/waits for Hunter Pence to inevitably tear his ACL.

1) Brandon Belt, 1B, Grade A-: Totally legitimate in my opinion, and second-only to Eric Hosmer among first base prospects.

2) Gary Brown, OF, Grade B: I admit some trepidation here. I love the speed, athleticism, and defense, but I admit I’m enough of a stathead to be concerned about the extremely low walk rate in college. I’ll project him as a regular with this rating, but the shape that regular status takes is still uncertain in my mind, if his offense will really be as good as people expect. We’ll see.

3) Zack Wheeler, RHP, Grade B: Not a great season, but the strikeouts and grounders are promising and I’ll cut him some grade slack for another year.

4) Francisco Peguero, OF, Grade B-: Hit .329 in the Cal League with 40 steals and good gap power. But he doesn’t draw walks, and needs to be more efficient about stealing bases. If he doesn’t hit .300+ at higher levels he’ll have a problem, although his tools will get him to the majors and keep him there for some time.

5) Thomas Neal, OF, Grade B-: I know his season in the Eastern League may look a bit disappointing, but I think he could put up some huge numbers in the PCL in ’11, and I still think he has a chance to be a non-star regular player.

Jack Wheeler (P)

It’s actually Zach, idk what I was thinking.

I wouldn’t touch that. But Wade might. And that’s frightening to me.

Well let me ask you this: what sorta prospects do you have? It would take at least one top-rated prospect and one decent prospect to make me even consider trading Pence. And if I was Wade I’d actually probably look for three prospects. Blue chip. No filler.

Jack Wheeler (P) is their top prospect, and I’m really not sure about what kind of hitters they have aside from Belt. I wouldn’t mind dumping Jonathan Sanchez, Belt and a mid-level prospect for him though.

I know for a fact that the Pirates don’t have the prospects to land Pence. If we trade him it will be to a talent rich organization like Tampa, Minnesota, or someone else with a loaded farm system that we can raid.

If he’s of the latter stock, well then let me go ahead and introduce you to the next Pittsburgh Pirates. Because it’s going to be a long, long, long climb back to the top.

This cracks me up. The Pirates are an average team this year, and now all the fans/radio hosts think they can start buying/trading for real players before the deadline. Hunter Pence’s name has been floating around a lot this past week. Come on.

As a life-long Astros fan, it pains me to admit I was just telling a friend the other day that they are the new Pirates. That is a horrible, nauseating thought.

Well let me ask you this: what sorta prospects do you have? It would take at least one top-rated prospect and one decent prospect to make me even consider trading Pence. And if I was Wade I’d actually probably look for three prospects. Blue chip. No filler.

Prior to this season I said 3-5 years. The wild card is what kind of owner Jim Crane turns out to be. I’d say he’s an even money bet to bounce Ed Wade. But is he going to sink serious money into free agency and signing draft picks or is he another Jeffrey Loria, Vince Naimoili, or David Glass?

If he’s of the latter stock, well then let me go ahead and introduce you to the next Pittsburgh Pirates. Because it’s going to be a long, long, long climb back to the top.