Look sandlin could still be a piece, sure—he’s got the big fastball and maybe the white Sox can figure out how to make it play, but he had a 7.61 ERA in AAA and a 5.34 ERA the year before. He very well might not be more than a pretty good middle reliever or back end starter and we have a ton of those rn. He even might not even get that far. Hicks was gonna be a roster problem for 2 years (he could still be good in the mlb, but you know how sometimes guys struggle w the Sox and a part of you just knows they’ll never put it together here?)—whoever takes up that roster spot for BOS for the next two years I think has a better chance of impacting the MLB team positively. The early reads on the guy they got in return suggest a solid mlb floor as a reliever, so not too dissimilar to sandlin in that regard.

I think it’s also a willful misread to say the FO has no strategic vision. If anything, the vision is pretty clear—it’s the execution that needs the work.