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This week, Al Melchior and Heath Cummings debate whether it is prudent to sell high on big-time pitching prospects as soon as they get the call.

Heath: When I was a kid, my 1985 Topps "Team USA" Mark McGwire rookie card was a great source of pride. It had a everything you could want, including a climbing price tag in my teen years as McGwire made a run at the home run record. I considered selling it several times only to have it's value obliterated by the steroids controversy and Barry Bonds usurping his record. I still have that card somewhere. It probably doesn't matter where, because if I can't find mine I could just buy another one on EBay for $5.00.

I thought about this card last night as I watched Jose Berrios' first major league performance. It got me thinking about value, both perceived and real. The mad dash on the waiver wire for pitchers like Berrios, Blake Snell and Sean Manaea has been exhilarating, and justified. If one of these guys live up to the hype, they could help you win your league. But in Year 1, they probably won't.

Doesn't it make sense to shop them as soon as their call-up is announced to see if you can get something real for them before the warts are exposed? I mean, there was certainly a risk in selling that McGwire card for $400 right before he broke the record, but it's better than an attic full of cardboard that you're too sentimental to get rid of, right?

Al: I'm not any more likely to put my pitching prospects up for sale after reading that McGwire analogy, but I do want to go home and go through my baseball card collection.

You are right to point out the risk inherent in holding onto a hyped prospect, given that they could easily fail to live up to expectations. However, there is also a risk to trading them before they have a chance to show what they can do. If someone wants to offer slow-starting Chris Archer for Berrios, then sure, I'd be open to trading him. In all likelihood, I'd be looking at established middle-of-the-road types like Patrick Corbin, Collin McHugh or Jason Hammel. While Berrios could flop and get demoted (or flop and put up bad stats), he could also pitch like he did over his 30 starts in the upper minors, getting whiffs at a high rate while pitching with good control. Any of the recent big-name call-ups present the same type of overall ceiling, even if all of them haven't demonstrated the same level of control.

I wouldn't treat any established player any differently. Anyone with similar upside would get more of a trial than one start or even a handful of starts. Just because they have yet to be tested at the big league level doesn't mean that I am going to treat them the same way I'd treat McHugh or Hammel.

Heath: I want to be clear, I'm not advocating for selling Berrios because of one bad start. His start just helped with the analogy. The original question was whether you should look to trade prospect pitchers before they make their first start. The answer to that is totally dependent on their perceived value. The best question is whether rookie pitchers have a higher perceived value than actual value. That is a pretty impossible question to answer in this format and it probably varies greatly from league to league.

You mentioned you would take Chris Archer for Berrios, but you wouldn't take Jason Hammel, etc. I think that's a good place to take this, because it's specific. We both agree that Berrios, Manaea and Snell are bunched up in our rankings and Manaea is the only one who has yet to make a start. Let's focus on him.

I would have to think long and hard about taking Hammel for Manaea. Outside of his weird 2013 season Hammel has been a mid-3s ERA guy with around 8 K/9. He's averaged around six innings per start, which is 180-190 innings. If that's the over/under for Manaea I'm taking the under. Manaea's upside may give him the edge, but it's slight in my opinion.

I'd more likely try to target the frustrated owner of Carlos Rodon or James Shields. I'd definitely put out feelers to see if the Tyson Ross, Yu Darvish or Lance McCullers owner was getting impatient. Are there any of these guys you wouldn't accept for the prospect pitchers? Better yet, do you think you're more likely to land one of these guys now or after Manaea has made 3-4 starts?

Al: The Ross/Darvish/McCullers examples are good ones, because each presents the extreme gap between potential ceiling and floor that Manaea has. Each of the three have health-related issues, while in Manaea's case, the questions arise from his inexperience, even in the upper minors. If I have rostered Manaea, I've taken on the risk associated with his inexperience, and I have enough doubt about Ross and Darvish living up to their potential that I would not swap one set of risks for another. McCullers is the exception here, which may seem odd, because he is the least experienced of the three. However, he's not coming off Tommy John surgery and his path to activation is a little more clear than Ross'. Based on what he did last season, I have confidence that McCullers' upside matches that of Manaea, and his major league experience gives him a leg up in value.

If I waited until Manaea made a few starts, I expect there is little he could do to appear to have more value than McCullers, and there is definitely a chance that he loses value and is no longer someone I could trade for McCullers. So in this case. yes, I agree that it would make sense to dangle Manaea (or a prospect of similar value) on the market right now.

As for Rodon and Shields, both have demonstrated more of their floor than ceiling of late, I'd rather just wait and see what I have with Manaea, even if it turns out he is a disappointment. This would be my stance with all of the pitchers you mentioned, aside from McCullers.

Heath: Other than the fact we completely disagree on which pitcher from that group we'd like to get for Manaea, I feel like we've found some common ground. While prospect pitchers may have big upside, the most likely outcome is that they won't reach it. These pitchers possess a low floor, but that floor is mitigated by the fact that you can generally find fifth starter production on the waiver wire in most weeks. Am I curious, since I would seemingly accept a larger group of pitchers than you if that's because we view the upside or the most likely outcome differently. To finish, I'll give my views on each for the most recent prospects to make their debut, and you can wrap it up by telling me why I'm wrong. I'll give a 10-spot range for each pitcher:

Blake Snell
Upside: 20-30th SP
Most Likely: 60th-70th SP if he's back in the majors in May

Jose Berrios
Upside: 15-25th SP
Most Likely: 50th-60th SP

Sean Manaea
Upside: 25th-35th SP
Most Likely: 70th-80th SP

Al: It seems that I have a more optimistic view of where these pitchers will most likely finish, because I would place each of their upsides in similar territory as you did. At his best, Berrios could be a No. 2 SP this year, and I would just flip the upside projections for Snell and Manaea. However, I have Berrios ranked in the 40s instead of the 50s and Manaea in the 60s instead of the 70s. Not every pitching prospect will hit, but many have over the last couple of seasons. As you mention, there are plenty of viable Fantasy back-end starters on waivers, so it's not a bad percentage shot to take.