LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- It may not seem like it right now, in the aftermath of a pair of staggering acquisitions, but the Red Sox operate within budgets. That is why the acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez proved the key element to the team's ability to land the other most significant player on the offseason market in Carl Crawford.

It is now clear how valuable Gonzalez' contract was and is. The first baseman signed a four-year, $9.5 million deal with the Padres in April of 2007 that included a team option for the 2011 season. That made him an affordable superstar for a Padres team on which his elite production nearly helped to propel the team to the playoffs in 2009. But it also made him tremendously valuable to a big market team such as the Red Sox that typically shoots to keep its payroll below the luxury tax threshold, which will be $178 million this year.

It was not merely that the Sox traded for Gonzalez, a huge impact player in his own right. Because the team will pay the first baseman just $6.3 million for 2011, it had the flexibility to pursue a player who will command a huge contract in free agency.

Had the Sox re-signed Victor Martinez (who accepted a four-year, $50 million deal with the Tigers) or Adrian Beltre (who reportedly has been fishing for a five-year deal worth as much as $90 million), they might not have been in position to land Crawford. But with Gonzalez, the combined hit of two superstars for next year will count for a combined $26.6 million next year against the luxury tax threshold (with Crawford's seven-year, $142 million deal being worth $20.3 million against for such accounting purposes).

"We realized there was a shot, if things came together the right way, and we could be pretty aggressive on a couple of players we really liked. Adrian, through trade, on a relatively affordable contract for 2011, put us in position, on the right free agent, to be aggressive," said GM Theo Epstein. "Nothing that we did at these meetings or may have done or will do shortly was the product of a last-minute idea. It was all a product of, hopefully, well-thought-out thought over a long period of time, well-documented, lots of scouting, following players over the course of whole half-seasons, white papers written up about how the parts all fit together, a lot of thought and and a lot of commitment and belief, commitment to winning and belief from ownership."

The length of the commitment to a free agent is unprecedented for the Sox (at least, if one counts the negotiated seven-year extension for Gonzalez that has not yet been filed with Major League Baseball as unofficial) under Epstein. The team had given out a six-year deal to Daisuke Matsuzaka and five-year deals to free agents J.D. Drew and John Lackey. But the team saw fit to confer a seven-year deal on Crawford that will secure his services from his age 29-35 seasons.

The fact that Crawford is young at the time that he is reaching free agency made the long-term commitment somewhat more palatable. So, too, did the type of player that he is -- an incredibly athletic outfielder with a diverse array of tools. Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers noted that one of his former players in that mold, Steve Finley, remained a productive regular into his 40s. The Sox had conducted broader analyses to determine that such players represent reasonable risks.

"Players with young-player skills tend to age better than players with old-player skills. Speed is certainly a young-player skill. It's proven out over time, but each player is unique with his aging pattern," said Epstein, who spoke only in general terms, and declined to address Crawford specifically because no deal has been finalized. "I don’t think there’s a bright line with age, per se, but getting players in their primes – or in the early parts of their primes – is really important. If you’re going to sign a long-term contract, you want to make sure it at least starts at the right age and ends at a reasonable age.

"Most elite position players sign through age 36," he added. "If you can get a player signed through 35, I know it sounds silly, but that might be a victory in and of itself, capturing more of a player’s prime years from 29 to 35. If it’s the right player and you expect him to age well, it can be a more tolerable risk than signing a player who’s already into his 30s and you go into the late 30s. If you look at the history of big, long-term contracts, just narrowing it to position players, most of the ones that in hindsight can truly be deemed mistakes are ones that captured years in the late 30s or mid-to-late 30s. If you focus more on the prime years, you give yourself a much better chance to get the kind of return on investment that you’re looking for."

Certainly, the Sox and other clubs are mindful that such long-term deals tend to be safer bets for superstar position players than pitchers. Certainly, they are willing to gamble plenty on that notion. In Crawford and Gonzalez, the team is prepared to commit $300 million to a pair of players for their career primes. Crawford and Gonzalez will join a core of players that already featured many stars in or entering their primes, from Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis to young pitchers such as Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and Daniel Bard. Meanwhile, even though the team's prospect ranks were depleted by the deal for Gonzalez, there are still promising players in the pipeline, including Ryan Kalish, Jose Iglesias and others (Stolmy Pimentel, Drake Britton, Anthony Ranaudo and others) who could emerge as top prospects.

While the Sox have typically been reluctant to make long-term commitments, they believe they may have found a pair of players who make sense for what they're trying to do. And so, an offseason that began with questions about the direction in which the Sox were heading now has a potentially resounding answer.

"If things come together the way we hope and expect, we'll be really satisfied," said Epstein. "I think you go into every winter with a Plan A and sometimes it's hard to pull that off and then you move on to Plan B and C. I think adding an impact player was very important for where we were for the short, medium and long term. Adding two, as long as they were the right players, in the right spots, in the right situations, would be even better."