{"id":2171404,"date":"2025-11-21T23:18:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T23:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2171404"},"modified":"2025-11-21T23:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T23:18:23","slug":"royals-agree-to-deal-with-india-allow-melendez-clarke-to-become-free-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-agree-to-deal-with-india-allow-melendez-clarke-to-become-free-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals agree to deal with India, allow Melendez, Clarke to become free agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A clearer picture of the Kansas City Royals\u2019 2026 roster continues to take shape.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Royals made decisions on three players who played various roles for the club in 2025. First, the club announced that second baseman Jonathan India avoided arbitration and signed a one-year deal.<\/p>\n

According to MLB.com, India\u2019s deal is worth $8 million for his second season in Kansas City. Last year, India struggled in his first season with the Royals, posting career-worsts in batting average (.233) and home runs (9).<\/p>\n

The former National League Rookie of the Year will turn 29 in December.<\/p>\n

While India was a candidate to be non-tendered but instead remains on the 2026 roster, outfielder MJ Melendez and reliever Taylor Clarke both will not stay in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

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\"Kansas<\/div>
Kansas City Royals’ MJ Melendez, right, celebrates his solo home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in New York. All the players are wearing 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/span>(Seth Wenig | AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Royals said both were not tendered and have become free agents.<\/p>\n

Melendez had extensive struggles throughout the 2024 and 2025 seasons, hitting .083 in 60 at-bats with the Royals this past season. He spent the majority of the season in Triple-A Omaha as a result of his struggles, which saw him have a negative WAR each of the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>
FILE – Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Taylor Clarke throws to a Boston Red Sox batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. The Milwaukee Brewers have acquired Clarke from the Royals, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023, for minor league pitcher Ryan Brady and infielder Cam Devanney. (AP Photo\/Reed Hoffmann, File)<\/span>(Reed Hoffmann | AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clarke, a 32-year-old reliever, appeared in 51 games for Kansas City in 2025 and had a career-best 3.25 ERA. His departure comes as Kansas City figures to return James McArthur to its bullpen, and recently signed Lee\u2019s Summit West grad Alex Lange to join a Royals bullpen that had plenty of success in 2025.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCTV. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kctv5.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A clearer picture of the Kansas City Royals\u2019 2026 roster continues to take shape. On Friday, the Royals made decisions on three players who played various roles for the club in 2025. First, the club announced that second baseman Jonathan India avoided arbitration and signed a one-year deal. According to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[417269,313841,380043,417268,417267,358975],"class_list":["post-2171404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-royalty","tag-india-re-signs","tag-jonathan-india","tag-mj-melendez","tag-royals-avoid-arbitration","tag-royals-non-tender","tag-taylor-clarke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171405,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171404\/revisions\/2171405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}