I might be wrong; but dating back to Clay Buchholz, I can't recall the Red Sox developing a pitcher through their farm system that went on to have a solid MLB career. Justin Masterson maybe? You could argue Eduardo Rodriguez, but wasn't he mostly a AAA prospect when they got him from Baltimore? I think it is pretty clear that the organization has failed when it comes to developing pitching, and that it has been a long-term problem, constantly forcing the Sox to overpay veterans in free agency or to get them via trade.
Masterson absolutely had a solid MLB career! He pitched for 7 seasons and accrued 10 WAR! That's tremendous for a second round pick! (Rodriguez had reached AA with the Orioles.)
The thing about this is that we have a bunch of Sox prospects we've traded who are on the cusp. Michael Kopech headlines that group, but also Franky Montas and lesser talents like Shaun Anderson and, well, plenty of others like Espinoza or Kelly who have gotten hurt. Like, Montas isn't having a great season this year, but he looks like he could be a rotation stalwart for a few years. Kopech seems like a potential ace. If, by late 2021 or early 2022, Houck is in our rotation and Mata is on the cusp, while Montas and Kopech and Anderson are in rotations for the A's, White Sox, and Giants, the picture will look pretty different.
It just seems to me that the numbers are low enough even
when you're successful that a handful of hard-to-predict injuries can shift the whole picture. Like, if Espinoza debuted successfully for the Padres in 2018, or if Casey Kelly were now a back-of-rotation piece for the Twins who play in Minneapolis not a front-of-rotation piece for the Twins who play in Seoul, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
So I guess my question is... compared to what? Clearly we're not developing pitching like the Indians are — but who is? The Indians clearly aren't developing outfielders like we are, and it's not like the Rangers or Royals or Mariners or whoever are producing good starting pitchers more frequently than we are.
It is also a strange complaint at a moment when the Red Sox farm system has been the leader in recent years in WAR by active players, and by a pretty large margin. The number may be out of date. It was driven, as you'd imagine, by standouts like Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Lester and Hanley Ramirez — and Ramirez is not currently active and Pedroia's is only technically so — but also contains a ton of guys we've traded around the league, from Yoan Moncada to Josh Reddick to Travis Shaw to Manuel Margot to Mauricio Dubon to Jed Lowrie. The bulk of that value, of course, is position players. So I think part of the perception that our farm system has been barren with pitching is a comparison to the fact that it's been incredibly effective on the position player side — we have four homegrown players with more than 10 career WAR on our roster
right now, and a fifth in Devers who will reach that threshold by next May. That's an unusual amount of success.