While the world has been dazzled by the gargantuan deal that Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers (a team that also just traded for Tyler Glasnow and signed an extension) the Kansas City Royals have also been fairly busy this offseason. The team has committed over $100 million to free agents like Seth Lugo, Hunter Renfroe, Michael Wacha, Will Smith, Garrett Hampson, and Chris Stratton.

There is more than one way to build a winning baseball team, as evidenced by the 2023 World Series, but the competitive power struggle in MLB has always come down to the dichotomy between big and small-market teams. The Dodgers are perhaps the biggest market in the game along with the New York Yankees. Money is no object for these teams and have the seemingly unlimited ability to do whatever they please, picking up the cream of the crop from free agency, but this doesn’t mean that teams like the Royals have to stand idly by and watch the market pass them by. Small market teams can be meaningfully active in free agency.

When it comes to free agency, small-market teams have to put in a little extra legwork to attract free agents. While monetary resources certainly shouldn’t be the obstacle that many clubs use as an excuse to prevent them from spending — most owners have plenty of money to spare — it’s certainly a deciding factor in most negotiations, meaning other factors must be considered and advertised.

In their pitch to Lugo, the Royals highlighted the exciting young stars that are growing as part of their core. Bobby Witt Jr. was the significant name mentioned that helped entice Lugo to sign with the Royals. This points to the idea that small-market teams have to make strides in their drafting and development. The key to sustainable success in baseball is the ability to have a solid foundation of mostly homegrown talent. The Royals’ success in 2014 and 2015 was the fact they had a strong core of homegrown talent. Throughout the last few years, the Royals have tried to rebuild that foundation once again and are on the cusp of being able to do something special with a young core of talented players that will be supplemented by veterans.

The Royals have admittedly had a tough time drafting and developing starting pitching, but their position players are here and ready to compete, leading to the sensible starting pitching arms they have acquired this offseason. Because of their shortcomings, it opens up opportunities to fit certain players’ needs. Lugo wanted another chance to be in a rotation and he not only gets that with the Royals but has a chance to lead that rotation. Several teams and player matches could be made this offseason, one size doesn’t fit all, but every team needs free agents and those that ignore that fact are fooling themselves.

What’s interesting with the Royals’ approach seems to be a mixture of wanting to set up sustainable winning, but also the option of winning now in 2024. Wacha, Renfroe, and Stratton all can walk away after the 2024 season. They aren’t being viewed as long-term solutions and are likely entering with the idea of trying to win in 2024 and could likely be traded if things don’t pan out. For a team like the Royals, it’s a win-win situation because they either get wins, or they get prospects from the veterans they signed. Baseball is better when teams like the Royals try to actively better their situation and turn a corner rather than crying poverty and an inability to compete. No one wants to hear about payroll flexibility when an owner could certainly spare $10 million on a mid-tier starting pitcher who is fairly decent.

I look at teams like the Colorado Rockies, a team that I’m quite familiar with as both a fan and a writer. After suffering their first 100 loss in their franchise history, the Rockies have confined themselves to a trade for Cal Quantrill and a waiver claim of Jalen Beeks. The team is in desperate need of pitching depth and improvement across the board and yet is reluctant to make significant trades while choosing to spend money on free-agent deals that don’t necessarily make sense for the team. One can’t exactly claim the Rockies don’t spend money, they just don’t spend it wisely and then handcuff themselves to those deals to claim they don’t have many resources to spend. Much like the Royals, the Rockies have a growing core of intriguing young players that could blossom into stars, why not try to spend to build around them more meaningfully?

If more teams want to try and level the playing field in MLB, they have to be willing to do more, especially in free agency, to build up the game and themselves. The goal of professional sports is to win, so why not do what you can, within reason of course, to take steps back toward contention and get to the playoffs? The American League Central is viewed as one of the weakest in baseball, so the gambles that the Royals or any other team in that division takes could be rewarded tenfold. Small market teams can do more than they believe they can and the Royals are leading the way this offseason.