“We’re not going to get into seven, eight-year deals as we have done before,” Lucchino explained. “What we have ruled out is the kind of long-term, gigantic commitment to players if at all possible.

“We’re not going to set a hard-and-fast rule that says nothing will ever be done along the following lines. We’ll always have some kind of exception to a general presumption. But the general presumption is that we would go after everyone but avoid gigantically long-term deals. We are more concerned about years than we are dollars.”

No, a team doesn’t want to make too many of those long-term deals with the wrong players, like the Sox have the past few years, but you have to trust your people, your data, your ability to make sound management decisions. You have to be confident that when you do dabble in that long-term market again, when you do go after that superstar who will make a difference not only in your lineup but in the mind-set of your whole team, that you’ll do it right.

We all have to see how it plays out here at Opryland this week and in the weeks thereafter.

Maybe the plan the Sox have on paper will work famously. Maybe those short-term commitments for good players will be enough to make this at least a second-wild card team in 2013.