Mark William Prior is an American former professional baseball pitcher and current coach. He pitched for the Chicago Cubs from 2002 to 2006 in a career that was marred by injuries. In his prime, his repertoire of pitches included a mid-90s mph fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. He is currently the pitching coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
About Mark Prior in brief
Mark William Prior is an American former professional baseball pitcher and current coach. He pitched for the Chicago Cubs from 2002 to 2006 in a career that was marred by injuries. In his prime, his repertoire of pitches included a mid-90s mph fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. He is currently the pitching coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Prior was originally drafted by the New York Yankees in the first round of the 1998 amateur draft and offered an approximately USD 1. 5 million signing bonus. He chose to attend college instead, pursuing a business degree while playing college baseball. As a freshman, Prior went to Vanderbilt. His coach with the Vanderbilt Commodores, Tim Corbin, later listed him among the best pitchers he had ever coached. He then transferred to the University of Southern California, posting a 10–7 record his sophomore year and leading the USC Trojans to the 2000 College World Series. In 2001, Prior won several awards, including the Golden Spikes Award, the Dick Howser Trophy, and the Rotary Smith Award. The Cubs signed him to a contract for USD 10.5 million in 2009, the highest signing bonus for a draft pick until Stephen Strasburg was called up in 2009. Prior accepted a front office position with the San Diego Padres in 2013, then joined the Dodgers, becoming their pitching coach in 2020. He was born September 7, 1980, in San Diego, California, and is the son of Jerry Prior, who played college football for Vanderbilt University, and his father, Jerry, also played sports for the Vanderbilt Commodores.
He has three older siblings, all of whom played sports as well. Prior is a member of the California State Baseball Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the California Sports Hall of fame in 2011. He also served as the president and CEO of the National Baseball Hall of Families, a position he held from 1998 to 2013. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their three children, and has a daughter and a son, both of whom play for the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland A’s. He previously worked as a personal trainer for the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Raiders, among other sports. He played for the USC Trojan baseball team from 2000 to 2001. He won the Golden Spikes Award and was considered one of the top prospects in the 2001 MLB draft, when he was the second overall pick by the Cubs. In 2003, he finished third in National League Cy Young Award voting, ranking among the leaders with 18 wins, a 2. 43 earned run average, and 245 strikeouts. In 2004, he was on the disabled list twice but finished the season with a 16-strikeout performance against the Cincinnati Reds. He made 27 starts with the Cubs in 2005 when the Chicago White Sox won the World Series, and finished ninth in the NL in strikeouts despite missing some time due to injury. In 2006, multiple injuries limited him to nine games in 2006, and he did not pitch at all in 2007 due to tears in his labrum, anterior capsule, and rotator cuff.
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This page is based on the article Mark Prior published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 25, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
