Mark Prior

Encyclopedia : M : MA : MAR : Mark Prior

This article is about the Major League Baseball pitcher. For the United States Senator with a similar name, see Mark Pryor.

Mark William Prior (born September 7, 1980 in San Diego, California, USA) is a Major League Baseball player. He is a right-handed starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

Prior throws a mid 90's fastball and 2 seam fastball, a curveball, and a change-up.

Prior graduated from University of San Diego High School. He was originally drafted by the New York Yankees in the 1998 amateur draft, but they were unable to sign him to a contract.

College Career

He would go on to attend USC, where he won the Golden Spikes Award (he attended his father's alma mater, Vanderbilt University, for his Freshman year), given annually to the best collegiate baseball player in the U.S. After becoming a professional baseball player, he continued his education on a part-time basis and received a business degree from USC Marshall School of Business in 2004.

Professional Career

Prior re-entered the draft and was the 2nd overall pick in 2001. After a short stay in the minor leagues, he made his Major League debut on May 22, 2002, finishing his rookie season with a 6-6 record.

In 2003, he finished third in the National League's Cy Young Award voting after compiling an 18-6 won-loss record despite missing significant time after an on-field collision with Atlanta Braves second baseman Marcus Giles. Due to the collision, both Prior and Giles were forced to miss the 2003 All-Star Game, to which they had been selected to perform in.

After Prior's stint on the disabled list came to an end, he compiled a 10-1 record, leading the Cubs into the playoffs, where they beat the Braves in the first round before losing to the eventual World Series Champion Florida Marlins in the NLCS despite a tightly contested seven game battle. Prior was on the mound for the infamous Steve Bartman incident.

Prior was forced to miss the first two months of the 2004 season due to an achilles tendon injury. There were published reports stating that Prior would need reconstructive Tommy John surgery on his elbow, but both Prior and the Cubs flatly denied this, saying that his achilles tendon injury is the only reason he missed time in 2004. After coming off the disabled list Prior did not pitch up to expectations, leading to more speculation about the health of his arm. However, towards the end of the 2004 season, Prior seemed to return to form.

Prior's 2005 season was again marred with numerous missed games due to injuries. After starting the season on DL again, he returned and pitched well in the early part of the season. However, on May 27, 2005, Prior was hit on his right (pitching) elbow by a 117-mph comeback line drive off the bat of Brad Hawpe, giving him a compression fracture. This sent him to another extended stint on the DL.

During the 2005 off-season, Prior was mentioned as part of a possible deal for Baltimore Orioles's shortstop Miguel Tejada, but this trade did not come to pass. His bad luck would continue in Spring Training of 2006 when he was put on a slow throwing program. After feeling stiffness in his throwing shoulder, he went to Los Angeles to get an MRI. Though final results weren't expected until March 18th, it was announced on the 16th that Prior had a strained shoulder. On March 28th it was announced Prior was being placed on the 15 day DL, effectively missing the start of the 2006 MLB season. His 2006 debut came about on June 18th, when he was shelled by the Detroit Tigers, giving up 6 runs in the first inning and lasted just 3.2 innings before being pulled. Prior was 0-4 in four starts with a 7.71 ERA, until he was once again put on the disabled list July 14th, after strained his left oblique while taking batting practice.

External links

[Mark Prior] at ESPN.com
[Baseball-Reference.com] - career statistics and analysis

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.