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November 27, 2024 9 mins
Soren Petro from 810 WHB in Kansas City knows more about the Kansas City Royals than any human being alive.

So he joined us to talk about the Jonathan India for Brady Singer trade, on ESPN1530.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jonathan India got traded for Brady Singer along with Joey Weimer,
who leaves the Reds with it on base percentage of
one thousand. So Brady Singer, let's learn about him. Sarn
Petro is part of a sports radio eight ten WHB
in Kansas City. This dude knows more about the Royals
than anybody alive. How good is Brady Singer?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
You know, he's good. He's good to very good. He's dependable,
He's a workhorse. He takes his craft serious, uh, to
the point that like he's happy to do interviews, but
he ain't gonna do him for you.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Right, You're gonna get.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Single word answers if you ask him, like do you
feel good today?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Yes? Right?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Like he is a no nonsense type of guy, and
that's the positive part about him. And he is a workhorse,
and he is an old school baseball guy in the
sense that he wants the ball every day. He doesn't
want to come out of the games.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
That is the good part of Brady Singer.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
The bad part is with those type of guys also
come stubbornness sometimes a belief and you know, if I
just work at what I've been doing, it will get better,
that hard work will be there, and maybe not really
willing to tink or not really willing to add to
his repertoire. I think that was maybe some of the
frustrations that we're here in Kansas City. But he is

(01:13):
certainly a guy that you know, And I mean this
is a compliment. You sometimes you call a quarterback a
game manager and they get upset. I think that's like
the next level below playmaker. Right, Like, there are lots
of guys that are not game managers that stink well,
I think workhorse and innings eaters. Sometimes for pitchers, they
don't like that, but I think that is what he is.
The question is can he ever be more than that

(01:34):
guy that's an innings either.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
All right, So to this point, you know he's eaten
up innings, he's been durable. Give me an idea of
his stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
What kind of pitcher? Is he? A two pitch pitcher?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And that's the frustration, right, fastball slider got a sinking
action to it. He can get a ground ball, and
those pitchers are very good, and he wants to live
by those pitchers, and the Royals spend a lot of
time trying to get him to add a third pitch,
really trying to get him to add a change up,
and he finally did. He would he would add it.
He would throw it a couple of times. They send
him back to the minors several years ago, telling him, listen,

(02:04):
you've got to throw this pitch. We know you can
get triple a guys out with with your top two pitches.
We need you to be able to get guys out
and set guys up with that third pitch. He would
throw it a few times. Come to the big leagues,
it would get hit around because he hadn't really perfected it,
and he would go back to just the two pitches.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
And really, this year, you know, you'll see that he
threw if you're.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
If you're a deep into the numbers guy and you
go to the fanrafs and you'll see the change up
up there. But really, what he did was he just
got better with those two pitches, and he still really
didn't incorporate the change up in very much. And I
think that's what limits him left handers. And this is
what we've kind of thought, you know, because there's a
lot of people have thought Brady Singer's worth more than
Jonathan India is weamer enough? That's a that's a debate

(02:45):
to have did that even the score. I mean, obviously
the Reds thought he was worth more than Jonathan India
as well, But is that enough that a lot of
people can't the city say that that's not enough for
a dependable starting pitcher for what you're getting. But I
will tell you that he really doesn't have a weapon
to the left handers. And if you look at it,
if you break out his splits against losing teams and
against winning teams, you're going to see that he really
feast on the losing teams and the winning teams give

(03:07):
him trouble. And that's one of the reasons why when
the Royals got the playoffs, he was not one of
the three starters that they used. He only pitched one
inning in the postseason because they knew Reagan's and Seth Lugo,
who had a cy Young caliber season this year or better,
but so was Michael Walker, especially coming down the stretch,
and so he really didn't get a chance to pitch
in the postseason because against the better teams and really
against quality left handed hits, he doesn't have the weapon

(03:30):
you need to get them out.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I remember Keith Law wrote about him when the Royals
drafted him. He was in the running going into that
year to be the number one overall pick. Slid to
I think eighteen where the Royals took him, and Keith
Law's right up on him was that, you know, this
is the guy that they'll try as a starter. He'll
fail because he doesn't have a weapon for left handers,
and he'll end up being a top shelf reliever, maybe
a closer. That's what he was looking at and that
was always in everybody's mind here in Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
He's clearly made it work. As the start of the
question is can he go to.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
That next level if the Reds can get another pitch
into his arsenal.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
There's more ceiling there.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
If he's willing to embrace that, if he's willing to
throw that, if he's willing to work on it. Otherwise,
with that home run rate in Bank One Ballpark, a
lot of us are saying, wow, this could be a
lot of fireworks with Brady Singer when he pitches at
home and since an.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Act, yeh know, so at face value, I'm like, you know,
teams in contending windows that have twenty eight year old
starting pitchers who have had a track record of durability
and who are under team control for a couple of years.
They don't just give them away. And so that was
my first question. Why why was he Why was he expendable?
Was it simply a matter of they've got enough dudes
and he's a bit of a surplus. Does he have

(04:31):
issues keeping the ball in the ballpark?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Like?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Why why would a good team like the Royals, with
the guy he's got two years of team control just
give him up.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I think he was a couple of albums one just
good old fashioned baseball trade. The Royals have a couple
other guys that they like to fit into that rotation.
They got Michael Walker resigned, so they haven't lost anybody
from the rotation. Alec Marsh came on again after they
you know, he had been the fist starter for most
of the year. They demoted and brought him back. He
did very well coming down the stretch. And then Chris
Bubich was coming back from Tommy Johnson. They pitched him

