Prior injury resurfaces for Cubs

That's a shout out to ESPN and their ridiculous headlines. So Prior's injury is back and the Cub nation holds their collective breath until MRI results are announced. No matter what they show and judging with how cautious they've been with Wood and Prior earlier, don't expect to see much more of Prior the rest of the year. Cause honestly if it takes another 2 months out of his season and he's back in September on seriously limited pitch counts it's just not worth it. Let him get healthy and go to PLAN B.

I expect a Hendry to make a trade like last year to fill a huge hole caused by injury. I feel GM's tend to get comfortable dealing with certain other GM's and Hendry has made deals with the Pirates, A's and Marlins recently. A K. Benson/J. Wilson trade is possible but I pray it doesn't happen. Benson has to be the most overrated player out there and why does he keep coming up in trade discussions? We'd be better off with Rusch for the rest of the year. Here are Benson's numbers:

6-7 4.42 ERA 40/71 BB/K and a 5.81 K/9 ratio (2004)

The rest of his seasons have been worse except 2000 when he had the following line:

10-12 3.85 ERA 86/184 BB/K and a 7.61 K/9 ratio

And if we played Neyer's, which of these does is not like the others? 2000 would stick out and you would see that he's at best an average pitcher who happened to be a #1 pick. J. Wilson is having a career year in what I believe is his contract year. Good defender, probably would help us this year. If they get a pitcher from the Pirates I'd prefer it to be O. Perez:

5-4 3.24 ERA 37/117 BB/K and 10.82 K/9 ratio

But I'm assuming Littlefield plans for Perez to be the part of the next great Pirates team and any trades would be financially motivated hence all the Benson talk.

I also assume if the news is bad on Prior, the R. Johnson rumors will heat up. I hope so, I'd trade 2 pitching prospects and Dubois or Kelton for him. I don't know what the DBacks want and everything depends on Tribune opening up their huge cash reserves but when your this close to the playoffs and your as stocked as the Cubs I think you take that chance for a few reasons:

#1)To borrow from Baseball Prospectus: TINSTAAPP - There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. Take the guy who's still at the top of his game...there are injury risks but there are injury risks with any pitcher.

#2)If you haven't noticed the Cubs pitching staff is quite stocked at the major league level. Wood, Zambrano, Prior aren't going anywhere. Maddux is signed at least for next year and I'm going to assume they year after that as his option is based on innings pitched. That leaves one spot for the next year and the year after, assuming Clement is not resigned. Sure I'd love to see Brownlie or Guzman in the rotation but do Dusty, Cubs fan, Hendry have the patience for the inevitable learning curve?Cause none of them as far as I can gather are the mortal lock as Prior was. So rookie learning his way or Randy "F*****" Johnson for the next 2 years?

The big dilemma is his contract as it would seriously hurt our chances to fill the potential LF and SS gaps. Not to mention the raise that Prior, Zambrano and A. Ramirez have to be due to get. But if they can make the finances work, I'd would seriously pursue it.