Issues Producing home grown Starting pitching

I will add that we seem to have a problem developing - or acquiring - lights out flame throwing bullpen arms. For the last few years, we seem to face an endless supply of them, but can't recall any of our own arms throwing with truly high velocity (did Kimbrel hit 100? Papelbon? Bard?)

In general, we seem at a recent disadvantage in the arms race. How to remedy?  (and I don't mean to imply that velocity is a panacea to our problems - just odd we don't seem to have any).

I am more Talking about ex prospects. Either those who made a name for themselves (masterson) or those who flame out (Owens)

What’s fascinating to me is the lag time between correcting the issue and actually seeing those results. For all we know the Sox have the some of the best talent at drafting and developing pitching for the past two years. But we won’t see that fruit for a few more.

Now, with that said, I think there’s so many variables in the equation; to where you draft, how you draft, personnel, and to some degree…luck, and to some extent in the luck category you got to talk about injury. The results over the past couple decades speak for themselves, but it’s not like a lot of these guys weren’t heralded by the national media, trades to other teams and still failed.

We’ve had plenty of highly regarded pitching prospects over the years that gave the appearance of organizational strength and they just never amounted to anything or much.

Anthony Ranaudo, Allen Webster, Henry Owens, Casey Kelly, Ruby De La Rosa, Anderson Espinoza, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Drafting pitchers is hard. But not it would sure be nice to hit on a guy one day soon. If someone like Perales or Wiklmen hit and pair up nicely with Bello I will eat my socks.

The track record is abysmal.

Not sure why. I dont think there has been a ton of focus on pitching in the draft and when there was extreme focus like drafting Ball and Groome it failed.

I think these days it's harder to draft what I'd call a horse than what is more commonly drafted, the hybrid pitcher.

I dont think it's just a Red Sox issue but with the focus on flame throwing and the disregarding of the art of pitching we get guys being trained to air it out for 5 innings, the less successful ones become hybrid pitchers bouncing back and forth between starting and relieving and then the guys throwing 100 who cant consistently throw strikes wind up as relievers.

The Sox, other than Bello, are deficient in developing even these types. Houck is a hybrid. Hes never going to be a horse, and their true relievers tend to be scrap heap rejects from other teams, other than purchasing Jansen and Martin.

So 200 inning starters arent really being developed much anymore, so we get the Tampa model, fungible pitching, not meant to last, designed to be fungible so that you dont develop a horse who gets too expensive in free agency.

That's a baseball wide issue but despite even that the Sox track record is abysmal.

Before Bello, Felix Doubront in 2013 was the last starter from their system to truly help the club and when it looked like he'd progress in 2014 he fell off a cliff instead.

Before that you go back to Buchholz, Lester and Anabal Sanchez, whom the Sox dealt away.

Feels far away from when I grew up and their starters like John Tudor, Bruce Hurst, Bob Ojeda, Al Nipper, Oil Can Boyd, and Roger Clemens all came from their system and became legit major league starters and then some. They also featured the ultimate hybrid pitcher they developed from their system in Bob Stanley.

It dried up since that point as far as I can see. Aaron Sele was the best they developed in the 90s. Had high hopes for Kevin Morton but it didnt pan out. Dana Kiecker and Tom Bolton contributed in 1990. And the drop off after that was drastic. Andy Yount was supposed to be huge but his career got cut short by an injury brought on by tragedy. Brian Rose and Carl Pavano were supposed to be big, but Rose didnt have great stuff and the Sox for some strange reason felt compelled to trade Pavano to Montreal for some skinny Dominican pitcher, lol.

It's truly been a long time since the Sox really developed pitching and I think it goes back even further than Lester. Buchholz, and Sanchez.

I think it probably has to do with lack of pitching instruction in the system. Dont think he wants the job, but I wish that Pedro was the go to guy for pitching instruction in the minors. Having Clenens around, too would be helpful, but those are more fantasies than realities.

