First, I believe that Rodon will gain his spurs by doing what Sale did, and that is relieve. He needs to prove, first of all, that he can throw strikes and get a chance to work with Cooper. That to me will be the model by which they will work. Why wouldn't they? I would say that they did the smart thing with Sale and should also do it with Rodon.
Secondly, they have other options other than merely Viciedo. They have Alexi. They have Flowers. They have Danks. They have some talent now in the minors finally. Other teams have young pitching. I'd sure as hell wanted the Sox to go after young pitching talent than giving $4M to a utility infielder, for example. $4M for this guy was dumb.