Like the doodles in a social studies notebook, the Red Sox have filled the margins of their roster. There’s not an inch of room left to draw a single unicorn, a pentagram, or an AC/DC logo. The margins are full. No more margins.

If the 2024 season has taught us anything, it’s that building from within and filling up all the other pieces is a recipe for an annual August collapse. The young players wither away in the heat of the dog days, and the complementary pieces lack the talent to make up the difference. September becomes a perfunctory exercise in waiting-until-next-year.

Winning when it matters requires star power, which the Red Sox have clearly lacked over the past five years while they have purged the roster of recognizable talent. That has to change, or we’ll have to repeat this exercise next year, and the year after that, and probably the year after that.

It’s time for the owners to hold their noses, grab their genitals, and jump off the diving board. They’re the damn Boston Red Sox. Stop swimming in the kiddie pool and get your hair wet. Find some real talent to keep this team competitive.

Talent is what the Yankees have in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.

Two players who are transforming: one signed a long-term deal that the Red Sox would have considered “too risky,” the other was sent out on loan at a price they would have considered “prohibitive.” The duo have jazzed up an otherwise mediocre roster with their Mantle and Maris routine. If they win it all, no one will care that they were only under contract for one year.

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Talent is what old friend Dave Dombrowski has gathered in Philadelphia.

The Red Sox decided Kyle Schwarber wasn’t worth $20 million a year, even though he had changed the lineup and the club’s culture, so Dombrowski pounced. And the Schwarbombs’ big man is something like their sixth or seventh best player! The Phillies are loaded with stars, from Bryce Harper to Zack Wheeler to Trea Turner to Aaron Nola. They have the best record in baseball.

The Dodgers are all about talent.

They have more former MVPs (four) than the Red Sox have Silver Slugger winners (one). From Mookie Betts to Freddie Freeman to Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers have turned the player development machine on its head by signing stars and then backing them up with a fearsome farm system. The Red Sox should take a cue from that.

The farm can’t be a means to an end unless you’re willing to wait forever. The Cubs languished for five years before their core team made the playoffs in 2015. The Astros endured three straight 50-plus win seasons before seeing the results of their process. The Orioles were basically a meaningless 4-A team for five years before winning the division last year.

What these clubs have in common is their title drought. The Orioles hadn’t won a World Series in over 40 years. The Cubs hadn’t won a championship since the first Roosevelt administration. The Astros had gone all of recorded history without a ring. Their fans had done nothing but wait, so why not wait a little longer?

In a market as demanding as Boston, such permanence comes at a price: irrelevance. John Henry’s insistence on winning like the Royals, the 2015 world champions, has made the Red Sox about as relevant as the 2009-11 Royals, who averaged 68 wins a year. That doesn’t work here.

Imagine what the 2024 Red Sox would look like, despite their weaknesses, if they had added a top starter like Corbin Burnes or Blake Snell this winter and left everything else the same. All-Star Tanner Houck slides to second in the rotation. Cooper Criswell becomes a swingman replacement instead of the de facto fifth starter. Perhaps the bullpen threw 70 fewer innings, thereby avoiding the injuries that brought down setup men Chris Martin and Justin Slaten.

More importantly, the team has an established and experienced resource person to turn to if the pressure doesn’t let up in the championship race. (And yes, for the purposes of this argument, we’re assuming Snell doesn’t last until March.)

Instead, we got Lucas Giolito and a down payment on 2025 closer Liam Hendriks, a mistake the Red Sox can’t afford to repeat this winter. There was enough young talent to win this year, but they were missing anchors.

So get Soto, a 25-year-old who is having one of the best seasons of his impressive career. Don’t tell us he’s expensive or a bad fit because he’s left-handed. He has a World Series ring, experience in baseball’s biggest market and is a bona fide star, so please shut up.

If you’d rather focus on pitching, steal Burnes from the Birds, sign Max Fried from the Braves, or get creative if Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki is posted.

Whatever it takes, make an impression. The Red Sox can’t win anytime soon on youth and margins alone. It’s time to turn to the core of the roster, or the scribbles in the corners of our scorecards will be nothing more than a series of middle fingers.