In years past, if the Boston Red Sox made a high-profile acquisition in the off-season, the Yankees sometimes reacted with one of their own.

When Boston signed Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Yankees went and picked up Kei Igawa. When the Red Sox were close to signing Mark Teixeira, the Yankees swept in at the last moment and stole him away. And when the Red Sox wanted Jose Contreras, the Yankees opened the vault for him, too.

But those days have been over for a long time. On Monday, the Red Sox committed nearly $200 million to sign Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez in a surprising combination of moves that resembled Yankees tactics of the past. But the Yankees barely flinched.

They remained quiet, sticking to their off-season plan to add specific and moderate pieces without spending nearly as lavishly as they did a year ago. Back then, the additions of Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Masahiro Tanaka, Carlos Beltran, Brian Roberts and Kelly Johnson came at a cost of roughly half a billion dollars over the length of all the deals, and the Yankees still did not make the playoffs.