I don't disagree with you. Business-wise, getting low to medium-priced free agents at short years and seeing what they can do is probably a sound decision. With the way that the playoffs have expanded, if you're sitting at a little above .500 in September, you will probably find yourself in the pennant race. And if you make it and get hot in October, who knows where you can go. You compare the money that you shelled out (not much) to a team that went crazy in the winter and you see where both of you end up (probably around the same position). Also, while you are shopping at Dollar Tree you have a couple of prospects on the farm that are poised to come up in a year or two and since they make no money either, you can save even more dough.
Like I said, that makes prudent financial sense and in no way does this make this team cheap in the Oakland A's sense.
Having said that and knowing that John Henry isn't in the business of losing money, it's not a lot of fun, is it? I mean it was fun when the Sox were figuring out how the Sox were pulling one over on everyone by nabbing Kevin Millar or picking up Manny and Damon and Foulke and trading for Pedro and Schilling and Beckett and Sale. Even though a lot of us thought that the Lackey, Renteria, Sandoval and Hanley deals were dumb before the ink was dried, it was fun thinking about what those guys would do in the summer. The last couple of winters haven't been much fun. Like
@NickEsasky said a few days ago, there is a segment of Sox fans who like to follow the team as if they were general managers and are looking to Excel as well as baseball-ref to determine whether the Sox have "won" the off-season. And dudes, I'm not going to yuck your yum. My least favorite part of my job are spreadsheets and I certainly don't want to think about those as I'm pondering my favorite baseball team.
For me, baseball--and sports in general--are supposed to be fun. There's a gamble you make when you sign a premium free agent: is he going to be Manny or Renteria? It's fun to gamble with someone else's money. But at some point, that guy might turn off the money spigot and try to get the most bang for his buck.
Put it this way, say you've got a new Porsche every other year for the last 20 years. It's expensive, it's always in the shop and since you live in New England, you can only really drive it half the year. But your family loves it. They love driving around in that Porsche with the top down and it's a real treat for everyone. Except you, because you're paying for everything. So instead of a Porsche, you buy a Subaru this. It's got all the same whistles and bells as your old Porsche, but it's a Subaru. It's not as sexy but it doesn't cost an arm and a leg and it gets you to where you need to go. Now no one wants to take a ride with Dad to grab takeout in the Subaru as they once did in the Porsche. I get why the Subaru is the better family car, but at the same time something is lost.