Krause: Let’s stop this ‘value’ nonsense and start spending money

Lately, we’ve fallen into a pattern where Boston’s teams seem afraid to make a big splash and land a free agent, or make a big trade, that will create enough buzz to excite us.The Red Sox didn’t … and after losing Jacoby Ellsbury to the Yankees in the off-season, you’d have thought they would. Of any of the four teams, though, they’re probably the one that least needed to do this, as they’re coming off a World Series championship and they’re playing with house money this season. But their reluctance to go out and grab a proven center fielder (Curtis Granderson would have been ideal) speaks to a trend that both the Bruins and Patriots seem to be all too willing to follow.It’s tough to know which of the two are more frustrating. After weeks of teasing about potential moves, the Bruins went got two spare tires at the trading deadline … definitely not what their fans wanted, especially with Dennis Seidenberg out with a torn ACL. They’re hurting on defense, and playing Zdeno Chara as much as they’re forced to doesn’t really bode well once the playoffs start.You’d have had to say, going into the season, that the Bruins were the best bet out of the four to win a championship in 2014. They seemed to have everything … until Seidenberg went down.For B’s fans my age, Seidenberg is a lot like Dallas Smith was back in the day – a stay-at-home blue-liner who allowed Chara to flourish in much the same manner Smith enabled Bobby Orr to do what he did.It’s disheartening to see the Bruins do so little. And it’s even more disheartening to see the Montreal Canadiens pick up Thomas Vanek from the New York Islanders – a guy who’s killed the Bruins in the past.The Patriots seem to be one year deeper into their quest to be as stingy as possible while the teams around them load up. Last year, they let Wes Welker go to the Broncos for money they could have easily paid him had they wanted to … and got only Danny Amendola to compensate, and he was a huge disappointment.This year, they won’t franchise Aqib Talib, and they don’t seem to anxious to go out and get anyone to fill their needs either. Bill Belichick seems to be caught between building for the future while the franchise quarterback is running out of time. I think all of us envision a day when the Pats are full of young talent with a quarterback who’s either too old to compete or too young to be of much use. And not only will Brady’s ship have sailed, but one behind it as well.This is why if there’s any chance at all of the Patriots getting cornerback Darrelle Revis they should break the bank and overpay if they have to.If there’s any more visible symbol of the Patriots’ defensive futility over the last four years it’s their inability to get off the field on third down. Their defense is always on the field much too long and Brady ends up getting the ball in uncompromising areas of the field. It’s tough to beat good teams with that formula.Getting the NFL’s top cornerback will help solve that problem.So never mind “value,” or whatever the euphemism is these days for being cheap. We may be spoiled, and other areas of the country would love to have our problems, and be complaining about the things we complain about. But when you know that your teams have the means to compete economically and choose not to, that’s a little tough to take even if we’ve been overflowing in food fortune for quite a while.