Getting his ‘Prior’-ities straight
Retired Cubs All-Star retains love for game helping develop young arms on Padres’ farm team
It’s the bottom of the sixth inning on Wednesday night out at Nat Bailey Stadium and the Vancouver Canadians are in the midst of a rally against a young arm from the TriCity Dust Devils.
Stadium announcer Don Andrews bellows the next name to step into the batter’s box and take his swings, and up pops the Dust Devils pitching coach, who suddenly draws the attention of a few Chicago Cubs fans in the stands that realize the calming influence headed toward the mound for a visit is Mark Prior. Yeah, that Mark Prior. A “We love you Mark,” floats down from the stands, directed toward a man that walks to the mound just a few years removed from being the poster boy for arm injuries and heavy workloads in Major League Baseball.
Prior goes down as one of the great “rise-and-fall” stories in baseball history despite being named a National League All-Star and accumulating 42 wins in parts of five seasons with the Chicago Cubs. There was supposed to be more to his career — a lot more — and yet now, three full years removed from the game, here he sits in Vancouver helping the San Diego Padres develop the next crop of pitchers who all aspire to one day pitch where Mark did for half a decade.
“We don’t try to clone people, and we don’t try to have a one-size-fits all philosophy,” said Prior, who near the end of his playing career became water cooler fodder for those who thought that he was run out to the mound far too often and didn’t have the proper mechanics needed to stay healthy in today’s game.
“Everyone points to my workload and mechanics as reasons for my struggles, but I believe my collision with Marcus (Giles) and a line drive that broke my elbow obviously played a role over the years.
“As far as my mechanics go, you know, I thought I did some things well, and I think I did some things that in hindsight weren’t to the best interests of my health, but when you’re in that moment and we’re talking almost 17-18 years later, I think now we know a lot more about timing and where your arm angles and stuff like that need to be.”
Prior’s rise toward the bright lights of the majors was meteoric. He was taken with the second overall pick in the 2001 draft just after the Minnesota Twins took Joe Mauer and the Texas Rangers snagged Mark Teixeira with the fifth pick.
Drafted out of USC, Prior was targeted to complement right-hander Kerry Wood, and the duo were sold to longtime Chicago Cubs fans as the pieces that would finally lead those Wrigley faithful back toward the promised land.
By 2003, just a year after he debuted in the Majors, Chicago was in a Cubs-induced frenzy as Wood and Prior were both named NL All-Stars. Kerry was the heavyset, goatee-wearing fireballer that went 14-11 with 266 strikeouts in 211 innings, while Mark, the sunkissed Californian, went 18-6 with a 2.43 ERA and 245 strikeouts in 211.1 innings of work.
It was supposed to be the beginning of a Cubs dynasty as the post-season was reached with Prior at the centre of a chance to snap a nearly century-old curse in Chicago.
Prior would pitch a complete game shutout in the 2003 NLDS against Atlanta helping the Cubs get a step closer to immortality. He would pitch twice in the Championship Series against Florida, and was the pitcher on the mound when a fly ball out at Wrigley went down the left field line with Moises Alou giving chase, only to be impeded by infamous Cubs super fan Steve Bartman. The Cubs would lose that game, and the series, to the Marlins, who would stun the world and win the World Series over the heavily favoured New York Yankees.
Prior would never get back to the post-season as the “Bartman moment” was the last time he would pitch in a post-season game. From there, the injury bug bit hard, and often, and the slide began to a career that once had an upside few could have ever lived up to.
His final Major League pitch came in 2006, and from there, the great Mark Prior spent the next seven years of his life trying to recapture both the magic his trusty arm once had and the confidence of countless organizations that were willing to give him a look, but not much more. Between 2007 and 2013, five different MLB teams took a peek in on Prior’s progress — including the organization he works for today, the San Diego Padres — but not one gave him another inning in the big leagues.
From the No. 2 overall pick and a trip to the playoffs with the Chicago Cubs to the scrap heap and countless sabermetrics analytic seminars — Prior goes down as one of the games true question marks as to how you should treat a young pitcher’s mechanics and progress at a young age.
“Things have changed since when I pitched, and by no means do I try and clone anyone to do it the way I did it,” said the 36-year-old Prior. “I think we have some fundamental things that we all talk about when it comes to deliveries and we talk about our timing and being athletic out on the mound and not being stagnant. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s a lot harder than just saying he doesn’t do it right and we gotta change it.”
Prior has made peace with his fate, and is simply happy to work with his players, especially the highly touted prospects who are likely struggling with all of the attention and expectation they are starting to receive. You kinda get the feeling he might know a thing or two about that.