over those five years, Singer has appeared in over double the number of games, pitched 394.1 more innings, and accumulated 8.1 more fWAR than Mize. Mize’s ERA is only eight points lower than Singer’s, but Singer significantly outperforms Mize in terms of K/9 (8.47 to 6.99), FIP (3.97 to 4.60), and xFIP (3.83 to 4.40).
In addition to having a better career thus far than the 2018 No. 1 pick, Singer has been the most durable and productive pitcher over the past five years for the Royals, based on fWAR accumulation.
Cole Ragans is second on this list with a 7.3 fWAR, which he accumulated after only 1.5 seasons in Kansas City. Seth Lugo is third with a 4.7 fWAR mark in only one. Thus, Singer hadn’t necessarily hit many extraordinary highs in his five-year career with the Royals. Still, he at least showed consistency and durability, which is extremely valuable with starting pitchers at the MLB level.
Despite strong fWAR and IP totals, Singer’s results have been a bit of a mixed bag, especially considering his prospect hype after he was drafted in 2018.
Here’s a look at Singer’s season-by-season career via Fangraphs. It’s easy for Royals fans to notice that he’s followed solid seasons with questionable ones, especially on the ERA and FIP ends.
Singer’s good seasons? 2020 (4.06 ERA; 4.08 FIP), 2022 (3.23 ERA; 3.58 FIP), and 2024 (3.71 ERA; 3.93 FIP). His mediocre ones? 2021 (4.91 ERA; 4.04 FIP) and 2023 (5.52 ERA; 4.29 FIP). His FIP was more tolerable in those odd seasons, though the xERA numbers were not impressive (4.54 xERA in 2021; 4.93 xERA in 2023).
Issues With Stuff and Pitch Mix
Beyond the results, there have been some concerning trends with Singer, especially regarding his stuff.
As Royals fans can see in the table above, his fastball velocity has declined from 93 MPH in his rookie season to 91.7 MPH last year. Granted, pure velocity isn’t always a measure of stuff. Singer has traded velocity for more spin on his sinker, his primary fastball pitch.
That spin has made his sinker a more horizontal pitch with less vertical movement, thus adding to the offering’s effectiveness. Here’s a look at his vertical and horizontal movement charts over his career via Savant.
Singer’s sinker horizontal movement break has been inconsistent throughout his career. When he could keep the horizontal break lower, he found more success. In terms of vertical break, he saw a spike in 2021 and a steady decline in his sinker vertical movement yearly.
Some of that can be credited to Singer lowering his arm slot slightly every season. In 2020, he had an arm angle of 35 degrees. Last year, that was 28 degrees. Let’s see how the change in arm slot changed the movement profiles of his pitches from his rookie season in 2020 to 2024.
Based on the comparison above, Singer became more of an east-west pitcher movement-wise instead of north-south. That movement difference can be seen slightly in the following clip compilation of his sinker from 2020 (against Detroit) and 2024 (against the Reds).
Even though Singer has put an effort into changing the movement profile of his sinker primarily and tweaking his arm angle every season to improve his arsenal, the Stuff+ metrics haven’t necessarily stood out for Singer in his five-year career.
Here’s a look at his Stuff+ metrics via Fangraphs for each pitch in his arsenal every season since 2020.
His sinker has a career Stuff+ score of 84 (100 being average) but saw a regression to 70 a season ago. The changeup saw improvement from 53 in 2023 to 80 in 2024, as did the slider from 89 to 111. However, his overall Stuff+ was 84, the same as his 2023 score. Furthermore, his Location+ was slightly down at 99, contributing to a Pitching+ of 94, down from 2023.
In terms of PLV, here’s how his PLV and pitch distribution have fared over the past two seasons via Pitcher List:
Singer showed some incremental progress and the addition of two more pitches to his arsenal last season. However, the results weren’t tremendous, as he was still below league average on a PLV end in three of his four offerings the previous year (only the sweeper rated above league average in PLV).
Thus, one has to wonder if the Royals felt that they had hit a wall development-wise with Singer and may have gotten everything they could out of him at this point in his career. Singer was due for a significant upgrade in arbitration this offseason (around $8.5 to 9 million projection via MLBTR), and he would be a free agent after the 2026 season. The Royals may not have wanted to invest in that, especially on a pitcher whose stuff metrics rate as pretty average.
Conversely, Cincinnati may feel like they have the right formula to help Singer tap into his pitch mix and take the next step as a starter with the Reds.
Yes, Singer moves to a more homer-friendly ballpark in the GAB. Singer has traditionally been solid in inducing groundballs, as he has a career GB% of 49.2% and a GB/FB ratio of 1.66. However, his impressive GB numbers have been offset by high HR/FB numbers, as evidenced by his career HR/FB% of 13.7%.
