Talent is talent. When you say a pitcher has talent is normally means the ability to throw the ball in the 90’s. Honing talent is getting that fastball over the plate. Next tier is putting the fastball into a weak zone for a hitter. Finally finding ways to create movement to that fastball so it doesn’t sit there to be hammered.
That is all about development. Talent is just potential.
I mean that's not what actual development is. It's not about "honing" anything. You don't start with terrible control and after 4 years in the minors come out like Hendricks. Development is fixing flaws. In regards to pitching, that means fixing minor issues in a delivery and making it repeatable. That's where command improves. It's also why guys who have complicated mechanics like Arrieta can just suddenly lose control of their stuff during a season. You don't totally "fix" someone. You just tone down issues they have and hopefully make them more manageable. Development is also adding a third offering. Most college pitchers will have 3 decent pitches. So they are sort of an exception but HS pitchers usually only have 2 pitches that grade as better than average. Typically that's a fastball and a slider/curve. Most of their development is about finding a third pitch that works for them.
Ultimately you have to have talent. That's entirely the problem with why the cubs haven't developed enough pitching via the draft. With a few exceptions, they haven't drafted guys who had much in the way of tools. They've repeatedly drafted college arms with low ceilings and average-ish floors. The point here is that no coaching fixes that. As I mentioned those low ceiling players tend to be useful but you're not going to find all-stars often. The other way to go is to take players who have flaws but better tools. Cease is a good example of this. Aside from the injury his other flaw was he only had 2 pitches. They were both really good but his change up to this day is still fringy which is why he still potentially may wind up in the bullpen. Another way is to gamble on someone who has good size but an immature body. Hudson is a good example of this and he also came with a lanky body. The idea there being you fix his lanky delivery and build up his muscle and he'll be throwing harder with great plane at 6'8.
Teams that are successful "developing" are teams that have money to draft/sign picks/ifa's who have specific flaws they are good at fixing. The entire thing about players is the difference between a 1st round pick and a 5th round pick is almost always the 1st round pick has fewer fixes needed. For example, Nelson Velazquez was available in the 5th round last year because he has a flaw(his hit tool). But if you look at his other 4 tools they are 55 for power run and arm and 50 for field. Blake Rutherford was the 18th pick in 2016 and his tools are 55 for hit and 50 for power, run, field and arm. The reason Velazquez so quickly popped up in the cubs top 10/30 rankings is because his hit tool was better than people expected.
That's the reason having picks in the first 5 rounds is so important. Well that and the slot money to sign them. Players with flaws and talent typically require money to sign them out of college commitments because they aren't dumb. They realize that often times if they go to college and fix whatever their issue happens to be that they will jump in the draft and make more money. It's why you almost never see the best of the best in terms of hard commits sign outside of cases where a top 5 drafting team specifically saves money to offer them say top 20 pick money. What you see is guys who probably wouldn't be 1st round picks anyways sign. The team is gambling that they can coax more out of a guy and the player is covering themselves in case they don't get better.
