These guys need to show something at the big level, but this is highly encouraging.
The change is young and new pitching evaluation, acquisition and development seemed to moving at a snails pace for more than a decade, but I will add this: we've heard talk about how we haven't seen great homegrown pitching (especially starter) since the Lester-Buchholz days, and that is very true, but we have been seeing some recent improvements at the ML level over the last 5-6 years. Still, nothing like Lester, but a clear and measurable improvement in quality and quantity of pitchers helping the big club. Several were acquired by trade, Rule 5, waivers and other non draft and IFA signings. Some were not developed only within the Sox system, but the list of pitchers has been an improvement. (I'm not talking about the Crochets and Klubers- I'm talking about prospects or very young pitchers with no or very little ML experience when we acquired them.) Add these guys to the growing list of drafted and IFA additions, where we have been drafting more pitching and spending more IFA bonus money on pitching than before, and the trend is clearly in the right direction.
Established homegrown pitchers: Houck, Crawford, Bello
Semi-homegrown: Whitlock, Slaten, Fitts, Winckowski, Kelly, I Campbell
Acquired: Criswell (37 IP w 2 teams) Weisser (30 IP w NYY)
Prospects w ML experience: Dobbins, Guerrero, Penrod, Murphy
Prospects w/o ML experience: 4 Perales, 13 Tolle, 19 Clarke, Valera, 10 Early, 8 Sandlin, 16 Paez, 22 Reyes, 23 Cason, 29 Mullins, 30 Delzine, 25 Wehunt, 28 Monegro, 32 Tygart, 36 Ingrassia, 40 Aita, plus Fajardo, Drohan, Mata, Carlson, Rivera, Sena, Neely, Dean, Rogers and others
Pretty impressive, despite not seeing the next Lester, as of now.