Perusing infant and toddler Cubs clothes at mlb.com, I stumbled upon this horror.
What in the name of Todd Hundley is going on here? Shouldn't No. 22 Mark Prior Cubs items be shipped immediately to third-world nations, so third-world babies can be clothed on the cheap?
A Sosa jersey is one thing. Maybe even Edmonds for the bandwagon jumpers. But Mark Prior? I'm losing faith in the wisdom of the markets.
With the Mark Prior news, it is officially time to remind Phil Rogers that he is officially wrong. Officially. And again.
We now come to the inevitable conclusion of the Mark Prior rehabilitation life cycle: He's shut down for the year and is having surgery.
This must come as quite a jolt to the Padres fans who were counting on Prior being a part of "the best rotation in baseball." To reminisce about their giddiness about signing Prior, see these comments from December 26.
Oh, and see this from Kevin Towers the very same day:
"Mark Prior is a competitor and is working hard to regain the form that made him one of the great young pitchers in the game," Padres general manager Kevin Towers said. "We are confident he is going to help us in our rotation this season. It's exciting that Mark is coming home to San Diego to pitch for the Padres."
Get well, Mark. Stay classy, San Diego.
ESPN.com is out with its All-2012 baseball team, a projection of who will be the best players in the majors four years from now. Things look a bit bleak for the Cubs, with only Geovany Soto and Carlos Marmol mentioned - Soto as one of the top five catchers and Marmol in the second tier of elite closers.
Curious that Carlos Zambrano isn't included among starters, as he will only be 30 at the start of the season.
I'm not sure I would worry too much, however, as the All-2008 team from four years ago included quite a few Cubs, including Mark Prior, Corey Patterson and Zambrano on the first two teams. Not to mention Marcus Giles, Rocco Baldelli, Eric Gagne and Rickie Weeks.
This story is chock full of goodies from Dusty Baker, including his insistence that Edinson Volquez must "cut down on his pitches" without acknowledging that he may play some role in doing so.
And then there's this:
Volquez pitched winter ball and there are questions about him running out of gas. Baker couldn't disagree more.
"Bob Quinn (former Yankees, Reds and Giants GM) told me once that pitchers usually rust out before they wear out. Latins guys who I've seen play winter ball rarely have arm problems — Julian Tavarez, Luis Tiant played winter ball somewhere every year, Diego Segui. Japanese pitchers throw more.
"Almost all foreign pitchers throw more than American pitchers," he added. "Rarely do you hear anybody say some American pitcher has a rubber arm."
Bronson Arroyo was mentioned and Baker said with a sly grin, "He's Cuban." Actually, he was born in Key West.
"Close enough. Key West is as close as you can get to Cuba," he said.
In related news, Dusty thought Mark Prior was Mexican because he was from San Diego, which is "as close as you can get" to Mexico.
Found via Another Cubs Blog.
Here's your near daily update on the broken former Cub, or former broken Cub:
Padres pitcher Mark Prior has a tear in the capsule of his surgically repaired right shoulder and will be shut down for the next two weeks, based on what the operating surgeon, Dr. James Andrews, told Prior on Friday. "He does have a tear in his capsule," said Prior's agent, John Boggs. "He'll be re-evalutated in two weeks."
In other words: He ain't coming back this year.
With the Padres still in town, here's the latest Mark Prior update from Buster Olney (subscription required):
It's possible that Mark Prior won't pitch in a big league game this year, at worst, and at best, he won't help the Padres for weeks or months. Prior, recovering from significant shoulder surgery last year, was throwing last week and had a pain in the back of his shoulder that "felt like a firecracker," Padres GM Kevin Towers said Wednesday. So Prior has spent the last few days being examined by doctors, and the Padres' initial hope that he would be ready sometime in June is apparently out of the question now. "As of now, I don't think it's anything serious," said Towers. "We'll see."
Ah, yes, the "I don't think it's anything serious" and "we'll see" phase of the Mark Prior recovery. Sweet memories.
This doesn't look good for Mark Prior's rehabilitation:
After meeting with Padres doctors Monday, there's a chance Prior will take that familiar trip to Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday, to see Dr. James Andrews, who performed arthoscopic surgery on his nettlesome shoulder on April 24, 2007. Prior was shut down for eight days in April because of soreness.
Still waiting to hear from Phil Rogers on his "feelings."
As I peruse Padres blogs in advance of Greg Maddux's return to Wrigley, it seems this would be a good time to provide some numbers for Cubs and Padres fans alike to ponder:
103, 93, 95, 124, 119, 107, 100, 111, 101, 97, 113, 110, 115, 135, 86, 105, 105, 106, 98, 105, 112, 95, 112, 116, 97, 105, 124, 107, 111, 123, 124, 107, 119, 107, 127, 115, 114, 95, 79, 114, 118, 100, 116, 131, 129, 109, 124, 131, 133.
These, of course (!), are the pitch counts for each game of Mark Prior's first two seasons. Whether that contributed at all to his ongoing woes, we will never know. I'm guessing not. But who doesn't like to look at a list of numbers first thing on a Monday morning and get angry about what could have been all over again?
Meanwhile, Ducksnorts seems to be the place to be to keep track of comings and goings of Padres, as well as game blogs. And you can get a Ducksnorts T-shirt, if you're in to that kind of thing.
Left Coast Bias is concerned about the apathy that apparently is about to overtake Padres fans.
The Sacrifice Bunt bravely takes the blame for the Jim Edmonds debacle.
And, finally, Paul DePodesta has a brand new blog (just two posts so far) named It Might Be Dangerous ... You Go First.
That's right: Mark Prior is "experiencing shoulder discomfort." And just in time to finally put to rest those pie-in-the-sky June 1 expectations (though, to be fair, those were long gone anyway):
"I think you can call it a setback," San Diego manager Bud Black said, "but we'll know more [Sunday]."
