One of the most fundamental forces driving professional sports is the tension between building a team for long-term contention and going all-in to win in the current year. For fans of competitive teams, this balancing act can be massively frustrating. If your team leans too far to the side of consistency and runs back the same roster every year, you’ve punched yourself a ticket to a yearly early playoff exit. If your team leans too aggressive, your year or two of actual championship contention can be followed by a long, soul-crushing decline as players reach the back ends of their contracts (See: Phillies, Philadelphia, 2008-). The ultimate goal is sustained championship contention, which very few teams have managed in any given era. 

For the past five seasons, the Boston Red Sox have decidedly not been one of these franchises. In these seasons, the Sox have been among the most erratic teams in professional sports, with one World Series victory eternally etched in between three last place finishes. In keeping with this remarkable oscillation between first and worst, the Red Sox, currently tied for first place in the American League East, are following up last year’s last place finish with an excellent season, and while recent history might suggest that Sox fans should expect a return to the inferno for next season, the way that they’ve achieved this success might instead suggest they’ve arrived at the golden mean between the present and the future. 

At the center of this nexus of the now and the near is their incredible young core of right fielder Mookie Betts, short stop Xander Bogaerts and center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. All three are 26 or younger, under team control until 2020 at the earliest and are ranked in the top six at their positions by Baseball-Reference wins above replacement. The Red Sox’s youth movement goes beyond these three, as top prospects outfielder Andrew Benintendi and infielder Yoan Moncada have both made appearances in the big leagues in the past month. 

Pitching has been the Red Sox’s greatest weakness this season, but despite their overall mediocrity, there are a number of positive signs for both the playoffs and the years to come, particularly with the performances of pitcher Rick Porcello and pitcher David Price. After a rough first two months to the season, Porcello has been very good, lowering both his ERA and his fielding independent pitching  by more than a run each, and is signed through 2019. Price, signed through 2023 with a 2018 option, was not actually as bad as his surface level numbers would have suggested in the first half, as his FIP was nearly a run lower than his ERA, and has followed that up with a similarly solid second half. 

The combination of a young core already in place, together with pitchers now hitting their stride and under contract for the next few seasons puts the Red Sox in position to contend for a championship this season and repeat their success next year. Beyond that though, the fact that these critical components are already in place significantly diminishes the need for the front office to hand out more massive and likely damaging free agent contracts this winter (looking at you, third baseman Pablo Sandoval), which have played a part in the struggles of this half-decade. Instead, it allows them to focus on shoring up depth and other specific needs on short term deals and, as such, to add to the present without jeopardizing the future. This is the recipe for a long run of consistent contention, and the Red Sox may have finally found their way back to it.