FORT MYERS, Fla. — Throughout the offseason and spring, plenty of attention has been placed upon the Red Sox’ theoretical rotation surplus. They have a group of seven candidates for a likely five-man rotation: Chris Sale, Nick Pivetta, Corey Kluber, Brayan Bello, Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck, and James Paxton.
Kutter Crawford does not get mentioned in that discussion. Yet that doesn’t mean that he’s been relegated to the margins of the organization. Far from it.
When the Red Sox gathered their baseball operations department in Boston in January for meetings, they highlighted Crawford’s emergence last year as an example of what the organization hopes to become.
“When you talk about pitching development, he encompasses it all,” said farm director Brian Abraham.
Crawford’s end-of-2022 numbers — a 3-6 record and 5.47 ERA with a 23.1 percent strikeout rate and 8.7 percent walk rate before getting shut down with a shoulder impingement — were hardly dazzling. But over a month and a half in July and August, he emerged as a stabilizing presence in the rotation.
Over an eight-outing stretch that featured seven games against eventual playoff teams, he forged a 3.20 ERA with 41 strikeouts and just 11 walks in 45 innings. He showed the poise, arsenal (93-96 fastball, cutter, curveball, occasional slider and changeup), and command to look like a big league starter.
“I had a bad taste in my mouth because of how the year ended,” Crawford reflected, noting that he allowed 18 runs in his last three outings before getting shut down. “But when I made the drive home from Boston to Florida, I used that time to decompress, to gather my thoughts.
“To contribute to the team over the course of that month-and-a-half, two-month stretch, it felt good. It felt rewarding. It kind of makes me a little more hungry to know that I can succeed up there.”
That is noteworthy in its own right, given Crawford’s path to the big leagues. He was a Day 3 draft pick by the Red Sox out of Florida Gulf Coast University in 2017 (16th round).
That’s not an area of the draft that typically yields starters. Indeed, before Crawford, the last Red Sox pitcher taken outside of the top 10 rounds to make at least 10 starts in the big leagues (not counting short-inning opener Jalen Beeks) was 2000 draftee Kason Gabbard.
“The odds were probably against him ever even getting to the big leagues for a day, considering where he was drafted,” said chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom.
But Crawford remade himself in pro ball, working with coaches, analysts, and training staff to develop physically, overhaul his delivery to make it more compact, and shape his pitches to work against righties and lefties.
He suffered a forearm injury in 2019 that ultimately required Tommy John surgery that fall, but he attacked his rehab to hit the ground running when he got back on the mound in 2021.
His strength gains produced head-turning results last spring, with Crawford topping out at 98 m.p.h. in short stints. He showed enough for the Sox to have him open the year in their bullpen, but he was hit hard while leaning heavily on just his fastball and cutter.
He was sent back to Triple A, where he worked with Worcester pitching coach Paul Abbott to reestablish a more versatile mix — in particular to lean more on his curveball. That work paid off when he was brought back to the big leagues in the summer and inserted into the rotation while, for a time, thriving.
In a disappointing year for the team, there was a lot about Crawford for the Sox to celebrate. He represented a pitcher whose hard work, determination to improve, and openness to instruction allowed him to make huge strides.
“It’s really rewarding knowing all the hard work that I’ve put in over the years, coming from a third-day draft pick,” said Crawford. “I just busted my [tail] every year just learning about my body and just trying to get better every day.”
Along the way, Crawford had plenty of help — something the team celebrated in the organization meetings. The amateur scouting department identified him as a potentially overlooked talent; minor league pitching coaches and analysts helped him reshape his delivery and mix; the strength and conditioning as well as medical staff helped him work back from Tommy John surgery.
“To have someone who’s experienced all different areas of the organization — medical, strength, amateur scouting, big league staff, minor league staff, success, failure — to have someone kind of be intertwined in all of that, I think he was a really good example [to cite in the meetings],” said Abraham. “He’s pretty unique.”
Or at least he has been in terms of a lower-round pitcher who contributes in the minors. Yet for the Sox, the significance of Crawford — beyond being either a first line of starting depth in Triple A or potentially part of the season-opening rotation if they proceed slowly with Paxton (injured in Friday’s first spring start), Garrett Whitlock, and Brayan Bello ― is in their hope that he represents not an outlier but a template.
The desire is to develop more like him — to have people across the organization working in concert to help a motivated pitcher develop beyond his projections. Teams such as the Rays, Guardians, Astros, and Dodgers have routinely developed lower-round draftees into significant big league contributors. The Sox aspire to join them in the undertaking.
“The talent pipeline is everything in terms of feeding a consistently successful team,” said Bloom. “Really, every good team that you see around baseball, it’s not just the first-round picks, it’s not just the marquee free agents.
“There are other contributors on these rosters that were developed from within and that were identified as hidden gems and then brought in and shown the way to their best selves by a lot of people working together.”
Crawford is driven to build upon that initial contribution — to show that for both him and the organization, 2022 represented a starting point.
“It definitely is gratifying to have the organization look at me as an example of perseverance and hard work and just staying true to your craft,” he said. “But I don’t get comfortable and complacent. I know I don’t have a spot solidified on this team right now. So I’m just here to work hard and try to earn that spot again.”
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.