How the Red Sox went from a barren farm system to three All-Stars

Looking back, it appears that the next two scouting cycles represent an important step in doing so. The All-Star selection of three homegrown players on Sunday – Devers, Tanner Houck and Jaren Duran – drove the point home.

“It’s a testament to the organization,” Sox manager Alex Cora said. “Sometimes we get caught up in trying to be like someone else or emulate other organizations. (All-Star selection) is a reminder that the Red Sox have done it right for some time.

Hawk was taken in the first round of the 2017 draft; The Sox also took Cooter Crawford in the 16th round that year. Duran was a seventh-round selection in 2018, a draft that also included first-rounder Tristan Casas and 23rd-rounder Ryan Fernandez – a right-hander who excelled in the Cardinals bullpen.

Between those two events, the team’s international amateur scouting department signed both Sedan Raffaella and Brian Bello.

So far, 12 players from the 2017 and 2018 drafts have been named big-league All-Stars. The Sox are the only team to draft and sign multiple players – a particularly impressive result considering both minor talents were drafted out of that two-year span, and they also got Crawford and Casas in it.

Sox VP of scouting Mike Rickard said, “If you get two above-average regulars – position players or pitchers – in a year, it puts you in elite company comparatively (with other teams).” The team’s amateur scouting director from 2015–19. “And that’s what we were able to do.”

The Sox had Hawk high on their board in 2017, yet they were confident they had a big chance to land him with the No. 24 pick. Many teams viewed him as a reliever of the future given his lack of a third pitch beyond his exceptional sinker/slider combination. The Sox believed they had made even more progress in the scouting process, led by area scout Todd Gould, even though it would take time to achieve.

Rickard said, “Looking back, we were pretty confident he would be a good fit for us.” “We had strong beliefs. Our (projected scouting) grades were extremely aggressive relative to the industry consensus on Tanner.

Hawk leads all pitchers in the 2017 draft class in career value with 8.4 WAR, based on Wins Above Replacement, as calculated by Baseball-Reference.com. Crawford (4.5) is sixth, his rise as a third-day pick thanks to area scout Willie Romme’s pound-at-the-table advocacy from Florida Gulf Coast University.

“These are the parts of the draft process that make or break the draft,” Rickard said. “When you can sign a guy like (Crawford) in the 16th round, it’s a credit to the area scouts. “Willie projected him as a major league starter from the moment he saw him.”

Both pitchers debuted in July 2017, a few days after Rafaela signed with Curaçao for $10,000, and Bello accepted a $28,000 bonus from the Dominican Republic.

“To be here today and see where we started is amazing,” Rafaela said. “People who sign for that amount of money don’t have time for failure. You always have to keep improving.”

In 2018, the Sox struggled with whether to use their first-round pick on Casas, a high school first baseman with immense offensive potential, or Clemson outfielder Seth Beers, who was among the top college bats. is one of.

“The first choice is really an employee or organizational type of choice,” Rickard said. “Try to be familiar with all the information you can as a scouting director. You’re an orchestra conductor, a maestro, trying to balance all these different rhythms and ideas and information.

“I was kind of trying to make sure we weren’t shying away from taking a risk with a high school first baseman, and balancing that against what we perceived as the safety or potential of a college hitter. Was at that rate up to that point.

“So there were a few sleepless nights before the draft, but deep inside my courage kept pushing me back to Tristan.”

While Casas puzzled the Sox with their first pick (No. 26) due to the team’s certainty they would only have one shot at him, Duran was less clear-cut.

His college performance did not match his equipment. Southern California area scout Justin Horowitz noticed a player who hit for average at Long Beach State, but did not hit the ball hard, despite significant physical strength. He saw a player with elite speed whose raw technique still yielded surprisingly modest numbers as a base stealer, and whose role as a second baseman failed to take advantage of his running style.

“(Duran) definitely stood out in our entire process in terms of athleticism, equipment and the makeup knowledge that Justin provided,” Rickard said. “We weren’t quite sure where we had to take him, but we were pretty sure we didn’t want to lose him.”

The Sox remained patient and grabbed Duran in the seventh round, hoping his raw tools could finally be sharpened in a way — especially given his roaring on-field motor — that would yield game-changing qualities. Will prepare a player.

Fast forward six years for Duran and Casas, and seven years for Hawk, Crawford, Rafaela and Bello. That timetable is a reminder of the long road to rebuilding a farm system — an effort that requires the combined efforts of scouting staff, player development and, most importantly, players’ commitments — while also offering evidence that That one moment in time does not necessarily reveal the actual state of the prospect pool during that arc.

The wave that appears to have emerged from that dry period is likely to collide with the wave that appears to be on the upper-tier horizon, including Marcelo Meyer, Roman Anthony and Kyle Teal. A core is not only formed, but growing.

Sunday’s All-Star selections indicate what the Sox hope is a continuing pattern.

“It’s a very exciting time,” Rickard said. “We knew that (rebuilding the agricultural system) was not going to happen overnight, and we knew we still had a lot of work to do. There will be another layer to that next week (when the 2024 draft takes place), and we hope to see more talent coming into the farm system.

Globe staff’s Peter Abraham and Julian McWilliams contributed to this report.

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. chase him @alexspear,