Prior delayed again

[2242005CY]

Excuse me, so that explains why he's getting his shoulder looked at, after having "soreness" in it. I guess the virus he caught this Winter and the SOLE reason (according to a many a cub fan) for getting delayed must've spread to his shoulder?

 

My bad. Silly me, looks like I'm being paranoid again and this is afterall completely normal. Whew.

First, we don't even know yet what, if anything, is wrong. And while he did progress slower than they hoped, the virus definitely pushed him back some. And let's not forget that from the very beginning they've been talking about how they're taking a different approach this spring (as a result of the virus, I don't know). It wasn't just after the Carroll article. This was when pitchers and catchers reported. If there was something wrong back then, what's going on now isn't enough to provide such a conclusion.

 

Carroll wasn't very specific when he said "shoulder problems," but that was three weeks ago (after looking it up). You don't go forward with shoulder problems and start throwing off the mound and to hitters with shoulder problems. Perhaps there was a hint of soreness and it went away, but it couldn't have been present throughout those three weeks. They wouldn't have moved him forward if his shoulder was sore, especially not without having him see a specialist.

 

Uh huh.

[YearofDaCubs]

What a bunch of scammers this organization is. They keep everything hush hush until they sell their damn tickets and BAM..they hit you with the bad news.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

What a bunch of scammers this organization is. They keep everything hush hush until they sell their damn tickets and BAM..they hit you with the bad news.

 

That's ridiculous.

[CuseCubFan69]

Personally, I don't expect the Cubs to tell me about injuries and the details that go with them. I assume they want the best players out there and are trying their best to do so and whatever group of 25 they have out there on Opening Day I'll be rooting for.

[Blueheart05]

What a bunch of scammers this organization is. They keep everything hush hush until they sell their damn tickets and BAM..they hit you with the bad news.

 

Yeah but all except the special box seats were sold in Feb. The Cubs have had weeks to drop this bomb.

[ThePenguin11]

The way the Cubs treat us is a traveshamockery. Someone said earlier that we should give the Cubs some credit...I say 'WHY?' Since when do they deserve an ounce of credit? No matter what the real reason, as fans, we've been conditioned to expect lies and deception. I feel duped again. After reading Rotoworld's take on this, and after listening to Dan Bernstein rant on the subject, I really have to ask myself why I put myself through this crap for this team. I'd have to give up baseball altogether, because I could never support another team. I'm sure all it will take is a year or two to clean up this mess we call management.

 

From the writers of Rotoworld:

 

Mark Prior - S - Cubs

 

 

Mark Prior will have his right shoulder examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum after complaining of soreness before a bullpen session on Tuesday.

Score one for Baseball Prospectus. The Cubs are currently calling Prior's injury posterior rotator cuff irritation, but they can never be trusted about these things. Of course, they're saying that he's had absolutely no problems with the shoulder until today. "It's unfortunate," Cubs GM Jim Hendry said. "The first time he's ever complained of discomfort since we got here [in spring camp] is today. It will be perceived any way people want to perceive it. There's no advantage to us holding back until March 14 and then discussing a problem that we knew about earlier." Sure there is. Ticket sales and better publicity headed into the season. It looks like the Cubs will be opening the season with a rotation of Carlos Zambrano, Greg Maddux, Glendon Rusch, Jerome Williams and maybe Rich Hill, and if Cubs fans knew that back when there were decent free agents available, they would have been throwing fits. Mar. 14 - 8:08 pm et

Source: Cubs.mlb.com

[Bgbird68]

If he was healthy, like they say he is, then he would be pitching.

 

Until he starts pitching in games, one can only assume he isn't healthy.

 

There is no arguing that point.

 

Just repeating my previous post. It's not really that hard to figure out.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

If the Cubs came out and said "Mark Prior is hurt. We don't know how long he'll be out, or when he'll be facing hitters, but he's not alright.", do you really think the Cubs would sell significantly less tickets? I mean, let's think for a second people.

