Rays have discussed extension with top prospect Curtis Mead

The Rays and top infield prospect Curtis Mead have had some discussions regarding a possible contract extension this spring, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. 

There’s no indication a deal is likely or imminent, though the talks add an interesting storyline to Tampa Bay camp.

Mead, 22, has still yet to make his major league debut. Initially signed by the Phillies as an international amateur from Australia, he was dealt to Tampa Bay over the 2019-20 offseason for left-hander Cristopher Sánchez. 

Mead hadn’t even reached full-season ball at the time, but he’s appeared a strong find for the Rays’ scouting department. The 2020 minor league season was scrapped due to the pandemic, but Mead has mashed since returning to game action in 2021.

The right-handed hitter combined for a .321/.378/.533 line across a trio of minor league levels that season, topping out at Double-A. He split the ’22 campaign between Double-A Montgomery and Triple-A Durham, putting together a .298/.390/.532 mark with 27 doubles and 13 home runs in only 76 games. 

The bulk of that work came in Double-A, with Mead only playing in 20 games at the top minor league level. That’s in large part due to an elbow injury that cost him almost all of the season’s second half, perhaps dashing his chances of reaching MLB last year.

Tampa Bay made the obvious decision to add Mead to their 40-man roster this offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He can still be optioned to the minors for three consecutive seasons and looks likely to start the 2023 campaign back in Durham. 

If Mead continues to hit at the level he has the past two years, however, he’d get a big league look before long.

Mead heads into this season ranked between 20th and 40th on top prospect lists from Baseball America, ESPN, The Athletic and FanGraphs. Evaluators are effusive in their praise for his bat, though there are a number of questions about his long-term defensive fit. 

He’s played primarily second and third base in the minors; however, there seems to be a fair amount of risk he’ll eventually have to move to left field or potentially work primarily as a designated hitter.

Regardless of Mead’s defensive outcome, the Rays are clearly enamored enough with his bat they’re open to tacking on their window of club control. Tampa Bay already controls him for at least six seasons. 

Sending him back to the minors early in 2023 — a reasonable enough decision considering Mead’s lack of Triple-A experience and an infield mix that already includes the likes of Jonathan Aranda, Brandon Lowe, Wander Franco, Isaac Paredes, Yandy Díaz and Vidal Bruján — would likely delay his path to free agency by an additional season. 

Mead does have the prospect status to potentially “earn” a full year of service time even if he’s not in the majors for 172 days as part of the prospect promotion package in the collective bargaining agreement, but he’d need a top two finish in Rookie of the Year balloting to do so.

There have been a handful of extensions for players who hadn’t yet made their big league debuts. Jon Singleton, Scott Kingery, Evan White, Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert have all signed such deals since 2014. 

Singleton was guaranteed $10M, while White and Kingery each locked in $24M. Jiménez secured $43M. Robert holds the record for such deals with a $50M guarantee.

Robert and Jiménez were generally viewed as higher-caliber talents at the time of their deals than Mead is now. Jiménez had ranked as Baseball America’s No. 3 prospect at the time of his contract; Robert was ranked the sport’s No. 2 minor league talent when he put pen to paper. 

Kingery (BA’s No. 31 prospect in 2018) and White (No. 54 in 2020) fit more into the bucket in which Mead now finds himself: excellent prospects but a bit behind the game’s truly elite minor league talents.

Neither Kingery nor White has met their clubs’ expectations thus far. Both teams would surely like a do-over on those contracts, though even the misses have had a fairly modest effect on the teams’ books. 

White is making $3M this season and will secure $7M and $8M, respectively, over the next two years. Kingery is due $9M this year, including a buyout on a 2024 club option.

The Rays don’t spend anywhere close to Philadelphia’s level and are even a ways back of Seattle, so a deal for Mead would be a little more risky than the White or Kingery ones were. 

Still, the potential payoff of locking up a high-end talent at below-market rates is enough for teams to have interest in this kind of arrangement. 

Tampa Bay hasn’t reached any extensions with players before their MLB debuts, but they’d made out exceptionally well on early-career pacts for Evan Longoria and Brandon Lowe before either had reached 50 big league contests.