On the face of it, the Red Sox’ trade with the Milwaukee Brewers earlier this week hardly qualified as a blockbuster.

Nine months after they traded for him last July, the Red Sox spun starting pitcher Quinn Priester to the Brewers in exchange for a 19-year-old outfield prospect (Yophery Rodriguez) and a competitive balance pick that will give the Sox the 33rd selection in this July’s draft.

Maybe Priester becomes a formidable major league starter and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Rodriguez blossoms into a star or maybe he never reaches the major leagues. And maybe the pick is a prospect or maybe he’s a bust.

What’s noteworthy about the trade is the fact that the Red Sox traded away a young starting pitcher, someone with whom they were intrigued enough last summer to give up a former first-round pick (Nick Yorke).

And what that says about the state of the Red Sox’ farm system speaks volumes.

It’s the kind of trade the Red Sox couldn’t have even contemplated only a year ago.

“It’s always a little bit uncomfortable to trade starting pitching depth,” acknowledged Red Sox chief baseball offier Craig Breslow, “especially someone young with controllable upside. But last year, I think our system was so skewed toward position players that it would have unthinkable (to do something like this in April of 2024).”

Sometimes, a trade is just a trade. But both the timing and the nature of the deal makes it a significant one if for no other reason than it reveals what the Red Sox are thinking about what they currently have on hand.

“I think (the trade) is significant for a lot of reasons,” said Breslow. “One, any time you give up controllable starting pitching, there’s massive risk on both sides that go along with that. But I do think it speaks to us being in a different position, just in terms of the quality of depth that we have that we think is capable of contributing in the short term.

“It made sense for us to (acquire Priester) at the last deadline where Nick Yorke is a really good player but maybe didn’t have the clearest path to contribute here. And then based on some of the transactions that we made over the winter, some of the steps forward guys have made here, we felt like this was an opportunity for us to add future value that we couldn’t ignore.

“We still think that Quinn Priester is going to be a major league starter for a long time. But we saw what (Richard) Fitts was able to do in spring training, and (Sean) Newcomb had a great spring and both of those guys are in our rotation. Hunter (Dobbins) came up and was really impressive in the start he made.”

And it’s not just the pitchers who are already contributing at the major league level, however briefly. On the horizon, the Red Sox have another wave of arms coming. They won’t be factors in Boston this year, or perhaps even next, but there’s no denying the promise of the likes of Luis Perales (considered by most the promising of the organization’s pitching prospects, even as he recovers from Tommy John surgery), 18-year-old Juan Valera, David Sandlin and recent draft picks Connelly Early (2023, fifth round) and Payton Tolle (2023, second round).

Suddenly, the organization which went more than a decade without developing a starting pitcher of note, has a stable filling up, behind such homegrown products as Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and others.

“We can start to feel like we’re building a pipeline,” said Breslow, “that can replenish major league talent. But you’re not going to find somebody who sits in my chair and says, ‘I have enough starting pitching.’ ”

Gone are the days when the development system was entirely lopsided — full of potential star position players like the current Big 3 — but nearly bereft of starting pitching options.

The Sox could churn out hitter after hitting, going back to Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts, on through Jarren Duran and Triston Casas, and now, the troika of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer, but couldn’t seem to develop even a decent back-end starter.

Even the current crop, either currently in the big leagues (Fitts), or recently helping in the bullpen (Cooper Criswell), or matriculating through the system (Sandlin) were all acquired from outside the organization, either by trade or free agency.

But the next level — Perales, Valera, Tolle and Early — are legitimately homegrown: either drafted or signed as international free agents, developing their way to Boston.

Breslow, for his part, doesn’t differentiate between acquiring pitching (as he did with Sandlin and Fitts) or developing it from scratch (as they’re attempting to do with Dobbins, Perales, Early and Tolle). To him, finding young quality pitching that offer years of team control is a positive, regardless of how they got the Red Sox organization.

“There’s a significant aspect of pitching development,” he said, “that’s just taking as many shots on goal as you can.”

It’s clear that Breslow has instilled in both coaches and player development personnel a distinct philosophy that’s been made uniform and helps explain the ascension of so many tantalizing arms within the system.

