Alright guys so the more I think about the Pirates roster, the more I see trade assets. For one thing, there are many players who play First Base and the Corner Outfield spots. I want to use this fanpost to rank the Pirates top assets. Also, at the end I would like to discuss a possible deal for Giancarlo Stanton.

Let’s start with basically the 25 man roster (with a few additions) in order of (my opinion of their) trade value using tiers. Oh and I know my opinion means jack-shit to anyone in the actual baseball world so I'm not going to parade around like some baseball expert here but stick with me.

Tier Untouchable:

Andrew McCutchen

Tier 1: Starling Marte, Pedro Alvarez

Tier 2: Neil Walker, AJ Burnett

Tier 3: Garrett Jones, Wandy Rodriguez

Tier 4: Jeff Locke, Francisco Liriano, Mark Melancon

Tier 5: Russell Martin, Travis Snider, Jerry Sands, Jose Tabata, James McDonald, Jason Grili, Alex Presley

Tier 6: Clint Barmas, Gaby Sanchez, Michael McKenry, Jordy Mercer, Josh Harrison, Jared Hughes.

Okay so now I'm going to use a top 20 Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect list from minorleagueball.com to rank the prospects.

Tier 1: Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon.

Tier 2: Alen Hanson, Gregory Polanco, Luis Heredia.

Tier 3: Barrett Barnes, Josh Bell, Nick Kingham, Dilson Herrera, Wyatt Mathisen, Clay Holmes, the two players drafted in the first round by the Pirates.

Tier 4: Tyler Glasnow, Kyle McPherson, Bryan Morris, Victor Black, Justin Wilson, Phil Irwin, Jose Osuna, Adrian Sampson, Jin-De Jhang, Alex Dickerson, Tony Sanchez.

So now that everyone is ranked in tiers, let's take a look at what it would take to get Giancarlo Sanchez. I would probably say it would take a combination of something such as:

A: Two Tier 1 prospects, Two Tier 2 Prospects, Tier 3-4 25 Major leaguer.

B: One Tier 1 prospect, one Tier 1 major leaguer, Two Tier 2 prospects and One Tier 3 prospect.

C: One Tier 1 prospect, One Tier 2 major leaguer, Two Tier 2 prospects, Two Tier 3 prospects, and One Tier 4 prospect.

D: One Tier 1 prospect, Three Tier 2 prospects, Two Tier 3 prospects.

If you were the Pirates front office, would you make a deal? Are there other deals you think are out there that are less expensive? More expensive? Do you disagree with my analysis? Post your opinions in the comments and say what you’re thinking. I'm curious if fans would be willing to pay that sum or even if they want to acquire him at all. Thanks for your time.