Welcome to Rates and barrels. It's Tuesday, August 8th, Derek Van Riper, Eno Ceres, Chris Welsh, all

here with you for a project prospect episode. Lots of news and notes. We have a ton of players

who have been bumped up levels in the minors. We'll dig into that. We'll talk about a few

challenges with evaluating pitching prospects, because that is somehow getting more difficult.

I thought the collective we were

supposed to get smarter over time, and it seems like that job, despite the presence of more

information than ever, is actually becoming more difficult. But maybe there's some things

working against us that we haven't thought enough about. Let's begin today with Curtis Mead.

We talked about him on the Friday pod because

the news broke that he was going to be promoted by the raise. We've seen usage over a weekend

series and more important than the short-term value for the purposes of our conversation is

the question about his long-term value. We're at that sweet spot right now late in the year

where teams that are going all in

might be willing to trade major league ready guys

that were near the top of prospect list.

That describes Curtis Meade.

Given the crowding we have right now,

he might not be a great win-now player.

But Welsh, what do you see for Curtis Mead long term?

What type of player do you think he's going to be?

Is he a smart tradeaway sort of player right now if you're making an all-in push in a keeper league?

That's a good question.

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