[jaydee]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

[Blueheart05]

The way the Cubs treat us is a traveshamockery. Someone said earlier that we should give the Cubs some credit...I say 'WHY?' Since when do they deserve an ounce of credit? No matter what the real reason, as fans, we've been conditioned to expect lies and deception. I feel duped again. After reading Rotoworld's take on this, and after listening to Dan Bernstein rant on the subject, I really have to ask myself why I put myself through this crap for this team. I'd have to give up baseball altogether, because I could never support another team. I'm sure all it will take is a year or two to clean up this mess we call management.

 

From the writers of Rotoworld:

 

Mark Prior - S - Cubs

 

 

Mark Prior will have his right shoulder examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum after complaining of soreness before a bullpen session on Tuesday.

Score one for Baseball Prospectus. The Cubs are currently calling Prior's injury posterior rotator cuff irritation, but they can never be trusted about these things. Of course, they're saying that he's had absolutely no problems with the shoulder until today. "It's unfortunate," Cubs GM Jim Hendry said. "The first time he's ever complained of discomfort since we got here [in spring camp] is today. It will be perceived any way people want to perceive it. There's no advantage to us holding back until March 14 and then discussing a problem that we knew about earlier." Sure there is. Ticket sales and better publicity headed into the season. It looks like the Cubs will be opening the season with a rotation of Carlos Zambrano, Greg Maddux, Glendon Rusch, Jerome Williams and maybe Rich Hill, and if Cubs fans knew that back when there were decent free agents available, they would have been throwing fits. Mar. 14 - 8:08 pm et

Source: Cubs.mlb.com

 

Dan Berstein, and Rotoworld, love to put a sarcastic slant to everything. I heard him too and his rant about the Cubs was no different than most of his other rants (but even he said that there may not be a real problem; This could all be a pain tolerance issue with Prior,

[ThePenguin11]

What a bunch of scammers this organization is. They keep everything hush hush until they sell their damn tickets and BAM..they hit you with the bad news.

 

That's ridiculous.

 

What is? The fact that Tribune & Co. would put the bottom line in front of its fanbase? Not Tribune, they never screw anyone over to squeeze out every last dime they can...Not by scalping tickets, relocating street vendors, increasing ticket prices exponentially, lying about injuries repeatedly...I'm sure I'm forgetting a few...

[ThePenguin11]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Did anyone even see him throwing? I wouldn't put it past them to have lied about that too.

[Rusch33]

One word describes this: ridiculous.

[ThePenguin11]

If the Cubs came out and said "Mark Prior is hurt. We don't know how long he'll be out, or when he'll be facing hitters, but he's not alright.", do you really think the Cubs would sell significantly less tickets? I mean, let's think for a second people.

 

Do you think they would have broken a record for most tickets sold the first day???? I mean, let's not forget about that for a second.

[Blueheart05]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Did anyone even see him throwing? I wouldn't put it past them to have lied about that too.

 

Yes, I know The Score reporters in Mesa saw him because they talked about it. Hasn't Miles also seen him?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Did anyone even see him throwing? I wouldn't put it past them to have lied about that too.

 

Yes, I know The Score reporters in Mesa saw him because they talked about it. Hasn't Miles also seen him?

 

There's pictures in the ST picture thread of him throwing.

[JeffH]

It may be worth remembering that the Chicago Cubs organization is not at liberty to disclose any aspect of Mark Prior's health without his consent.

[Laura]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Here's the thing: it seems an equally unlikely scenario to me now that Will Carroll completely made up the report of Prior having an injury -- or pain, whatever you prefer -- that now, 3 weeks later, it seems apparent that Prior does in fact have.

 

So this annonymous Will Carroll source knew of this 3 weeks ago ... but the Cubs didn't?

 

If they did know, then it would seem that the truly "precautionary" measure would have been to have him completely checked out at that time. Why wait?