“I think there’s a strong alignment at this point about what we value as an organization,” he said. “We’ve talked about how swing and miss is infallible. From (director of pitching) Justin Willard to Bails (pitching coach Andrew Bailey) on down, I think the program, the infrastructure has done a really good job of aligning behind what is important to the point that our pitchers understand what is valued here. The programs are built out to emphasize velocity and stuff.

It seems hard to believe, especially for someone who just had a $170 million contract lavished upon him, that until last week, Garrett Crochet had never before pitched into the eighth inning of a major league game.

In fact, only twice before had he pitched as many as seven innings.

Sure, we’re in a different world where complete games are nearly as rare as no-hitters, and pitch counts and innings limits rule the day.

And in Crochet’s case, there were extenuating circumstances. First, without spending so much as a day in the minors after signing out of the University of Tennessee, he was used exclusively in the minors. Then, in 2022, he needed Tommy John surgery which wiped out all of that year and most of 2023, too.

Finally, in 2024, his workload was carefully monitored by the White Sox. Knowing they had a potentially valuable trade piece on their hands, they didn’t allow him to pitch more than four innings in any one start in the second half of that season.

That’s how, last week in Baltimore, Crochet got to feel, for the first time as pro, the rarified air of the eighth inning.

It’s a building process, even as he assumes the role of staff ace and signs the second-biggest contract in history for a Red Sox pitcher. There’s a physical component to building up, for certain, but much of it is mental.

It’s part of an evolution, as Crochet learns on the job

“Actually, last year was more of an adjustment period for me,” said Crochet recently. “Even last year, it felt like more of a mental hurdle. During spring training, you do two ups, you get a little sore, you do three ups and now you can do anything.

“(In 2024) spring training, I don’t think I built up that much. I went two innings three times, three innings twice and four once. This year, I went six ups on my last one, so I feel like I was a lot better set up to (go deep) this early in the year. Obviously, it all comes down to pitch count. But I feel like, with adrenaline and what not, you can kind of make it work.”

As Crochet went out to pitch an eighth inning at Camden Yards, something he hadn’t done since college, he wasn’t focused on how to accomplish something he had never before tried.

“That was more last year, when I got to the seventh and I remember thinking, ‘Hey man, I’ve been pitching in this game for an hour and 40 minutes — that’s a long time!’ Now, I sit down, I go back out, I sit down, I go back out…It’s kind of just what I do now. Honestly, I think I could have gone out for the ninth; obviously, I was at 102 pitches or whatever.

“But it’s one of those things where I sit down, I take my breath and I can kind of do that an unlimited amount of times. Who knows if 100 pitches is really the part where we should be worried? I feel like, as long as I get the rest in between (innings) I can just keep (expletive) going.”

Some of that may stem from his size. Crochet is no wispy Chris Sale, who looked as though a stiff breeze could sometimes topple him. Instead, at 6-foot-6, 245 pounds, Crochet more closely resembles an edge rusher or tight end – big, strong, and intimidatingly physical.

Last year, knowing he was under close watch, he could pitch with abandon. There was no effort to conserve himself or hold back his elite velocity for the later innings; there would be no later innings. Without regard for saving himself, he could empty the tank from the beginning.

This year is different. The Red Sox want innings from him and he feels a responsibility to give most of the bullpen the night off.

“I was definitely trying to be efficient,” he said of the outing in Baltimore. “Last year, I obviously struck out a ton of guys. But I didn’t really know how many pitches they were going to let me go. So my goal wasn’t to be efficient. Six innings was a win last year for me.

“Now, six innings is no longer a win. Six innings is sub-standard; I’m trying to go seven or eight every time I touch the mound. I take one shot for a strikeout and if I miss or it’s a foul ball, it’s like, ‘OK, so what, I’m not striking this guy out.’ Then it’s back to competing in the zone and getting the out anyway I can.”

Crochet measures success for his ability to take the ball for every one of his scheduled starts and go as deep as possible in each, but he hasn’t set an innings goal for the season.

“Because it’s such a long season,” he offered, “anything can happen. If I had a certain number in my mind and then the next start I went just four, now I’m doing the math in my head, ‘What start am I going to have to go CG (complete game) to be able to achieve my goal?’ ‘’