Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 19, 2006
Prior Plans

Over at The View from the Bleachers, Joe Aiello discusses the Cubs rotation for 2007. What surprised me was no mention of Mark Prior. Lou Piniella does discuss Prior in this interview with Alan Schwarz:

SCHWARZ: That's the interesting thing here--the Cubs, for the past four years or so, at least from afar, have always been about Kerry Wood and Mark Prior and if-they-make-34-starts. Every year, with frustrating results. Is the re-signing of Aramis Ramirez, the signing of DeRosa, and the signing of Soriano a way of breaking with that past and saying, "We're starting a new era--it's not just about Prior and Wood anymore"?

PINIELLA: That's the way it seems, but that was not really our aim or our goal. With Kerry Wood, I talked to Kerry personally about the possibilities of moving into the bullpen. We felt he could stay healthier. We thought he could be more dominant. We told him we'd give him all the time in spring training he needed to make those adjustments. He was very pleased with that. So we're really not counting on Kerry as a starting pitcher.

With the other kid (Prior), the Cubs have had disappointments. We're going to bring him into camp and give him every opportunity to pitch in our rotation. Are we counting on him? Not as much as before. And the reason is, it's been hard keeping Prior healthy. So if he comes to camp and he's healthy, it's almost like signing another top, top pitcher. That's the way we're looking at it.

Talk about low expectations!

Update: As pointed out in the comments, Mark Prior is mentioned briefly in The View From the Bleachers post. I missed him when I rescanned the article because he wasn't in bold face.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:47 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Perhaps the VftB post has been updated since yours, but he does mention Prior as possibly taking Marquis' rotation spot if he's healthy.

Posted by: Bird at December 19, 2006 11:06 AM

All credibility lost when comparing the Marquis deal to the Cards' signing of Chris Carpenter.

The basic calculus seems to be: "Hey! Carpenter did nothing for the Blue Jays, then he signed with another team and won a Cy Young!"

I fail to see the corollary in either career numbers, style of pitcher, temperament, nor circumstance.

If anything, the closest thing would be Prior with the notable exception being that Carpenter came back from career-swallowing injury to dominate and Prior hasn't.

Marquis is durable, and that's unfortunate for the Cubs. He'll eat innings giving up the long ball when the wind blows out (or in, doesn't really matter with Marquis).

Posted by: El Norte at December 19, 2006 07:57 PM

Lou may be crazy but he's not THAT crazy...depending on Mark Prior's arm is the surest way to get back to another 60+ win season. While no fault of Prior's, it's probably not realistic at this point to assume that he's not going to break down again. Major league pitching arms tend to get worse with wear, not better. I doubt there's a Cub fan among us who doesn't want Prior to be successful...and he may well be. But I understand Lou downplaying his role, particularly in April. Prior has had heaps of expectations put on him and it may help him to be less of the focus in dragging the Cubs from the cellar.

Posted by: pamela at December 19, 2006 07:58 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?