Johnette Howard

It’s not a move that’s likely to approach the cosmic significance of the Curse of the Bambino, but it is reasonable to wonder how long the Boston Red Sox — whose front office rarely makes big mistakes — will regret letting free-agent first baseman Mark Teixeira fall to the archrival Yankees last winter.

The Yankees already have won one World Series with Teixeira and they came to spring training in Tampa last week favored to repeat. Meanwhile the Red Sox convened about 2 1/2 hours down Interstate 75 in Florida stressing defense and pining for more offense — two things Teixeira could be providing them, had only the Red Sox coughed up the additional $1.5 million or so a year it would’ve taken to sign him through — this is going to hurt, too — 2016, like the Yankees did.

It’s staggering when you think about it: The balance of power in the AL East and all of baseball swung because the Red Sox balked at paying Teixeira an extra $1.5 million a year — or about the same chicken feed a utility infielder will make this season. For $1.5 million a year, the Red Sox deprived themselves of a switch-hitting, extraordinarily consistent first baseman who not only hung up an MVP-caliber season for the Yankees last season, but fits the Red Sox’s profile of the perfect player even better: He hits for power, hits for average, plays great defense, comes up big under pressure and earns raves as a good clubhouse guy.

“I don’t want to think where we’d be without him,” Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez said many times last season.

This year is supposed to bring a fresh start for the Red Sox. It just doesn’t feel like that when you listen to the doubts that keep floating up from Fort Myers. The Red Sox — who decided to let left fielder Jason Bay go, and are expecting little from Mike Lowell this season, if Lowell is even still around — are hoping to compensate for their questionable offense with what they rightly think can be the best starting pitching rotation in baseball. They’ve added John Lackey to a mix that already included Josh Beckett and Jon Lester.

The Red Sox can also console themselves by thinking nothing’s final. At some point this season, they can finally make their long-rumored trade for Padres’ first baseman Adrian Gonzalez to get another big bat.

But a lot can change between now and the trading deadline. What if the Padres don’t deal their homegrown star? What if the Yankees get too far ahead in the AL East? What if Teixeira has another season that rubs in all he could be doing it for Sox instead?

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The Red Sox still don’t have the middle-of-the-order protection for David Ortiz that Ortiz hasn’t had since Manny Ramirez left. But 2009 proved the Red Sox might have another problem: The 34-year-old Ortiz had a hot-and-cold season that suggested his age or life without steroids is catching up to him.