Mark Prior getting called up to pitch against the Pirates on Wednesday, less than a year after being drafted, is a special achievement: Since the draft began in 1965, only about 75 pitchers have jumped from college to the big leagues by July 1 of the following season. But that in itself doesn't mean Prior is going to become a special pitcher.

Sure, the list includes some standouts like Roger Clemens and Kevin Brown. When you also see twice as many Mike Adamsons and Kirk Dressendorfers, though, the issue becomes more sobering. In fact, one could make the case that pitchers who come up that fast -- no matter how highly regarded they might be at the time -- wind up average pitchers at best.

	In nine combined starts between Double-A and Triple-A this season, Mark Prior was 5-2 with a 2.29 ERA.

Records are imperfect before Baseball America published its The Baseball Draft encyclopedia in 1990, but a total of 60 college pitchers called up by July 1 of the next year were identifiable for this study. (Only about a dozen would have slipped under the radar.) And those 60 unmistakably show how even top prospects are crapshoots. The numbers reveal the following:

1. Coming up so quickly, on its own, is virtually no indication of how well the pitcher's career will unfold.

2. Regardless of how they pitch in the long run, these guys do not fare well in their first season, or even their first three.

3. For all the talk of how pitchers are rushed nowadays, teams are promoting guys within a year considerably less often than they used to.

4. When they do, they appear to choose better candidates -- busts were more common in the first half of the draft era. Since 1982, these pitchers have followed their quick rise with good careers much more often than they did before.

First, the matter of how these guys turn out. Obviously, some get hurt. But some just wind up peaking early and go down as mere footnotes. It's hard to remember Bob Owchinko ('76 Padres), Mike Kinnunen ('80 Twins) and Jeff Granger ('94 Royals) as much else. There are some decent guys like Ray Burris ('73 Cubs) and Jeff Weaver ('99 Tigers). Then some stars like Ken Holtzman ('65 Cubs), Clemens ('84 Red Sox) and Brown ('86 Rangers) give the list some sheen.

On the whole, they average out to be, well, average. The 60 pitchers' career statistics through the 2001 season:

	W-L	Pct.	ERA
60 Pitchers	3,655-3,624	.502	3.96
ML Average	N/A	.500	3.93

Two caveats are in order. One, the 50 pitchers whose careers are complete averaged 8.6 seasons or parts of seasons in the big leagues, a high number, though it surely was raised by the poorer guys getting extra looks because of their former prospect status. Thirty-four of the 50 failed to win 50 games in the majors.

But most important to note is that many of the pitchers included in this study were not as highly regarded as Mark Prior, last year's No. 2 overall pick and considered the game's best pitching prospect, a tall right-hander with a 95-mph fastball and a dominant 12-to-6 curve. Eddie Bane ('73 Twins) was a control-minded, 5-foot-9 lefty. Mike Loynd ('86 Rangers) simply shot up the ladder fast for a team that needed pitching. Still, dozens of these great prospects don't live up to the hype.

Overall, while college pitchers who come up within a year fare OK in the long run, they take their lumps -- like all young pitchers -- early on. Here's how they did in their debut years and their first three combined:

	W-L	Pct.	ERA
Debut Year	200-276	.420	4.50
First 3 Years	803-978	.451	4.22
ML Average	N/A	.500	3.93

Debut years naturally come in all forms. Brown made just one start in September 1986, while Jim Abbott ('88 Angels) broke spring training with California after never spending a day in the minor leagues. Abbott, in fact, put up one of the best first seasons by these college phenoms: He went 12-12, 3.92. Just four guys won at least 10 games. The most? Roger Erickson ('78 Twins), who went 14-13, 3.96 -- before winning just 21 more games the rest of his career.

College pitchers shooting up the minor-league ladder in less than a year are more rare than they used to be. While the first half of draft history saw far fewer top prospects pitching in college -- not one was taken in the first round in 1966 -- many more were promoted quickly. (In the first 10 years of the draft, 21 made the jump; in the last 10, just nine.) The roster implications of expansion drafts have made clubs particularly reluctant to promote guys soon after drafting them.

And fewer guys are turning out to be busts. Splitting the 60 into two even groups, the 30 who debuted before 1982 and the 30 who debuted after (which also includes all active players), it's easy to see that their careers, if not their early seasons, justify the confidence. The first 30 posted career ERAs about 7 percent above the league average with a .482 winning percentage, the most recent 30 about 3 percent below, with a .522 winning percentage:

Debut 1965-81
	W-L Pct. ERA	Pct.	ERA
Debut	84-125	.402	3.98
First 3 Years	382-506	.430	3.97
Career	1,716-1,847	.482	3.88
ML Average	N/A	.500	3.61*

Debut 1982-2001
	W-L Pct. ERA	Pct.	ERA
Debut	116-151	.434	4.96
First 3 Years	421-472	.471	4.48
Career	1,939-1,777	.522	4.03
ML Average	N/A	.500	4.16*

(*Major league ERA's are averages for the years 1965-81 and 1982-2001, not weighted for the seasons covered by the individual pitchers' careers. Not perfect, but instructive nonetheless.)

So how does a team decide whether to promote a pitching phenom just a year after he's drafted? Usually it's a second-division team that needs help quickly -- like this year's Cubs -- even though the numbers suggest real help probably won't be forthcoming. Twins GM Terry Ryan says the timing often depends most on the pitcher's makeup.

"If a guy is dominating his league and emotionally ready and mature, go ahead," says Ryan, a minor-league teammate of Eddie Bane. "It's as much emotional and mental as anything -- the ability to handle things when they're magnified at this level. If you see a guy control himself in major league spring training and then go back to the minor leagues and dominate, it's easier. A lot of guys, you can say they have the stuff to compete. If they don't have the intangibles, they might not be able to compete."

Prior, 21, went 5-2, 2.29 with 79 strikeouts in 51 innings combined in Double-A and Triple-A this season, his professional debut. He's got the stuff. And from all indications he has the maturity.

But he does not necessarily have history on his side. He could become a Clemens or a Keener (Jeff, of the '82 Cardinals). No one knows.

Which pitcher best mirrors the average performance (61-60, 3.96) of these 60 guys? The Red Sox's Dustin Hermanson, who has a 61-61, 4.22 record. The best match from players who have completed their careers? Ben McDonald (78-70, 3.91).

McDonald, of course, was almost a carbon copy of Prior: a tall right-hander with a mid-90s fastball and advanced breaking stuff. The prototype Can't-Miss. But McDonald's fastball never developed movement, his arm broke down and he never won more than 14 games in his eight-plus seasons.

The Cubs certainly hope their guy turns out better. We'll find out in 10-15 years. When it comes to lofty expectations, some Prior restraint is definitely in order.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer of Baseball America magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.