Boston Red Sox Need to Follow St. Louis Cardinals' Example

New Manager. Check.

Replacing an All-Star first baseman who ended up in L.A. Check.

Demanding, knowledgeable and expecting fan base. Check.

Two World Series wins in the past 10 years. Check.

The Boston Red Sox could learn a lot from the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals are currently the model franchise in baseball. They have been able to thrive and excel under the same circumstances that have crushed the Red Sox recently.

The Cardinals are consistently excellent. Players leave, players get hurt, but there is always someone else ready to take advantage of the opportunity and run with it.

The Red Sox have lost their way as an organization, and they need to look at the Cardinals in order to find their way back to respectability.

When Tony La Russa retired after winning the World Series last season, the Cardinals went with an unconventional hire, former catcher Mike Matheny. Matheny had no previous management experience when he took over the Cardinals this past season, and yet the Cardinals stand one win away from returning to the World Series and defending their 2011 title.

When Albert Pujols signed with the L.A. Angels before this past season, it was imagined that this move would propel the Angels into the playoffs and deal a fatal blow to the Cardinals, but the Cardinals have had different ideas about that.

This is where John Farrell comes into play. The Red Sox finally announced the hiring of Farrell tonight, according to Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com. I feel that the Red Sox should have acted more quickly once they believed that Farrell was the guy, but the Red Sox got the manager that they coveted, and that is all that matters.

I have no idea if John Farrell will be a good manager for the Red Sox, and ultimately it doesn’t matter.

What is important is that the Red Sox feel that John Farrell is the right man for the job. That Ben Cherington believes that Farrell is the right guy for the job. That the remaining Red Sox players believe that Farrell is the right guy for the job. That Red Sox ownership believes that Farrell is the right guy to move the organization forward.

It is important that Farrell believes he is the guy who can fix this. He knows what he is walking into. He knows the dirty laundry. He is leaving the relative safety and obscurity of Toronto, by choice, to go under the microscope in Boston. This is a great sign. He is taking this challenge head on.

The Red Sox' credibility is at stake here. Everyone knows this, and everyone needs to make this work.

The Red Sox collapsed during the final month of the 2011 baseball season in epic fashion. The damage was deep enough that it caused the team to part ways with very successful manager Terry Francona, bringing an end to a fruitful run between the manager and team. Firing a successful manager who had won two World Series in four seasons was a sign of real problems underneath the surface.

Somewhere during last season, GM Ben Cherington and the Red Sox ownership must have realized that it wasn’t Francona's fault at all. The Red Sox simply were not talented enough. Not deep enough. Not smart enough to continue to operate the way they had been competing. The mega-millions contracts weren't working. The Red Sox weren't good enough.

The Red Sox had lost their way. Three straight seasons without going to the playoffs.

It took only one season of Bobby Valentine for everyone to come to this realization.

Once the mega-trade with the Dodgers was completed, it became fairly obvious that the Red Sox were a shell of themselves, but it gave the team an almost clean slate for the 2013 season. A chance to reboot the Red Sox.

Farrell's hire will be well worth the compensation if he can fix Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, bringing them back to excellence. Having Lester and Buchholz pitch to their potential alone changes the Red Sox' fortunes for 2013.

Hiring John Farrell is a big step in the right direction, but it is only the first step in a long rebuilding process. Hopefully they will look to the Cardinals to make sure that they do it right way.