Prior Ready For Start Of '09 Season?

For what it's worth, Kevin Towers mentioned back in June that Prior may be willing to take on a minor league deal with the Padres for '09, as a goodwill signing for stealing $1MM this year.

With Peavy possibly on the way out, and Young as the only other sure spot in the rotation, keeping Prior around wouldn't be a bad idea.

"He said he feels good, that his shoulder has never felt better."

Im not a Cubs fan so I cant tell you the exact number, but Im pretty sure we [the collective baseball community] have heard this at least 3 million times.

Dodgers should give Prior the Randy Wolf Special $1M for 1yr, w/ a boat load of, best case scenario, incentives. A huge if, but, if he's healthy, he could be strong back of the rotation starter, or even re-invent himself as a potentially dominant middle reliever. At least until he proves he can stay healthy for a majority of the season.

pageian - I am a Cubs fan, and you're right, this makes it about 3 million and 1, by my count. I seriously doubt his dedication and don't know why anybody keeps giving this guy money.

"For what it's worth, Kevin Towers mentioned back in June that Prior may be willing to take on a minor league deal with the Padres for '09, as a goodwill signing for stealing $1MM this year."

He must have stolen almost $10M from the Cubs. The worst was when he asked for more money in arbitration in 2007, and then never pitched an inning that year.

Like most other players that dude looks out for himself before his honor.

Redbirdfan, I don't see that happening after LaRussa's comments about Prior throughout "3 Nights in August." It might be interesting though to see how that relationship would work. :D

This just in Mark Prior just slipped down 23 flights of stairs and broke every bone in his body. Also, the Yankees just signed him to a 3 year 27 million a year contract.

I second finehamabounds.

Until Prior is on the mound for 10 straight starts and pitching adequately, I'll never believe that he's truly on his way back. He's just hurt me too much as a fan. jerk.

Gosh, why all the venom towards prior? I get he got hurt but man he's done everything in his power to play, had multiple surgerys, and has been an upstanding person. So he asked to be paid what an arbiter would decide on!!! Oh no he does what every player does when they go up for arbitration. I would sign prior all day for 1mill he's not asking for a five year deal. He's just saying he'll be ready. Do a thorough medical check up. If you don't like what you see don't sign him. But he didn't do anything wrong.
If I'm baltimore,san diego, or really any team I take out a flyer for sure.

"Gosh, why all the venom towards prior?"

I think it's just because he was praised as the next great pitcher and every Cubs fan got really excited. And then he turned out that 2003, where he truly was the next great pitcher. And then it all turned out to be teasing and he fell apart. That created a lot of animosity between him and Cubs fans, because fans are so obscenely disappointed by Prior's career.

nrmax88,

Kerry Wood is someone who understands what it means to be a man.

And my point above was that Prior, in 2006, pitched less than 50 innings, but felt the need to go to arbitration with the Cubs because he thought he was worth more than that for the 2007 season. The funny thing about all of this was that Prior was pissed off at the Cubs after the 2007 season because they didn't want to offer him a guaranteed multiple year deal.

I get that he is trying to get his, and that is why I ended my last post by saying, "Like most other players that dude looks out for himself before his honor."

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Prior

"In the off-season, the Cubs reported that Prior suffers from a "loose shoulder" which leads to injuries and means he has to do more conditioning work. Being eligible for arbitration, Prior then proceeded to ask for a pay raise from his 2006 salary of $3.65 million to $3.875 million for 2007. The Cubs avoided arbitration with Prior when he settled for a one year $3.575 million contract for 2007."

i agree with crash in that a bullpen role might better suit Prior for now....i would love to see my mets sign him, since they are mentioned as aggressive....he is high risk/high reward, i would have no problems with such a gamble.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I definitely see the Rangers going after Prior this year. Worst case scenario is he is a cheap bust and released. Best case would be a spot in the rotation at what 4-5? I can't see a se mi health Prior being any worse than the current options. i think a likely scenario puts him in the long relief roll in the bull-pen of an organization.

The Rangers have had success with this in recent years: Gagne, Lofton, and Bradley to name a few....

Kevin Towers owns GM of the Year next year if Peavy is traded for a haul of talent, and Prior puts up Peavy-like numbers.

Crazier things have happened in baseball...

Of course he's interested in re-joining the Padres, who wouldn't want to get paid for doing nothing.

i hope the padres resign him to a similar or hopefully downgraded offer. maybe incentives to be able to be the same but a lower base. i would also like to see prior move to the bullpen. make it a little easier on his arm. worked for wood.

maybe he should just be a fastball changeup guy. he could get away with that in the pen

its not a bad bet to say he doesnt make one start

I could see Prior being the type of rehab pitching project that Theo Epstein likes to sighn each year like he did with Bartolo Colon, Wade Miller, Dan Kolb, etc.. Each year. That is, unless Prior thinks he wants to start like 20 games or so and be a *star* pitcher on a team instead of a fill in for a few games.

are people still talking about how dusty overused him. what because he threw 120 pitches a game? do you realize pitchers in the 70's threw as many as 300 pitches a game?