Right. Sammy was signed out of the D.R. as a 16 year old by a Texas Rangers scout.
He played 25 games for Texas at the age of 20, hitting .238, when he was traded to the White Sox with Wilson Alvarez and Scott Fletcher for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique.
Baines was a quality player but the Rangers traded him the following year to the A's for a couple of nobodies. The Rangers were 59-53 at the time of the trade, so I'm assuming they traded for Baines in an attempt to pull closer to the top of the division. They ended up 83-79.
At the time Sosa was just a young prospect so I don't think we should fault the Rangers using the power of 20/20 hindsight.
The real stinker of a deal involving Sosa occured in 1992 when the White Sox traded him along with Ken Patterson to the Cubs for George Bell (who at that point was a former MVP past his prime). Bell played fewer than 300 games with the White Sox. The Cubs are still enjoying their half of the deal.