But I think the developmental instruction must pale in comparison to other organizations and the Sox shy away from drafting pitching feeling like drafting hitters high up is more of a safe bet, and they're most likely correct about that. Is it me or do the Sox like to draft closers in the 3rd round they think they can convert to starters and it has yet to work? Then mix in the general trend in baseball to not develop workhorse starters in the minors it makes it even harder to develop impact pitching.

Still, though, you'd think the Sox would develop better relievers or hybrid guys? Definitely explains why, to win, the Sox had to trade for Pedro, sign an aging Schilling until he was 40, trade big prospects for Josh Beckett, sign John Lackey, give 210 million to David Price, and trade more big prospects to get Chris Sale, and why Bloom will have to spend big bucks on a free agent starter or two and/or be willing to put a dent in his farm system to acquire a starter. Certainly also explains why he gave Kenley 16 million or why Dombrowski traded the immortal Manny Margot and Logan Allen were dealt for Kimbrel, as other than Barnes, who really wasn't a true closer, the only closer they've developed in 40 years that I can recall has been Papelbon, who was supposed to be a starter.

Okay. But the premise of the post is that the Sox have been *unusually bad* at developing pitching, and while that is indisputably true of the team pre-2017 it isn't clear to me that's the case now. On the totally separate topic of whether it would be nice to develop a bunch of aces - I agree, that would be nice.

"Fairly respectable."

We've gone from pursuing "excellence" to "good" to "fairly respectable." Not a standard for any team aspiring to win the AL East or make the playoffs. At least, not anytime soon.

Added to the chorus of those of us still thinking this org needs more help developing pitching:

fire Dave Bush is step 1 baby

I’m sure he’s good at breaking down data but I’m not sure he’s good at actually coaching.

Maybe not minor league pitching development but certainly pitching development

For instance- something tells me that Crawford and Houck would be able to pitch into the 6th inning if they were with the Rays. The Rays just took one of our back of the bullpen castoffs and turned him into an average starter who just threw 8 innings

Dave Bush is the guy who is supposed to put the finishing touches on their development


As far as I’m concerned we have pitchers starting to pop in the minors. I have no confidence in them improving once they get to the bigs though

I think the org has and has an issue developing pitchers since the late Theo days. It’s not just about selecting pitchers, they can’t seem to make the most of guys they have. Even just recently you can see a number of guys who left the org and have taken off elsewhere (Brasier, Springs, etc.)

How many of the guys on the staff does it seem like they are maxing out? Schreiber and Bernardino? Meanwhile the same teams consistently turn guys into big league pitchers (Tampa, Cleveland, LA).

At some point there is something better that can be done on the couching side. I would clean out most of the pitching staff and try something new.

29 other teams didn't take those guys. So, not sure how you can put that on the Sox. Even the Braves didn't in rounds 1-3, which means they got lucky. Luck happens.

I don't really have any major problem with their pitching development. I don't see any specific red flags - something like being the one team in 2023 still not teaching anyone to throw a sweeper.  They don't invest much in amateur pitching talent for justifiable reasons, so your expectations should be tempered.  Still, there's a solid crop of young pitching on the club - Houck, Bello, Crawford, Whitlock and Winckowski.

I'll count Brandon Walter as a semi-success story too - in 2021 and 2022 he was throwing like a legit major leaguer in the minors but his body broke down. One thing I would like to see them change is to give guys the rocket pack to the big leagues once they're good enough. You never know when it's going to be over for a guy. I thought they were a little slower than they needed to be with Bello, too.

Whatever happened 20 years ago is completely irrelevant. Different people trying to do different things.

Agreed it's a long-term problem under multiple "administrations"--but consistently drafting/developing top flight pitching is one more category where Chaim has failed to turn things around. We could talk shortstops (Lawlar, McLain from the 2020 draft). Or outfielders (though Blaze looks legit). Just saying--while it's not fair to look at draft record until several years down the road, it's been 4 years. We need to see actual major leaguers emerge from Chaim's drafts. Or convert them to assets through trades, which he seems unwilling to do.