Odd, these things were never called "setbacks" when Prior was in Chicago. The Cubs always were just acting out of caution and always, but always expected him back soon.
For a full review of Mark Prior's injuries - and to see the natural life cycle of a Prior injury - please visit our posts on his RotoTimes injury notes for 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Oh, and as a reminder, the oracle Phil Rogers lectured us all in February that it was a mistake to let Prior go:
If you're a Cub fan, however, you don't have to love the first news bulletin coming out of the San Diego Padres' camp: Mark Prior is pain-free and throwing well.
Yes, it's February, so it doesn't mean what it would if this were late March.
But I watched Prior throw with the Cubs on the first day of the spring training two years ago and it was clear something was wrong. He could barely play catch while the other pitchers long-tossed. He wound up being sidelined by shoulder problems which eventually led to surgery, the only one he had during his troubled stay with the Cubs.
I have been in the minority of those who felt the Cubs made a mistake by cutting their ties to Prior in December. Those feelings are even stronger now.
If Prior can get himself right, he has the potential to fill one of the team's biggest needs -- a No. 2 starter behind Carlos Zambrano. The Cubs could have invested another $3 million in Prior -- and, yes, hundreds of man hours by trainers and coaches -- and given themselves the possibility that he could follow Zambrano in a playoff rotation. General Manager Jim Hendry picked the exit ramp instead, and this could prove to be a very bad decision, even if Prior was going to leave as a free agent after 2008.
Really, Phil? How are those "feelings" now?
This tops Sammy's sneezing, Woody falling in a hot tub and Mark Prior injuring himself by being Mark Prior. Just ridiculous.
Cubs.com catches up with our old friends One Nut and Mark Prior, and both have nice things to say about the Cubs and Chicago - especially Barrett.
More importantly, we learn that One Nut's junk is fully functioning, despite the unprotected shot two seasons ago:
"[Last season] was a bit crazy," Barrett said. "I finished the season off with the birth of my son, which saved the entire year." Young Andrew Barrett is now four months old and healthy. When Barrett signed with the Cubs, he was eager to play at Wrigley Field. "There isn't one day I regret going onto that field -- even at my worst times there, it's some of my best memories," the catcher said. "Putting on the pinstripes of the Cubs uniform was a dream come true and something I will always cherish."
The Cubs have apparently upped their offer to the Orioles for Brian Roberts. If I may, from experience with MLB 2K8's virtual Cubs and virtual Orioles, a package of Gallagher, Marquis and Cedeno could get this deal done. There's also a nice option that enables you to make his trade no matter how the opposition feels about it. Handy. Officially, I think giving up the organization's three best pitching prospects kinda blows. However, we've seen how Mark Prior turned out. And Angel Guzman. And Kerry Wood. Whatever...just get the deal done already. Hearing about this trade every day is getting worse than having to hear about Britney Spears forgetting her underbritches.
ESPN.com has a story on Mark Prior's new life (including interesting color from the always amusing Greg Maddux). It also has a useful reminder of what happened to Prior:
Something hasn't been right since 2003, and even then there were red flags waving all around Prior's pitch counts and innings totals. He went from 138 2/3 innings during his final year at USC to, counting the National League playoffs, 234 2/3 innings in 2003, when 29 of his 33 starts for the Cubs lasted at least 100 pitches and 22 of them exceeded 110.
That's a dangerously high number of innings and pitches for a second-year player. Prior blames no one, including then-manager Dusty Baker, for those bloated numbers and the possibility, if not likelihood, that they later contributed to his shoulder problems.
"Dusty caught a lot of grief for it," Prior says. "Dusty [was] in a no-win situation. I understand that. We're coming down, we're trying to make the playoffs. Let's be perfectly honest: Nothing against the guys that we had, but our bullpen was not as solid as a rock. We had a lot of good pitchers, but at times they were kind of up and down. So he was in a no-win situation as far as pitching me. I don't know if there were any internal discussions, like, 'We got to watch him.' I don't know. I wasn't in a position to say anything. I really didn't want to say anything at the time."
Of course Mark didn't want to say anything - he was a young pitcher wanting to help his team win. That's what the manager, the pitching coach and the whole organization is for.
Homer Bailey: Run the other way. Very fast.
USA Today has the latest "Mark Prior is feeling good" update:
Right-hander Mark Prior, who missed all of last season after undergoing shoulder surgery while with the Chicago Cubs, threw 36 fastballs in his second session of the spring. "It was good. It was another positive step in the right direction," said Prior, who hopes to revive his once-promising career. He signed a one-year, incentive-laden contract with his hometown team on Dec. 26. "He's doing well," Black said. "He's confident and his arm feels good. He's on the rehab track and not skipping a beat. He's doing great."
Good luck with that.
The insightful one says the Cubs "made a mistake by cutting their ties to Prior." Why? Because (according to Rogers) ...
1. He's pain free.
2. He would be the No. 2 starter they need behind Carlos Zambrano in the playoffs.
I will let my dog rebut Phil on this one, because even she recognizes that a. Mark ingratefully took a walk on the Cubs and b. Mark is always pain free when it doesn't matter.
More importantly, I'd rather wait on the tooth fairy riding a unicorn than on the Cubs being in the playoffs for the second year in a row with Mark Prior as the No. 2 pitcher. That's a parlay I'm just not willing to make.
Cubs fans seem to be unloading their Mark Prior jerseys and whatnot on eBay - and not finding too many buyers. That includes a "Mark Prior Chicago Cubs authentic jersey majestic XL" that will see bidding end in 10 minutes. The seller is getting $13.50 for it.
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