KANSAS CITY -- For the most part, the Royals’ 2026 infield is set. Gold Glovers will be returning on the left side in shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and third baseman Maikel Garcia (although Garcia can play multiple different positions based on what the rest of the roster looks like). Vinnie Pasquantino will anchor first base, while catcher Salvador Perez will return behind the plate for the majority of games.
Second base is where things get a bit murkier.
Royals second basemen recorded 0.0 WAR in 2025, according to FanGraphs, third worst in MLB. The group posted a .236/.301/.339 slash line and 78 wRC+. Second base isn’t a position of massive offensive production around the league, but with the Royals’ outfield production as lacking as it was this past season, second base also represented a big hole in the lineup.
Jonathan India and Michael Massey entered the season as the Royals’ second basemen who were also tasked with learning left field in Spring Training. The goal was to have India atop the lineup, Massey somewhere near the bottom, and see how the positioning worked itself out each night.
That plan derailed fairly quickly. India was not good in left field, and the club pivoted to having him be their everyday second baseman by the end of May. When the veteran trade acquisitions joined the club in late July, India moved down in the lineup. India’s first year as a Royal wasn’t what he or the club had expected, with a .233/.323/.346 slash line -- all career lows as he played through various injuries and tried to settle in with his new team.
“We needed, in this case, a leadoff hitter, and we were trying to make something fit positionally, which just didn’t work out the way we expected it to,” general manager J.J. Picollo said last month at the end-of-season press conference. “Jonathan still got on base. Maybe not at the rate he had previously in his career.”
Although he’s the better second baseman, Massey is athletic and handled left field pretty well. But he began the season in a bad slump before missing almost three months with a myriad of injuries, including an ankle sprain, a wrist fracture and back spasms that he’s dealt with several times in his career.
The 27-year-old played in just 77 games this past season and hit .244 with a .581 OPS, although he finished strong with a .375/.412/.484 slash line in his last 21 games.
“It’s a frustrating year, for sure,” Massey said at the end of the season. “But I also think with discomfort usually comes a lot of growth. You never want to have a year like this. But you go through these things and realize that it’s not the path you want to go down. To me, I just got closer to being the best version of what I know I can be. Frustrating, disappointing, yes. Certainly a lot of things I can take from it.”
Massey already had a comprehensive offseason plan to help revamp his swing, including flattening out his swing path and “launching” from his backside better, he said. He might be young in his career still, but Massey has hit before, both in the Minor Leagues (.842 OPS in six seasons) and in Kansas City in 2024, when he hit .259 with a .743 OPS as the club’s everyday second baseman.
“I don’t think this year was a lack of physical talent,” Massey said. “It wasn’t all of sudden, ‘I don’t have the reactions to play anymore.’ I think it’s more I had a little bit of a flaw physically. Ended up spending time on the IL and unfortunately could never really get that momentum going. Things can snowball fast up here. So taking the experience, looking at it objectively in the offseason, understanding that you’re never really that far away. 'Am I different as a person, or did things just not go my way this year?”
India and Massey are two of the Royals’ 15 arbitration-eligible players this offseason. Massey is first-time eligible and is likely to return, but India is a more interesting case. This is his third and final year of arbitration, and he’ll get a raise from the $7 million he made in 2025 -- not a crazy number, but probably out of range for a bench player if he can’t get back to the hitter he was with the Reds. India also offers little versatility and really struggled defensively with -6 outs above average at second base in ‘25.
The Royals view the outfield as their most dire need for improvement, and it’s where they’ll focus their energy this offseason. If they’re able to find better and more reliable production in the outfield, they could be more patient with Massey and India at second base. It’s not hard to see how both could lengthen the Royals’ lineup if they return to form: India as an on-base machine and Massey making better contact while staying on the field. But it also wouldn’t be surprising to see the Royals at least scan the second-base market this winter.