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I wrote the following in response to a couple of questions about Prior and how he compares to Marlins phenom Josh Beckett. I thought the BW crew might find it of interest. It might be more appropriate in the BookiesHell forum, so I apologize if I'm out of bounds:
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Prior has a hell of a rep preceding him--the consensus heading into the year was that he was the #2 minor league starting pitcher prospect behind Josh Beckett, who could be the next Roger Clemens if he stays healthy and gets some breaks. Prior is a huge dude, going 6'5" 220, and is often compared to Curt Schilling--he doesn't have one dominant pitch, but throws several above average. He's got exceptionally good command of his breaking stuff for such a young guy. Supposedly, his mental game is also similar to "The Horse", which sure bodes well for his eventual success. Schilling is arguably the toughest pitcher in baseball mentally (the only one that's even close is Tom Glavine).
FWIW, Beckett's first start this year was at Montreal (he was a -105 chalk) and first home start was the next week (Montreal) where he lost as a -145 favorite. The biggest difference between Beckett and Prior is that Beckett had two years of minor league experience (he was injured for most of 2000 though) and pitched 24 innings last September in the bigs going 2-2 1.50 ERA. Prior played college ball (first at Vandy, then at Southern California) and was Baseball America's college player of the year in 2001. He actually finished his degree at USC, which is to his credit, but what concerns me is that his only pro experience to date has been 51 innings in AA and AAA ball this year. His stats at the minor league level were decent--5-2, but with a very impressive 79 k's in 51 innings of work. My guess, however, is that he'll need to get some innings in before I'd want anything to do with him from a wagering standpoint. He doesn't have Beckett's heat and can't just overpower guys--it'll take him a while to learn how best to adapt his pitch repertoire to major league hitters IMO. From what I know about him, he's going to be a good one. The Cubs sure hope so, since they have invested over 10.5 million bucks in him. The other difference I see between him and Beckett is that the Marlins brought their guy along slowly, and didn't bring him up until they felt he was ready to contribute. The Cubs are bringing Prior up at this point because they've already written off this season and are beginning their September callups a few months early. IMO, he's not ready at this point and I'm not sure that the best way to bring along a young prospect is to throw him in and hope he responds well. Cubs don't exactly have a great history of handling young pitchers--they worked the hell out of Kerry Wood early on and he's yet to get up to the level he was at before he blew out his arm. Clearly, Prior ain't worth -145 with such limit minor league experience and no big league work at all. Hopefully the Cubbies won't screw up his development like they did Wood's.
JRM
THE PROPHET
www.netprophetsports.com
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Prior has a hell of a rep preceding him--the consensus heading into the year was that he was the #2 minor league starting pitcher prospect behind Josh Beckett, who could be the next Roger Clemens if he stays healthy and gets some breaks. Prior is a huge dude, going 6'5" 220, and is often compared to Curt Schilling--he doesn't have one dominant pitch, but throws several above average. He's got exceptionally good command of his breaking stuff for such a young guy. Supposedly, his mental game is also similar to "The Horse", which sure bodes well for his eventual success. Schilling is arguably the toughest pitcher in baseball mentally (the only one that's even close is Tom Glavine).
FWIW, Beckett's first start this year was at Montreal (he was a -105 chalk) and first home start was the next week (Montreal) where he lost as a -145 favorite. The biggest difference between Beckett and Prior is that Beckett had two years of minor league experience (he was injured for most of 2000 though) and pitched 24 innings last September in the bigs going 2-2 1.50 ERA. Prior played college ball (first at Vandy, then at Southern California) and was Baseball America's college player of the year in 2001. He actually finished his degree at USC, which is to his credit, but what concerns me is that his only pro experience to date has been 51 innings in AA and AAA ball this year. His stats at the minor league level were decent--5-2, but with a very impressive 79 k's in 51 innings of work. My guess, however, is that he'll need to get some innings in before I'd want anything to do with him from a wagering standpoint. He doesn't have Beckett's heat and can't just overpower guys--it'll take him a while to learn how best to adapt his pitch repertoire to major league hitters IMO. From what I know about him, he's going to be a good one. The Cubs sure hope so, since they have invested over 10.5 million bucks in him. The other difference I see between him and Beckett is that the Marlins brought their guy along slowly, and didn't bring him up until they felt he was ready to contribute. The Cubs are bringing Prior up at this point because they've already written off this season and are beginning their September callups a few months early. IMO, he's not ready at this point and I'm not sure that the best way to bring along a young prospect is to throw him in and hope he responds well. Cubs don't exactly have a great history of handling young pitchers--they worked the hell out of Kerry Wood early on and he's yet to get up to the level he was at before he blew out his arm. Clearly, Prior ain't worth -145 with such limit minor league experience and no big league work at all. Hopefully the Cubbies won't screw up his development like they did Wood's.
JRM
THE PROPHET
www.netprophetsports.com