CINCINNATI (WXIX) - In July of 2023, when a young Reds team was in first place in the NL Central, the Reds’ front office tried to deal for Brady Singer of the Kansas City Royals. A deal didn’t line up, and the Reds only ended up adding one relief pitcher at the deadline that year.

One year later, in July of 2024, a surging Royals team was looking for a leadoff hitter. They called the Reds about Jonathan India, but he wasn’t available. Yet.

Just like anything in life, trades can often be about timing.

“That’s always a factor,” Nick Krall said. “Everybody’s availability is different at different points of time.”

The Reds went on to trade India plus Joey Wiemer to the Royals last November for Singer. The Royals had a lot of starting pitching and were looking for some stability at the top of their lineup. The Reds were looking for an experienced pitcher who had shown that he could make 25-to-30 starts in a season.The Royals knew the Reds liked Singer. And the Reds knew the Royals liked India. In November, the trade came together pretty quickly.

The Reds landed a pitcher in Singer who they viewed in high regard at the 2023 MLB trade deadline.

At the time, Luke Weaver, Ben Lively and a banged up Graham Ashcraft were in the Reds’ rotation. With Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo on the IL, the Reds’ biggest priority at that deadline was adding a starting pitcher who had multiple years of team control. Singer fit that description well, and the rebuilding Royals asked for prospects in return.

“We talked about (Singer),” Krall said. “Nothing ended up matching up. But we did ask. I can’t recall the exact offer. We talked about it, but there was not much traction.”

Singer was aware of the rumors. The Reds had spoken to him before the 2018 MLB Draft, and he already knew that Cincinnati’s front office liked his profile.

“The trade deadline came around and rumors started popping up,” Singer said. “I don’t know what this is about, but it’s something I can’t control. I heard the Reds and stuff like that. I knew there was interest. It was crazy to hear that. It’s tough at the time. But I couldn’t do anything about it. It was someone else’s decision. I just went out there and kept pitching.”

In 2023, the Reds only added reliever Sam Moll at the deadline. They missed the playoffs by two games.

One year later, the Royals were one of the biggest surprises in baseball. They wound up advancing to the second round of the playoffs even though they had a painfully thin lineup.

To try to bolster that lineup last year, the Royals called the Reds in July of 2024 about India’s availability. The Royals were looking to trade a prospect or a package of prospects for India.

“Cincinnati to wasn’t serious about dealing India then,” Royals GM JJ Picollo said.

The Reds went on to trade Frankie Montas and Lucas Sims at the deadline. They were both on expiring contracts, and the Reds had replacements for each of them in Nick Martinez (who had been in the bullpen) and Jakob Junis (who the Reds added in the Montas deal).

The Reds were four games under .500 at the end of July last year, and they didn’t have a big trade deadline firesale that could have included India.

“Jonathan was playing second every day,” Krall said recently about why the Reds didn’t deal India last summer. “If you’re going to trade him, you’re taking off your club. We had some interesting runs up until that point where we got close to .500. We had a chance. At the end of the day, we didn’t. During the season, the right deal wasn’t right there to make.”

Krall said that Singer wasn’t available at the time. He was an important part of the Royals’ success last season.

“He’s up there with one of the most fiery guys that I’ve played with,” said Garrett Hampson, who played with Singer in Kansas City last season. “He really has that passion on the mound. You can tell that he really enjoys competing, and I love that. You know he’s going to give it his best effort every time he takes the mound. You could tell a lot of the guys respected him in the clubhouse. He just goes about his business the right way.”

But when the 2024 season was over, the Royals and Reds reassessed where they were at. The Reds had second base covered as Matt McLain returned from injury, and they also wanted to give Santiago Espinal a bigger role.

The Royals had plenty of rotation depth but their lineup had several flaws.

Pretty quickly into this most recent offseason, the Reds and Royals were laying the groundwork for the India-Singer swap.

The most interesting piece of this deal was how it was sculpted around those two big leaguers. Who had more value between India and Singer? Would one of the other teams have to toss in a “sweetener” to balance out that trade value? Where would that piece come from?

“We talked about a larger deal,” Krall said.

That larger deal didn’t end up panning out, but they worked out a trade. The Reds tossed in outfielder Joey Wiemer, who was not a big part of the Reds’ plans. He likely would have started this season behind Blake Dunn, Jacob Hurtubise, Will Benson and Rece Hinds on the depth chart. Wiemer is with the Royals’ Triple-A team this year and is hitting .152 with 36 strikeouts in 105 at-bats.

In Kansas City, it’s been a difficult start for India. He’s posting a .626 OPS, which would be by far a career worst and is about 21% below league average. He has a .226 batting average, a .327 OBP and a -.7 WAR.

The plan was initially for India to play third base and left field so Kansas City could slot in a stronger defender (Michael Massey) at second base. But India was analytically graded as the worst defender in MLB this season according to outs above average as well as fielding run value. More recently, India has been back at second base or starting as the DH.

Singer has a 4.88 ERA in his first 10 starts with the Reds as well as a 5-3 record.

India and Singer were college teammates, and they’re still in touch.

“I love India,” Singer said. “I love watching him play. He was a great teammate at Florida. He’s just a winner. He’ll go out there and play hurt. He doesn’t care. It’s really cool to have someone like that on your team. He said that I’d love Cincinnati and I told him he’d love Kansas City.”