Could Stephen Stasburg Be The Next Mark Prior?
June 9, 2009 – 9:45 am by Jimmy Shapiro
This was a picture that became all too familiar for Mark Prior. He was dominating in his first two years in the majors at the tender age of 21 and 22 and then injuries have derailed a potential Hall of Fame career. His last year pitching significant innings was 2005 and it was only 166 innings. Yet, he’s managed to continue to get paid by the Cubs and the Padres for the glimmer of hope that the million dollar arm will reclaim its magic. What a country we live in! I’ve always wanted to be paid on my potential.
The reason Prior is so relevant today is that the MLB Amateur draft is Tuesday night and Stephen Strasburg is the greatest pitching prospect to come into baseball since Prior. Many of the same pratfalls could face Strasburg in his quest to live up to the hype. Prior has some interesting things to say in this interview on XX Sports Radio including how he thinks some more time in the minors may have benefited him in the long run.
On his injury:
“Unfortunately I’ve been through it one too many times. The Padres have been really supportive and understanding of the situation. I wish I could repay them and I really want to repay them on the field. Unfortunately it just hasn’t been working out the way we all wanted it to.”
Comparing his situation in college vs. Strasburg’s:
“I think the information age has changed so much in 8 years and things are so different. It’s an information “we gotta have it here and now” type of thing. Things were still kind of developing when I was still in college. The other thing is, when you’re in LA and the Lakers are winning back to back to back championships, there’s not a whole lot else going on. There weren’t a whole lot of extra people coming down in Central LA to watch a college game at 1:00 in the afternoon, they were more worried about Kobe and Shaq…I think there’s much more attention paid to it now because baseball is really trying to push the draft and put it on TV and try to generate a lot of momentum with it. Things are definitely much more public than they were for me.”
Comparing MLB to the other major sports:
“It’s never going to be the NFL and it’s never going to be the NBA. That’s not the type of sport baseball is. For every one Strasburg, there’s thousands of guys who aren’t Strasburg and they’re going to have to put a few years in the minor leagues or never make it. You’re never going to have the NFL where you draft a first rounder and he’s on the team the next year; you just don’t see that in baseball.”
On how the Cubs handled him coming up:
“I probably wish I spent more time in the minor leagues. I definitely was ready to get big league hitters…but I do believe being in the minor leagues and learning your body and learning to manage the fatigue factor on a 5 day rotation…It might have been beneficial, I don’t know. Maybe it would be, maybe it wouldn’t be. Nobody can tell you one way or another.”
On the idea that he was a bust:
“I know it gets associated that I didn’t pan out and I have a tough time buying that argument. I can understand if I never made it to the big leagues and I was a dud or I got drafted and I never made it past A ball. Then you can say, “that didn’t pan out,” but I have a tough time saying I didn’t pan out when I did go in the big leagues pretty quick. I was pretty successful for 3 or 4 years and then unfortunately my arm, I just haven’t been able to answer the bell and get back out there….I think I did a lot of great things for Chicago and for that organization to say that I didn’t pan out. Did I pan out to the projection of, he’s going to win 3 or 4 Cy Young’s and he’s going to go to the Hall of Fame? No obviously I didn’t do that – but my career’s not over so you never know. Those are pretty lofty goals to put on anybody just based on the game itself. It’s tough to do that even for those healthy guys.”
Listen to Mark Prior on XX Sports Radio in San Diego with Darren Smith
Tags: Mark Prior, Mark Prior's injuries, MLB Amateur Draft, San Diego Padres, Stephen Strasburg
