What could have been:

[BooCocky]

You know, I was over my friends house the other day finishing up our two player season in MLB 09 The Show. My pitching rotation got a little banged up so I went to the FA list and saw Mark Prior. I was looking at his stats, his curveball was good and his fastball had some pop. Anyways, I saw a little video earlier today on Mark Prior, and at a young age the man was a beast. He was winning big games in his early twenties, he won 18 games at the young age of 22. The man had good to great stuff that year, he was overpowering people with his fastball and his curve was really good to.

But with his "rough" delivery came injuries, which slowed the development of his arm and his pitching game. The guy went from pitching in the biggest game in Cubs history in over 80 years to falling off the face of this earth. So my early installment to my new thread idea is what could have been: Mark Prior?

I do not know if he was destined for greatness but I do believe he had the potential to be very good. Most pitchers who rely heavily on a fastball and a hard delivery do not last too long in the majors. I believe he could have gotten to 200 wins possibly 230 but I really wasn't expecting much more than that. I believe he could have racked up several Cy Young awards, especially pitching in the NL.

So, without further ado, I propose the question, if Prior stayed healthy, was he destined to become a star and a top pitcher in baseball for years to come?

 

[48.7 is Approximately 49 Times Better Than You]

I've been reading up on baseball a lot lately, and I've had a lot of ideas for threads like this. I was going to ask Little Jerry Lawler for permission to create a few of them, since this was originally his concept. This thread was one of my ideas, or rather, half. I was going to title my thread Chicago Heat. The question was: What if Kerry Wood and Mark Prior stay healthy?

Both were picked in the top four picks of their respective drafts and were considered phenoms. Kerry Wood won the Rookie of the Year award in 1998. Mark Prior finished third in the Cy Young voting in 2003. They both had great earned run averages, high strikeout totals, and were both reliable when you needed a win. Neither performed extraordinarily well in the postseason, but after Dusty Baker pushed them both to pitch late into games all year, I can understand why. Mark Prior averaged 126 pitches per game in September 2003. Dusty Baker ruined both of the pitchers' arms. Mark Prior has compiled a total of eleven injuries, eight of which lasted for more than two months. Both pitchers underwent Tommy John surgery, one that players often never recover from.

If these two men had remained healthy, I have no reason to believe that a 32 year old Kerry Wood and a 28 year old Mark Prior would not have already broken the curse of the billy goat. The Cubs would have the best starting rotation in baseball and would currently have a couple of Cy Young award winning, prime pitchers to lead them into the future.

 

[gd]

Prior's mechanics were just too bad. The way he pitched but too much of a strain on his elbow and he could never recover. He was an immensely talented pitcher though. I remember him as one of those guys who was all over the news before he even was in the majors. He was a pretty good damn hitter as well.

Same thing can be said for Kerry Wood, a talented pitcher who was hit by the injury bug. Unfortunately, that's what happens to a lot of pitchers. Some guys just aren't built to withstand that much strain on their arm. I'm not sure if the Cubbies would've won the World Series if Wood and Prior were healthy, but they would've had a hell of a better chance.