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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

With Chris Sale, Christmas has come early in Red Sox Nation

OK, do you think now it might be possible to get David Ortiz to come back for one more season?

The Red Sox are loaded. Stacked. It’s time to start making plans for the epic Sox-Cubs World Series in October 2017. I’m already working up some stories on Theo Epstein, Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Anthony Rizzo returning home to Fenway Park to face the Red Sox in the greatest showcase World Series of all time.

Perhaps I am getting carried away. Then again, perhaps not. Name another ball club that can say that the reigning Cy Young Award winner is the third-best starter on the pitching staff.

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Christmas came early to Red Sox Nation Tuesday afternoon when word leaked from Maryland that Boston baseball boss Dave Dombrowski had acquired ace lefthander Chris Sale from the White Sox.

Adding Sale to a rotation that already has Rick Porcello and David Price — on a team that will score more runs than any other in the American League — means the Red Sox are going to be prohibitive favorites in 2017.

Best of all, Sale joins the Red Sox without any cost to the 25-man roster. That’s right. You just added an All-Star pitcher in the prime of his career without giving up any major league talent. The Sale price was Cuban hotshot Yoan Moncada and 100-m.p.h rocket-boy draft pick Michael Kopech, plus a couple of minor leaguers.

The trade is proof that Dombrowski is exactly what we thought he would be. The book on Dombro is that he’s about winning now. He’s not in that Ben Cherington school of holding on to prospects until they become suspects. He’s not afraid of what Moncada and Kopech are going to be. He wants what Sale can do for the Red Sox now. This may be why so many veterans of Boston’s baseball ops department have departed, but count me in on this logic.

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Watch: Dan Shaughnessy on the Chris Sale trade

The Sale trade went down on the sixth anniversary of a seismic 2010 deal in which the Sox acquired Adrian Gonzalez from San Diego for top prospects Rizzo and Casey Kelly. That trade was Epstein’s reluctant concession to “winning now,” and it made the Sox favorites to win the World Series in 2011.

Sports Illustrated picked the Sox to win 100 games (and the World Series) and the Boston Herald greeted the Sox in April with a headline that read “Best Team Ever.’’

They wound up losing their first six games, 10 of their first 12, and perpetrated the greatest collapse in baseball history after being the best team in baseball from May through August.

So here we go again. Prepare for the Hub hype machine to shift into overdrive between now and the start of spring training. There is simply too much talent and potential to consider this Boston ball club as anything less than a league favorite.

Sale is the goods. He be 28 on Opening Day and has just completed a five-year run in which he averaged 227 strikeouts and a 3.04 ERA with an aggregate won-lost record of 70-47. He finished in the top six in the Cy Young voting — and was an All-Star — in all five. And he makes less money than Clay Buchholz. (Let’s hope Sale doesn’t take the scissors to the Sox’ St. Patrick’s Day unis.)

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Watch: Dombrowski on dealing for Sale

Take a look at manager John Farrell’s options for a starting rotation. He has Sale, Price, and Porcello as a top three, then can select from a pool of Buchholz, Eduardo Rodriguez, Drew Pomeranz, and Steven Wright to fill out the rotation. Five of those seven starters have been All-Stars. Four of them are lefthanded.

During the nuclear arms race of the early 1980s, the US assembled an indomitable intercontinental ballistic missile system known as “Dense Pack.’’ The 2017 Red Sox rotation is Dense Pack.

The bullpen isn’t bad, either. Dombrowski went to Maryland looking to fill a hole for the eighth inning and acquired trusty righty Tyler Thornburg in a deal Tuesday morning that shipped Travis Shaw to Milwaukee. Thornburg can pitch in front of Craig Kimbrel until Carson Smith returns from his lengthy rehab in midsummer.

The 2016 playoffs reminded us that winning baseball games is all about pitching. The Red Sox have plenty of it now. But they also have more young everyday stars than any team this side of the world champion Cubs.

Big Papi has taken his power and charisma into retirement, but the Sox are left with a raft of young stars, including Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi, and Jackie Bradley Jr.

Now that Ortiz is gone, Dustin Pedroia is the senior statesman of the Red Sox. Pedroia has seen it all in his time here in Boston. He lived the dream with the 2007 and 2013 world champions. He survived the collapse of 2011 and the embarrassment of Bobby Valentine. He endured the losses of Terry Francona, Epstein, and Cherington. Last to first to last to first.

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And now this. Without losing any big league talent, Dombrowski has added Chris Sale to a team that just won 93 games.

Maybe Moncada turns out to be the Cuban Mike Trout. Maybe Kopech is the next Roger Clemens.

Too bad. That’s the risk you take when you deal prospects for established talent. Dave Dombrowski has lifted a page from the playbook of the late George Allen.

The Future Is Now.

RELATED:

Analysis: In Chris Sale, the Red Sox land the tough pitcher they needed

Meet new Red Sox ace Chris Sale

Chad Finn: This trade for Chris Sale hurts, but it’s the good kind of pain

Dombrowski’s not afraid to pull the trigger on big moves

Red Sox players, fans react to trade for Chris Sale


Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.