According to ESPN's Buster Olney (Go Vandy) here, Mark Prior is getting ready to start pitching again in 2009. Three questions come to mind.......
1. Who is Mark Prior Again?
2. Will he be any good after the surgeries and all the time away?
3. Who will want him?
So Mark Prior, the 2nd overall pick in the 2001 draft, hasn't pitched in a major league game since the 2006 season when he put up an impressive 7.21 ERA in 43.7 innings. Wow - that's pretty not good. I'm pretty sure the problems started for Prior in 2003 when his innings total nearly doubled to 211.3 IP from the previous year (116.7.) That crazy Dusty Baker and has great abuse management of those young arms. In that 2003 season, Prior tossed up a mid-2's ERA and put up a very impressive 245 strikeouts. Since then - Prior has been plagued by injuries (some caused by bad luck.) In 2005, he was on his way back to his old form but couldn't stay healthy and after 2006, yeah - well we just havent' seen him.
I think someone will take a small risk on Prior as the Padres did this year (although their risk didn't turn out so well.) I'm sure a lot of teams will be interested in something similar to this year, about a million garunteed with a whole bunch of performance incentives. I'd love to see a team like the Rays grab him as they have taken chances on a lot of players over the past couple of years.
My best guess is that Prior ends up with an NL team as he's been pitched in that league his entire career. I think, in the right circumstances and with managed work load, we may see the Mark Prior that was so impressive 5 years ago.
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