http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/sports/baseball/ny-yankees-boston-red-sox-david-ortiz.html 2016-09-30 03:42:43 Red Sox Have Bright Hopes as David Ortiz’s Era Comes to an End As the Ortiz era draws to a close, the Red Sox are poised for a long run of success after shrewd acquisitions. The Yankees will try to keep up. === David Ortiz The good thing, for fans of the The Red Sox celebrated anyway, because they had clinched the American League East title with a Toronto loss. The last time they clinched something in the Bronx, they were romping around the old place, toppling the Yankees in the 2004 A.L. Championship Series on their way to a curse-busting World Series title against St. Louis. Ortiz helped lead the way. The current A.L. East championship is Boston’s second in four years. The last, in 2013, precipitated another World Series victory over the Cardinals. In between, the Red Sox twice finished last and rebuilt on the fly. The Yankees have not fallen that far. They traded four veterans at the deadline this summer but played better after the deals than they had before. They have a winning record for the 24th season in a row. A different streak is more sobering. The Yankees, though they were mathematically alive before Thursday’s game, are headed for their fourth finish in a row without playing in a postseason series. The Red Sox have not gone that many consecutive years without taking part in a playoff series since 1991 to 1994. (And the postseason was canceled for the final year of that stretch.) Of course, the Yankees’ trades in July and August have given an optimistic sheen to this lost season. At last, they made a real commitment to getting younger and breaking up a stale roster. “There’s a lot of talent, and there’s a lot more coming, and I think it excites us all,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “You want to see all these kids develop and come up and have successful major league careers. You think about the guys here, there’s guys with power, there’s some guys that are really good outfielders, and you think about some of the kids down there, there’s some speed and there’s power and there’s a lot of things. And there’s good pitching, too.” Injuries and uneven performance can make for a rocky path to stardom. The Yankees got nothing this season from the injured Greg Bird, and Luis Severino flopped in the rotation, going 0-8 with an 8.59 E.R.A. in 10 starts. Stockpiling prospects, as the Yankees did when they traded Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova, is smart. We have yet to see if the Yankees have the patience for grooming this young talent. The Red Sox, who huddled in the A.L. East cellar to wait out the storm, provide a model. They will miss the bat and the presence of the retiring Ortiz, but with Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Andrew Benintendi and Yoan Moncada — and plenty of cash to spend on free agents like Ramirez and David Price — the Red Sox might be turning into the “uber team” that Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman has said he wants. “When I got called up, it was a lot of veterans,” said Boston starter Clay Buchholz, now in his 10th season with the team. “You still have your core veteran guys, but it’s built around the youth, and they’re really good. It’s fun to see how the game’s changed in that aspect, too. There’s a lot of young guys that are a lot better than I was when I got called up. It’s been fun to be around that.” Buchholz joined a 2007 Red Sox team that actually had three extraordinary players under age 25: starter Jon Lester, second baseman Dustin Pedroia and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury. Those three all helped Boston win the World Series that October, and they all played critical roles again in 2013. Along the way, the Red Sox continued to make shrewd amateur acquisitions, only one of whom was a top-10 draft pick — Benintendi, chosen seventh in 2015. Bradley was the 40th overall choice in 2011, when Betts was picked 172nd overall. Bogaerts signed from Aruba in 2009, Moncada from Cuba in 2015. The Red Sox have used other prospects to trade for veteran pieces. “It’s a product of great scouting and player development that have come together with the players we have,” Manager John Farrell said. “How quickly they transition and become counted-on, productive big-league players? That’s almost individual, and there’s going to be different rates of time that they become those types of players. “But to have a group with this many, I think, is pretty unique. I think it goes back to identifying the personalities as much as the talents that allow them to thrive in a city like Boston.” A unique circumstance? Not quite. Another franchise once brought several young players to the majors around the same time, and reaped the rewards: the Yankees of the mid-1990s. As the Ortiz era draws to a close, these Red Sox may be poised for a long run of success. The Yankees will try to keep up.