Everyone agrees on the need to improve our pitching development system, as well as identifying and acquiring young prospect pitchers through the draft, IFA or other ways like Rule 5, miLFA and trades.
That being said, we have made it work for 15 years, in large part, by trading top prospects for frontline pitchers. They weren't always just everyday prospects. The Pedro trade (before the JH era) involved trading two highly regarded pitching prospects, that our farm has not duplicated since.
The Schilling trade was for young pitchers, too.
Beckett was mainly for HRam, but Anibal Sanchez was highly regarded, as well.
Sale was mainly for Moncada, but Kopech was no slouch.
Nate was not really thought to be a front line SP, when we traded a decent pitching prospect (Beeks) for him.
Our large FA SP'er signings have had mixed to poor results:
Price
Lackey
Dice-K
Dempster, Richards and Kluber were not really a big signings.
We look reluctant to sign big FA pitchers to more than what Giolito got, but we have made some sizable SP extensions, namely Sale, Nate, Porcello, Beckett, and Pedro- way back.