"It doesn't hurt to listen to offers to trade the face of the Astros franchise.

True, Hunter Pence is the Astros' most popular player, an All-Star in two of the last three seasons. Just as true are the words Hall of Fame executive Branch Rickey used when Ralph Kiner was bargaining for a raise after winning the home run title for a bottom-of-the-barrel Pirates team: "We finished last with you, and we can finish last without you."

With the Astros on course to lose more than 100 games for the first time in an existence that began in 1962, they could decide that the face of the franchise might as well have a bag over the head. What Astros general manager Ed Wade has to determine this week — in consultation with owner Drayton McLane and owner-in-waiting Jim Crane – is if it will do more harm than good to trade away one or more of the few marketable players on the team.

Wade doesn't discuss specific trade scenarios, but he's made it clear he's open to dealing premium position players Pence and center fielder Michael Bourn, pitchers Brett Myers and Wandy Rodriguez, or anybody else who has perceived value to another team. Bourn and Pence are 28 and ranked ninth and 38th, respectively, among position players using Baseball-Reference's wins above replacement metric. Myers and Rodriguez are 30-something pitchers who could pocket as much as $57 million combined after this season through the length of their contracts.

Let's look, then, at the likely on-field worth of Pence, Bourn, Myers and Rodriguez in the years to come. Baseball-Reference uses a system, originally devised by analyst Bill James, that sorts the most similar players in major league history through various stages of their careers. Examining those career paths can at least cut down the guesswork as to what to expect in the future:

Hunter Pence

Pence is a career .290 hitter who entered Wednesday with 103 home runs, 377 RBIs, 61 stolen bases and an on-base-plus slugging of .818. He is on pace this season to bat .308 with 17 home runs, 98 RBIs and 11 steals with an adjusted OPS of 131 (with 100 being average, 146 being Lance Berkman's career norm and 213 being Jeff Bagwell's 1994 Most Valuable Player form). The players most similar to Pence at the same age: Bobby Higginson, Aubrey Huff, Sam Chapman, Rondell White, Andre Ethier, Kal Daniels, Jim Edmonds, Richie Zisk, Richard Hidalgo and Larry Walker."