(05:01):
in the bullpen and he was dynamite. He was probably
their second best once they got Lucas Hersag he was
their second best. Reliever out of the bullpen, and but
they've always had an eye towards moving him back to
the rotation, and they've already stayed immediately after the year.
Chris Lubich is a starter, so he's going to compete
for that spot that's open. And Noah Cameron's a guy
they liked that. That's a youngster. Daniel Lynch did very

(05:21):
well as a reliever as well as a long reliever.
They think they can put him into that mix. And
I think they're willing to spend a little bit more
money here on the open market. Moving Singer on India
take up most of that money, but it does create
a little bit of extra money for them to spend
on the free agent market. So they really struggled. This
was a you know, I think this was a need
for need trade. The Royals leadof hitters were the worst

(05:41):
in baseball last year, collectively, having a two seventy on
base percentage.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
So did they overpay.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
For a guy with a three fifty on base percentage?
Maybe maybe the Reds got a little bit better of him.
I think that's entirely possible. But the Royals were desperate
to get somebody into that leadout spot because they're two, three,
four performed extremely well. Bobby Witch, Junior Vinni, Pascatine, Salvador Perez.
You know, they all were on pace A Bennie hadn't
got hurt the very end of the year, who'd had
three one hundred RBI guys, and that's what the two

(06:07):
seventy on base guy in the leadoff spot. So they
really feel like they can get a lot better offensively
if they can shore that spot up. And they're going
to try to figure out where it all fits because
Indian go to the outfield, Does Michael Massey go to
the outfield as one of them go to third base.
That's something that they're going to try to figure out,
and I think they'll figure out once they get done
with whatever they can accomplish here in the off season.

(06:27):
But I think this was just look, they've had two
years with their new crew with Macuerreo and who came
over from Tampa, Paul Hoover who came over from Tampa,
Brian Singer, Brian Sweene, excuse me, their pitching coach who
came over from Cleveland. You know, they've had their new
guard guys work with him for two years. And they
haven't really been able to get him to embrace a
third pitch. I think they felt like, look, with us,

(06:48):
this is as much as Brady's finger is going to be.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
We've been at it for two years.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Maybe Cincinnati can unlock more and if they can tip
your cap to him, congratulations. If not, we've got the
leadoff hit, or we need to make this offense better,
and we think we've got some good options to replace
him with the starting pitching. So, you know, long answer
summed up quickly.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
I think it's a surplus for Need and sir plus
for ne Go in both directions.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, makes sense. I mean you kind of answer my question.
I was going to ask number one, how are they
going to use Jonathan India?

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Number two?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Is their excitement for his arrival in Casey, And it
feels like there is.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
There is there's a lot of excitement because you know, there's,
first of all, there's excitement for the last couple of
years of even though you know JJ Piccolo was in
house and came with Dayton Moore. Date Moore never really
did embrace the analytics and he's certainly never embraced on
base percentage.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Right, They won a World championship.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Won a second pennant doing it Date Moore's way, But
I think nowadays it just that was such a one off,
of such an outlier. And JJ Piccolo does embrace the analytics.
He's very much grown the analytic department for the Royals,
and on basis like, let's be honest, we're talking about
intro to analytics.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
We talked about on.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Base, we're talking about, you know, nineteen ninety nine, two
thousand analytics. And he has made that, you know, given
those marching orders to organization to go out and find
on base percentage, we have to be better at that.
And so everybody in town has heard JJ talk about it.
They knew that's what he wanted to do, and now
he's done it. Everything he said he wanted to accomplish.
He gave a shopping list that he wanted to acquire
last year, he acquired everything on that list, and they

(08:15):
went thirty games better this year, going from fifty six
wins to eighty six. So there's a lot of excitement
behind JJ McColl I think a lot of us that
have screamed about the math the baseball are seeing the
math put into effect. And so yes, Jonathan India. Is
he perfect? So do we think the power is going
to take a hit in Kaffin. Yes, we're optimistic the
doubles will go up, the batting average will go up,

(08:36):
thereby increasing the on base percentage even more. But this
is something that the Royals really needed. Now where to
play him? I thought it was very noteworthy. JJ Piccola
said in his press conference Friday night after they made
the trade. You know, he was asked like, well, you
got Michael Garcia, third young guy that you like, You
got Michael Massi a second, like, where does he fit in?
They need outfielders right Like, ideally if Jonathan India was

(08:58):
a left fielder, this would be perfect.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
So I think left field's an option.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
But JJ said, we're not really even thinking about the
defense right now. We'll get everybody here, we'll get to
spring training and we'll figure it out then, which less
some of us, myself included, optimistic that there's another move.
Is there another bat coming, Is there an outfield back?
And then they'll play it out. Could Michael Garcia go
to get an outfield back? Could Michael Massey go to
get an outfield back? Michael Massey went to the organization
and he's got more power, but not the on base

(09:23):
percentage that India has and say, listen, I'm open to
play in left field. He said that to him last
year when they had that problem. So I think they
do have options, whether it's India that goes out there,
or they just keep him where he's comfortable and maybe
where his arm strength.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Says he should be at second base and.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
They move somebody else. What they really wanted was the bat,
and I think there is an element. They feel like
they're good at short, they're good behind the plate, they're
good in center field, so they can, you know, maybe
not be quite as good at third or second or
left field if that's what they need to do to
get the on base percentage into the lineup.

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