One Man's Push for Mark Prior

Mark Prior is now a free agent after being non-tendered by the Cubs and I would be ecstatic if the Mariners signed him. What do the Mariners need right now? Starting pitching. What is Mark Prior? A starting pitcher once billed as the best thing since Rodger Clemens. First we’ll look at our own rotation and then at Mark Prior and why he fits.

Our rotation, at this point, is essentially 3 men deep with Felix, Washburn, and Batista leaving two spots open. Of the guys looking for the last two spots none impress me all that much. Cha Baek, Ryan Feierabend, Brandon Morrow, Horacio Ramirez and R.A. Dickey come to mind as the guys that will fill those last two spots. Cha Beak and Dickey would be an alright bottom of the rotation starters but the other three should not be in the majors at this point. Morrow has been pitching well in his winter instructional league but that is mostly AA guys and I believe he should probably start out the season in AAA and work his way up to the majors where he will be installed in the rotation. Feierabend is a guy who is fine to have around in AAA in case of injury on the big league club that necessitates a starter to be called up, but he should not be part of your rotation permanently at this point in his career, maybe later. Ho is horrible, the Mariners say that Stottlemyre can work with him and make him better but when the pitching coach has nothing to work with he can’t do much for you. I mean seriously, the guys has a career ERA+ of 93 where 100 is average, the guy is bad. I can see R.A. Dickey doing fairly well in Safeco field with that knuckleball of his that forces most to beat the ball into the ground and the players who can elevate the knuckler will probably be disappointed as Safeco’s outfield gobbles them up. Looking at Dickey’s AAA stats, as a starter, from last year(22 starts, 146.1 IP, 3 CG, 1.73 GO/AO, 99 K’s, 58 BB’s) he looks like he could translate into our 4th/5th starter. So if we look completely within the organization to fill our rotation it will look something like this, Felix, Washburn, Batista, with some combo of Baek, HoRam, and Dickey filling out the last three spots(Baek and Dickey would be my personal choices) with Morrow and Feierabend in AAA.

Mark Prior. He’s had some injury problems but most of them are flukes. One injury came after a collision with Marcus Giles, another came after a line drive off of the bat of Brad Hawpe, but the most serious injury was back at the beginning of 2006 when he had ‘strained’ his shoulder. Its is believed that the Cubs had misdiagnosed this injury, which also landed Prior on the DL later that year and was called shoulder tendinitis this time around, while there was actual structural damage to his shoulder that was repaired by Dr. James Andrews. If we assume that Prior’s shoulder has healed and he can now pitch I see no reason he couldn’t go out there and put up and ERA of about 3.50, which would be a great addition to a pitching staff looking for quality arms to go in the front of the rotation. With Prior the M’s staff now looks like something that might be able to compete with Felix, Prior, Washburn, Batista, and Dickey/HoRam/Baek(With Dickey being my first choice).

The Mariners are in desperate need of quality starting pitchers and Mark Prior will fill that need. Prior’s addition to the rotation would rid us of HoRam, it would allow Morrow to get experience starting in the minors before returning to the big show as a permanent fixture, and it would add a possibly dominating pitcher to the front of our rotation without giving up our prospects. Mark Prior has my stamp of approval.