Update on Prior

As usual Ivy Chat is all over any changing news on Mark Prior.

rumors are starting to slowly leak out that Prior might not be ready to go until JUNE. Holy crap Bat-man!

Again Ivy Chat points to denials from the Cubs Management and they are sticking to the he will only miss his 1st couple of starts on the year. Ummmm didn't Cubs Management say he would only miss the first couple of starts in spring training? I guess if you keep saying he will only miss a couple starts over and over maybe the injury will go away and people will believe you.

Well the injury hasn't gone away, but the people for the most part are believing what Cubs Management is saying, hook line and sinker. Just because we won last year doesn't mean management has broke free of its deceptive ways. Any GM of the Chicago Cubs over the last 50 years is a master at downplaying bad things as not being important. Andy and Jim are no exception.

I still believe the training staff dropped the ball big time on this Prior injury and would love to get to the bottom of it.

On 1/12/04 we hired a new trainer named Dave Groeschner. I have no idea what happened to the trainer before him, whether he moved on, got promoted, or even fired behind closed doors. But Cubs.com had an interview with him and at the end this is what he said.

MLB.com: Will you contact all the Cubs players this winter?

Groeschner: That's probably the first thing I need to do is contact all the players and introduce myself, let them have my phone numbers, catch up on some of the guys and their rehabs. Before we know it, we'll be in Spring Training. I want to have conversations with everybody and be aware of what's going on in the whole minor league organization as well.

Did he follow up on Prior's injury? And if so, that means they have been actively treating it from atleast January of this year with virtually no improvement. Not a good sign if that scenario is true.

Or did the previous trainer not follow up on it, and then didn't pass along to the new trainer that Prior had a previous injury?

The way Prior talks about it, is that after the season was over he went home with no check up's by trainers or doctors and wasn't treated again until Spring Training when it started to hurt again.