page_title: Mark Prior
section_title: Pitching style
hierarchical_section_title: Mark Prior / Pitching style
caption_attribution_description: English: Mark Prior pitching for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on July 30, 2004 against the Philadelphia Phillies.
context_page_description: Mark William Prior is a former American professional baseball pitcher and now coach. He pitched for the Chicago Cubs from 2002 to 2006 in a career that was marred by injuries. 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.
context_section_description: In his prime, Prior's repertoire of pitches included a mid-90s mph fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. The fastball reached speeds of up to 97 miles per hour, at its fastest, while the curve featured a sharp, downward break, travelling about 10 miles per hour slower. Teammate Wood praised his fearlessness and control: ""He's not worried about throwing an inside fastball to a Jeff Bagwell with men on second and third...If that's the pitch he needs to make, he'll make it." Damien Miller, his catcher with the Cubs in 2003, compared him to Curt Schilling, noting that both pitchers threw a lot of high fastballs. Daniel Habib of Sports Illustrated called him "fundamentally sound," also praising his "sophisticated approach" to hitters.
  Early in Prior's career, his pitching mechanics were touted as "perfect," according to The Sporting News. House tried to help him develop a mechanically efficient and sound delivery. Sports reporter Buster Olney called his mechanics "smooth, fluid, consistent," opining that his delivery made him less of an injury-risk than teammate Wood. House said that same year, "He's up there with Nolan Ryan...he has better mechanics than Roger Clemens, if only by percentage points. He has Greg Maddux mechanics with a Kerry Wood/Nolan Ryan type of arm. He's going to, with maturity, get bigger and stronger, too. It's a gene-pool thing." House also labelled Prior a "can't-miss" prospect.
  However, after Prior's rash of injuries, people reexamined his delivery. His "Inverted W" throwing motion drew criticism from "armchair biomechanists," according to Yahoo.com. Chris O'Leary speculated that some of the trouble was due to Prior's Inverted W arm action, in which he lifted his elbows above and behind the level of his shoulders, with the forearm pointing down. According to O'Leary, this created a timing problem that placed an undue stress on the muscles and ligaments of the shoulder and elbow because the arm got up to the "cocked position" too late. Similarly, Dick Mills, a former major league pitcher and co-author of The Science and Art of Baseball Pitching and Pitching.com, speculated that Prior's injuries were a result of scapular loading, a movement in which a pitcher's shoulder blades are pinched together and elbows are taken behind, and sometimes above, their shoulders.
  On the other hand, Ryan Fagan of The Sporting News speculated that Prior's injuries may have been the result of manager Dusty Baker overusing him in his early career, also pointing to his shoulder injury after running into Giles as a potential source of the trouble. Critics made Baker their "scapegoat," according to Jason Buckland of the New York Times, blaming him for overusing his young pitcher. Prior himself speculated that the Giles injury and Hawpe's line drive were big factors. He said "I don’t blame Dusty for what happened to me," observing that Baker had to balance how often to use the pitchers with making decisions that would help the Cubs win.
caption: Prior pitching for the Cubs at Wrigley Field on July 30, 2004
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