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With Joe Mauer winning his first AL MVP yesterday, ‘Duk over at Yahoo’s Big League Stew posted this on his blog post today:

It’s admittedly a very loose comparison, but Joe Mauer(notes) and Mark Prior(notes) have become the Michael Jordan and Sam Bowie of the 2001 MLB draft.

Ouch, Sam Bowie, that kind of hurts ‘Duk. So, Mark Prior is now the baseball equivalent of Sam Bowie? Remember how happy we Cub fans were when Prior’s contract demands were too astronomical for the small market Twins? They just had to take the H.S. catcher from St. Paul and that meant the phenom from SoCal fell to the Cubs! LOL. Well ‘Duk links to this article written by Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune up in the Twin Cities. You see there were alot of people up in the Twin Cities who bitched and moaned when the Twins passed on Prior. Well now it’s time to apologize to the Twin’s GM at the time Terry Ryan:

This is an award for all Twins followers to celebrate, and also for tens of thousands to feel foolish.

There were those of us who suggested the Twins had erred by not selecting Mark Prior, the Southern Cal pitcher, over Mauer, about to graduate from Cretin-Derham Hall High School, with the first selection in the 2001 June draft.

We accused the Twins of choosing to save money with the local kid, rather than accede to Prior’s enormous demands. Terry Ryan, then the baseball boss, said this was erroneous — that the Twins took Mauer because they saw him as the best player in a high-quality draft.

It is a tribute to Mr. Ryan’s class that he doesn’t ask, “What do you think of Prior versus Mauer now?” every time that we run into him.

Prior had early success and flamed out with shoulder problems. He won his last game in the big leagues Aug. 5, 2006. On that day, Mauer was hitting .365 on his way to a first batting title. And .365 is what Mauer batted this season in winning his third.

You betcha, we members of the draft-Prior crowd were morons, although no more so than the naïve media types and masses of civilians insisting the wise course for the Twins was to move Mauer from behind the plate.

It’s real interesting how time gives you such a different perspective on deals in sports. We always rush to judge deals the minute they happen. “Here is what this deal means to this team, this is what it means to these guys.”

Back to the 2001 MLB draft: the early returns on the Twins drafting Mauer no doubt favored the Cubs. Prior put up one of the best season any of us have seen for the Cubs in 2003. You know the painful number of injuries after that that cut Prior’s career short. All Mauer has done since that point is put up numbers that translate into a HOF career, albeit he still has a long long way to go.

As for comparing Prior to Sam Bowie, I think that’s a stretch. I like to remember him more along the lines of Mark Fidrych. Prior may not have been as colorful as ‘the Bird’ but he was every bit as dominant in 2003 as Fidrych was in 1976. Tigers fans remember Fydrich fondly. Maybe one days Cub fans will remember Prior in a positive way.