Because when healthy he's a very good pitcher. But if he's healthy.. doesn't he already have a spot in the rotation.. why does he need to contend? because he needs to prove healthy. I'm confused. If he's pitching, doesn't that prove he's healthy? So why does he need to contend for a spot in the rotation if he can pitch? Even if he's "good as new" with regards to his health, which we all know won't be the case, we're still talking about a guy that hasn't pitched a full season since 2003. There will be, at the very least, a lot of rust to knock off. He has to compete for a spot because he will probably be pitching considerably worse than 2003 or 2005 simply due to not pitching regularly for a long time. If you have an ERA of 7.00 and a WHIP over 1.60 right now, it really doesn't matter how good you used to be. Assuming Prior's healthy enough to pitch at all, I see him starting the season and playing at least a couple months in AAA just so he can get his mechanics right again and get used to pitching regularly in an environment where there isn't a lot of pressure on him to be an ace pitcher right away. How do you know Prior won't be 100% by Opening Day?