No Hope for Prior?

I was expecting to blog about the Mitchell Report today, I really was. I thought Sosa would be on it. I thought SOME Cub of note would be on there somewhere. But the Tribsters spared all five of you readers from non-Cub talk today by trying to sneak the release of Mark Prior past us bloggers, seamheads, and legitimate media by doing it the same day as the Steroid news.

I said it here before: Prior's salary is not very much at all compared to his potential. We will pay Ted Lilly more this year than Prior made in his entire career; if there is a chance at all that Prior can even give us 50 innings of quality in 2008, then he should be signed prior (sorry) to arbitration. Because 3 million plus is a great deal on a low innings-pitched reliever. In this era of quantifying value on a dollar basis, I don't believe Prior at this price was very much bad business at all.

By doing this, the Cubs are saying that there is no realistic chance for Prior to revive his career. I admit I was depressed to hear that Prior's injury was a torn labrum. That's far worse than a torn elbow ligament, of the kind that normally sidelines pitchers for a year or more. Torn labrums often end careers.

Conventional wisdom states that it is bad to work pitchers too hard when they are very young; it leads to injuries all too often. Maybe this was the case with Prior. If that is a possibility, the Cubs would have been a classier outfit if they employed Prior for one more year while he was rehabbing, just to see if he had anything left. If he ever regained the magic, he might remember who had his back when he was down and out.

Or maybe the Cubs had wrong information linking Prior to the Mitchell Report. Maybe that tricky Billy Beane lied to them.

My best guess is that this is classic corporation behavior, as commonly seen in 2008. It indicates more than anything else that the Cubs decided there was more to gain financially by cutting Prior than by taking the chance. Hey, they did well without him in 2007! When I see something like this, I appreciate Kerry Wood's action in turning down better money elsewhere to be here. But I hope he did that for us fans, and not out of any naive loyalty to the Tribune.

The next time any journalist pines for the days when players spent all of their careers with one team, remember this example. The old days were built on a loyalty that went only one direction, from player to team. The present day is no different except that now the players can sometimes do what's best for themselves.

Goodbye, Mark Prior. If you attempt a comeback I will root for you, and in some cases even against the Cubs (like, before September 15th or when we're not in the race). If not, we will always have 2003 and I hope you invested some bonus money wisely.