Royals must get comfortable with Cody Bellinger blueprint as free agency evolves

The common question around the Royals offseason has been; what will they do to improve in order to return to the postseason.

And while they've certainly been active this winter, their business has seemed to be centered around more frugal and in-between-the-margins type moves without making any real major splash.

From a free agency standpoint, the Royals have never been one to really dish out contracts possessing high AAVs and thus were never really in on any of the major free agent fish this winter.

Then, from a trade perspective, normally this a route more conducive for smaller market teams like the Royals landing higher level talent before they hit unrestricted free agency. However, this winter, the trade market has appeared to have reared it's ugly head as they have seemed to have been outpriced on two ideal targets.

Now, the 2015 Royals are a prime example that you don't always need to be the highest value team in order to win a World Series. That being said, we're not in 2015 anymore and the 2024 and 2025 Dodgers are prime examples of what going out and spending can achieve.

So, how do the Royals compete with the rest of league and actually reel in the difference-making splash that some insiders are calling for?

Well, nobody is asking for them to be the Dodgers, because very few teams can keep up with their seemingly bottomless pockets.

That being said, Cody Bellinger's new contract structure with the New York Yankees might the answer, even if it's not what owner John Sherman, GM J.J. Picollo or the rest of the Royals' brain trust want to hear.

Cody Bellinger's new contract structure might the type of deal Royals need to consider offering free agents moving forward

On Wednesday, Bellinger returned to the New York Yankees on a five-year, $162.5 million contract, which on the surface seems like it should undeniably be out of the question for a team who's highest free agent deal is Alex Gordon's four-year, $72 million contract in 2016.

However, what appears to be a five-year deal could easily not be a five-year deal, as Bellinger reportedly has opt outs in his contract after the second and third years.

If the Royals want to to get an All-Star caliber talent like Bellinger through the door, this might be the precise blueprint to follow to make such a deal palatable.

A $32.5 million yearly salary is a lot for the Royals, but when you think of it as a potentially short-term investment it suddenly seems far less daunting. And after all, while John Sherman may not have the same money as say the Guggenheim group in Los Angeles or Steve Cohen or the Steinbrenner family in New York with the Mets and Yankees respectively, we're still talking about a billionaire owner here.

There's always going to be risk, and I'm not saying the Royals should've signed someone with the career valleys that Bellinger has. The biggest risk; what if said player doesn't perform up to standard and opts into the rest of their deal? It wouldn't be the first time the Royals drew the short-end of the stick on an option (*cough* *cough* Hunter Renfroe).

That being said, sports are always going to be a gamble and you have to take leaps if you want to be successful. Even if it was a different type of leap, the Royals took plenty of leaps in their quest for 2015 glory, it just happened to come in the draft and not the open market.

Times are changing and odds are, unless a salary cap somehow gets introduced after the 2026 season, the Royals will have to find a way to compete on the free agent market somehow.

It also isn't a foreign concept by any means for a team with payroll restrictions to go after a big name star - just look at the Tampa Bay Rays and their reported six-year, $150 million offer to Freddie Freeman a few years ago.

And if we're being honest, I can think of far worse places to sign than a team with a core built around the likes of Bobby Witt Jr., Cole Ragans, Salvador Perez, Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino among others.

It appears time the Royals at least try to adapt to the norms of free agency, or they'll simply be left behind.