Dodger fans who were around during the 2003, 2004 and 2005 seasons remember him well. As a member of the Chicago Cubs he made a total of four starts against the Dodgers, posting a 3-0 record against Jim Tracy’s club, with two of those four starts being complete games.

He faced a total of 119 Dodger batters in his combined 30.1 innings pitched, striking out 30 of them while walking only 3 for a K/BB ratio of 10.00. He allowed a grand total of eight runs on 28 hits, four of which were home runs.

He is former Chicago Cubs right-hander Mark Prior, and when you add all of this up, he pretty much owned the Dodgers with his outstanding 2.37 earned run average and dominating 1.022 WHIP.

Although Prior made only four career starts against the Dodgers during his brief five-year MLB career, he flat out dominated them in all four of them. (Source: Baseball_Reference.com – Click on image to enlarge)

Mark Prior is now a Dodger.

No, the 37-year-old San Diego, California native and second overall pick in the 2001 MLB First-Year Player Draft by the Chicago Cubs out of USC won’t be taking the mound at Dodger Stadium; but he will be sending every Dodger pitcher out there.

The only Dodgers to ever homer off of Prior were Adrian Beltre, Shawn Green, Mike Edwards and Jeff Kent.
(Getty Images)

Late Tuesday afternoon, highly respected Yahoo Sports baseball writer Tim Brown tweeted out that the Dodgers had signed the former Chicago Cubs right-hander (and Dodgers nemesis) to replace former Dodgers bullpen coach Josh Bard, who left the team to accept a position as pitching coach for newly appointed New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that Prior’s short five-year MLB career was riddled with injuries. After tearing up the league in 2002 and 2003, the hard-throwing former Trojan was sidelined until June in 2004 due to a lingering ankle injury. It was Déjà vu all over again in 2005, this time for elbow inflammation that delayed his 2005 season debut until May. But no sooner had the 6′-5″ / 230-pound right-hander returned to action when he was struck on his throwing arm by a line drive comebacker that broke his elbow.

Prior yet again began the season on the DL in 2006 with right shoulder soreness. And even though he eventually made his way back into the Cubs starting rotation, it was clear that he was no longer the dominating pitcher he had once been and finished the 2006 campaign having made only nine starts.

In April of 2007, Prior had surgery to repair his rotator cuff and a torn labrum. But like clockwork, in April of 2008 he had another surgery to repair a torn anterior capsule and a humeral avulsion of the glenohumeral ligaments. As a result, Prior missed the entire 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons. With free agency looming, the Cubs had absolutely no choice but to let Prior go.

While still recovering from his surgeries, Prior landed a job with the San Diego Padres, working mainly in a front office capacity. But they, too, eventually let him go.

From 2010 to 2013, Prior floated through the Rangers, Yankees, Red Sox and Reds minor league organizations, where he accumulated 58.2 combined innings, mostly in relief. But the writing was clearly on the wall … he was done.

But Prior’s multitude of injuries weren’t for naught. Although they most certainly brought a brutal end to his abbreviated career, they opened the eyes of not only the Cubs and the other teams for which he played, but also for all of Major League Baseball. His lengthy injury résumé became the focal point of the growing need for pitch counts in the game. Prior almost single-handedly proved the need for coaches, managers and front office personnel to begin protecting their pitchers from fatigue due to overuse. In doing so, he provided the first baby steps of the then relatively unknown world of what we today call analytics.

Needless to say, Mark Prior brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Dodgers as their new bullpen coach. And while the job itself may not be among the most glamorous and is more of a behind-the-scenes position, as Tim Brown accurately noted, Prior may have just taken more baby steps towards potentially becoming the heir apparent to replace veteran Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, who will be 64 years old on June 29.

Welcome to the Dodgers, Mark.