I think there is a miscommunication between you and I.
I wanted the Yanks to blow it up in 2013, but they clearly didnt. Yes, they spent big to try to stay competitive, but starting in 2013, they stopped dealing young talent for veterans. This allowed them to build. Yes, they spent a lot of money, but they no longer dealt away long term talent for short term players. By stopping the outflow of prospects, they were able to build a very strong farm led by Judge, Severino, Sanchez, Andujar, etc. When they finally blew it up, their farm was there, ready to provide big league talent. The timing was impeccable and we actually got better.
The reason why I am making the comparison is that the Yanks had tons of money on the docket with a lot of the money paid to players no longer performing well, and their team building strategy was almost entirely by FA signings. This led them down the path to further financial obligation with rather minimal improvement. This was also in a different time. There was no draft pick compensation for going over the threshold by any amount, so all the penalty entailed was money. The sox are currently similar to the 2013 Yanks. Keep adding money and all you're gonna see is marginal improvement with pretty high stakes penalties.