Being the most aggressive, living-in-the-present, future-be-damned franchise in baseball has served the Boston Red Sox well, bringing together the players who last season delivered the franchise its fourth World Series title this century. Doing so required the Red Sox to push their payroll well beyond the luxury tax threshold and to strip their farm system of prospects, but as the saying goes, “Prospects are cool; parades are cooler.”
It was easy to get behind the Red Sox’s philosophy when the team was winning 108 games and going 11-3 against the New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2018 postseason.