Rotten sprouts: Any way to tell before you buy?

I picked up a pound of organic brussels sprouts this morning from a vendor at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza. The price was way higher than I've ever paid for sprouts, so I chose them carefully, but when I got home and started to prep them for roasting, I was surprised to see that about a third of the sprouts I bought were rotten at the core and had to be tossed. They looked fine on the outside, so I couldn't tell they were gunky and brown in the middle until I had sliced through.

Sprout lovers: was there any way to tell that this would happen, other than asking the vendor to slice through a sprout?