Chris Clegg of Dugout Dynasty believes the Reds can help him induce a higher GB%, thus minimizing his HR/FB rate damage. Clegg pointed to the Reds’ work with Hunter Greene as a scenario that could perhaps be replicated with Singer, even with Singer not having Greene’s premium stuff.
There’s no question that this will be a critical two years for Singer, especially if he wants to earn that big payday when he hits free agency after 2026.
Singer tapping into his fastball-sinker a bit more and increasing his GB% with the Reds could help him accomplish that goal. It could also help him find a landing spot that may be more pitcher-friendly in 2027 and beyond, which will benefit his career in the long term.
What’s Next for the Royals Pitching Staff?
Singer’s loss is challenging from a fan perspective, primarily since he sounded invested in Kansas City and the Royals organization. It appeared like the Royals weren’t initially planning to trade Singer (hence JJ’s “lock in the rotation” comment at the GM meetings).
However, the market opened up, and the Royals needed to take advantage to upgrade their leadoff spot for the 2025 season.
It’s not easy to hear about a player wanting to stay in Kansas City being traded away, especially since that has traditionally been a challenge for this organization, especially in the David Glass era of ownership. However, Picollo’s ability to trade away a pitcher like Singer shows the Royals’ pitching depth and confidence in that depth, which is a 180-degree pivot from where this organization was in the twilight years of the Dayton Moore era.
Yes, the Royals have Ragans, Lugo, and Wacha, but they still have Alec Marsh, who took a step forward in 2024, and Kyle Wright, who, based on his profile and repertoire, could be the Royals’ pitching team’s next success story. Noah Cameron also made significant strides in Northwest Arkansas and Omaha a season ago, which explains why the Royals added him to the 40-man roster this week.
Furthermore, I think Picollo will add another starting pitcher candidate to the mix as insurance for Marsh and Wright, Ragans, Lugo, and Wacha, should any of them get injured in 2025.
Michael Lorenzen seemed to respond well to Royals pitching coaches Brian Sweeney and Zach Bove, so he could be a candidate to return to Kansas City on a reasonable one-year contract. Frankie Montas and Shane Bieber are proven free-agent targets who could solidify the back of the Royals rotation. Additionally, Cal Quantrill, Griffin Canning, and Patrick Sandoval are recent non-tendered pitchers who could be bounceback projects for Sweeney and Bove in Kansas City.
Also, it wouldn’t be out of the question to see a Sean Manaea reunion, though that would cost a significant amount of money. I’m not sure the Royals would spend that kind of cash (though after reports of Kansas City checking in on Juan Soto surfaced this week, maybe John Sherman is willing to shell out what is necessary to lure premium free-agent talent).
Losing Singer is a bummer, especially since he seemed to embrace Kansas City and the fanbase last year after a rough 2023 season.
However, the Royals’ parting ways with Singer shows that Picollo and the front office will do what is necessary to improve this club and make it a contender for the Central Division and American League pennants in 2025.
A lot more moves are on the way to Kansas City.
And that couldn’t have happened without Singer being the first domino to fall.
Photo Credit: Dustin Bradford/Getty Images
Like your opinion on this, do the Royals currently develop better starting pitching or good hitters? My thought is something is still lacking in their minor league hitters or they simply draft the wrong type hitters.
I would say that they develop pitching better lately, especially at the MLB level. It sounds like they’re able to identify issues better and are able to make changes to their repertoire’s and grips to help maximize success. I think they do this a lot better with veteran pitchers than ones within their system, but I think we saw some nice gains from some arms that we wouldn’t have seen before.
When it comes to prospects in the system, I think so much rests on who you draft and I think the Royals not nailing down high-talented picks in the latter years of the Moore era hurt. I think they’ve drafted better the last couple of years, but I think the lack of hitting depth stems more from scouting than a development issue.
One last comment, this trade seems fair, even more so, after your analysis of Singer’s pitches. I am still in the belief that Singer’s ability to pitch like a #3/#4, have 180+ IP, and never go on the IR are premiums everyone wants is willing to pay for. Consistency is the hardest skill to attain in life.
There’s no doubt that Singer has been consistent, which I think is why this deal is a lot harder to quantify at the surface level. The pitch metrics aren’t great, and it seems like the transition to GAB will not be ideal for Singer. However, you can’t undervalue a guy who can give you 170-180+ innings a year of above average production. I think India and a 4th OF type is a fair enough return for a pitcher of Singer’s profile, but I know some may disagree just because pitching depth was so key to the Royals’ success in 2024.
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