BRADENTON, Fl. - A year ago on Saturday, the Pirates acquired Steven Brault as the player to be named later in the Travis Snider trade. He was seen as the smaller part of the deal, and there weren't many expectations for his upside. In fact, when the deal was just about to be completed, there was a brief rumor that Brault was the guy coming over, and that led to the following reaction from me:
"Brault wasn’t in Baseball America’s top ten, and ranked as the 16th best prospect in John Sickel’s rankings. He received a C+ rating, borderline C, and was described as a potential back-end starter.