 

If they didn't know, maybe they need to develop some annonymous sources of their own.

[RynoRules]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Hm. They did it with Wood.

[Jon]

What a bunch of scammers this organization is. They keep everything hush hush until they sell their damn tickets and BAM..they hit you with the bad news.

 

That's ridiculous.

 

What is? The fact that Tribune & Co. would put the bottom line in front of its fanbase? Not Tribune, they never screw anyone over to squeeze out every last dime they can...Not by scalping tickets, relocating street vendors, increasing ticket prices exponentially, lying about injuries repeatedly...I'm sure I'm forgetting a few...

1) Squeeze the last dime buy Hendry giving Neifi $5 million or funding one of the largest payrolls in baseball? Or by funding a $40+ million Wrigley renovation project without it affecting payroll?

2) Forcing Prior to pitch when hurt could mean he'd be out for the season instead of a few weeks. That's not going to help the Tribune Co.'s bottom line.

3) WFPTS sells few tickets and brings in an insignificant amount of money, for the most part

4) I don't think they had anything to do with the street vendors and that's not going to impact the Cubs really at all

5) If the Cubs have blatantly lied about injuries. Despite popular belief, rehab isn't an exact science. And if they have lied, they're not exactly alone.

 

And ticket sales weren't going to take a nose dive if Prior was injured. Not even close. They broke their own record because capacity increased, yes (although ticket popularity looks to have decreased a bit from last year). The Cubs are coming off a horribly disappointing season, yet the convention sold out faster than ever year except from last year. that includes 2004. The Cubs selling a lot of tickets is just a fact of life right now. It's not going to change because of one player, especially considering that most fans aren't terribly optimistic about the team right now anyways.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Hm. They did it with Wood.

 

At least in that case they had a doctor's assurance that he couldn't further damage it, as backwards as that sounds.

[Jon]

You guys are seriously paranoid. You honestly think the cubs knew Prior had a bad shoulder all along, and forced him to go ahead with throwing, thus putting him in danger of hurting himself even more? Think logically please. This thread is almost unreadable.

 

Hm. They did it with Wood.

 

At least in that case they had a doctor's assurance that he couldn't further damage it, as backwards as that sounds.

And that was so the team could remain in the Wild Card race...even though they weren't really in it. Pushing Prior would only mean that he would be less healthy for the season. Thankfully, they're still in the Wild Card (and division) race at this point.

 

 

Oh, and the Cubs still have some 300,000 tickets left, most of which are for the end of the season. Let's not forget that if Prior was healthy at the end of the year and the Cubs were in it, they'd sell just about all of those tickets.

[Rooftop Bum]

Wow! Prior is hurt again. Well like I have said this before. Until I see Prior and or Wood on the mound in an actual game I won't believe whatever the Cub's brass says. Until that happens I don't believe anything they say. I guess that's being a poor fan but oh well. It's just very disappointing and sad and yet at the same time kind of expected.

 

Maybe we will get lucky and both Wood and Prior will start in mid May and make 4 or 5 starts before they experience "soreness" yet again.

[Mizzou]

Carroll wasn't very specific when he said "shoulder problems," but that was three weeks ago (after looking it up). You don't go forward with shoulder problems and start throwing off the mound and to hitters with shoulder problems. Perhaps there was a hint of soreness and it went away, but it couldn't have been present throughout those three weeks. They wouldn't have moved him forward if his shoulder was sore, especially not without having him see a specialist.

 

I might be wrong here, but weren't all of his alleged throwing sessions behind closed doors?

[Mizzou]

If the Cubs came out and said "Mark Prior is hurt. We don't know how long he'll be out, or when he'll be facing hitters, but he's not alright.", do you really think the Cubs would sell significantly less tickets? I mean, let's think for a second people.

I don't know what your definition of significant is, but I think they'd definitely sell less tickets in that scenario.