India ditches locks, returns to his roots in offseason reset

SURPRISE, Ariz. – One morning in December, Jonathan India woke up and decided it was time for a new look. The signature, shoulder-length locks that flowed out of his batting helmet or baseball cap throughout his first five Major League seasons, is no longer. It’s been chopped off in favor of a mid-length style that still shows off his curls.

“I guess,” India said, “you could call it a reset.”

That’s how India defined his offseason in general. After a disappointing 2025 season, when India posted a career-low slash line of .233/.323/.346 and 0.4 bWAR in his first year in Kansas City, he returned to his roots back home in Florida – intent on training how he was familiar and with whom he was familiar doing it.

Calling it a “family-involved offseason,” India trained at a local youth park near his house so his wife, daughter and parents could come with him. He trained in the gym with his dad. On the field, he reunited with the coach he trained with in high school, Bruce Charlebois, who runs a baseball school in Florida and is someone India has known since he was 7 years old.

“It was like bringing it back to my roots,” India said.

He hopes returning to what he knows will translate into improvement in his second season with the Royals, and his final season before free agency. India is very honest about how he must be better than he was in 2025. The Royals plan on beginning the season with India as their second baseman, looking for a bounceback year, as they point to India’s underlying metrics as reasons to believe he’ll be better this year, along with his comfort with the team now and the stadium dimensions moving inward. These were all key factors when the Royals tendered India a contract for ‘26 and avoided arbitration with an $8 million deal.

Understanding the business side of baseball and knowing the season he had, India wasn’t expecting the Royals to keep him in 2026. But he’s glad to have another chance and is out to prove that their belief in him, and his belief in himself, is valid.

“I know the business side,” India said. “I didn’t have a good year. I was pissed at myself for it. And it’s a cold-hearted business. But what they did for me is different from any other organization. They said, ‘We want you to play second base. We want you to be yourself this year.’ And they want me to be comfortable.

“I’m excited about [this season] and ready to get after it.”

While the Royals believe in his abilities, his performance will ultimately dictate India’s playing time as the season progresses. To keep it, he has to fix the things that went awry last year.

India admits that Kauffman Stadium’s massive dimensions got in his head – especially after four years calling the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park home – and he probably changed his swing to try to hit for more power. Even with the walls moving in this year, India knows what he was doing last year is not a sustainable answer, so he worked out the mechanical flaws that had been exposed. He’s using his legs more and wants his swing to be more level to generate line drives.

With the help of Charlebois this offseason, India reintroduced hitting drills that helped him when he was younger, including angled batting practice – a drill in which the BP pitcher moves to the first-base side and off of the mound. He brought it into Royals camp and was working on it a few days ago with hitting coaches Alec Zumwalt and Connor Dawson. India had a bat lying near his feet to make sure he wasn’t diving across the plate, but the goal was to stay inside the ball to generate line drives to the gap and not spin off early to try to generate power.

“With the angle he’s throwing at, I’m trying to stay center while the ball’s coming back at me,” India said. “I felt like I was hitting balls backside with ease, flighted and perfect swing. Ball’s inside, I wasn’t turning, just staying through it. Hitting true liners in the gap. That’s a drill I’ll be doing a lot throughout the whole season.”

Above all else, India is healthy now, too, which helps after he battled injuries for a majority of last year along with a few late-season IL stints. He’s also solely focusing on second base instead of learning left field like he did last spring, and he feels more comfortable in the Royals organization a full year after the trade.

“He’s in a really good headspace,” Zumwalt said. “Just coming to a new team, there was a lot of change for him last spring. He put a lot of work in this offseason to be in the best place he can be.”