Take you shoes off
Put your feet up
It's time to meet up with the Baltimore Birds
Soaring, Scoring Oriole Birds

heh... Chuck Thompson was the only good thing about the Orioles to this 60s Senators fan...

Whither Billy Rowell?

While pitchers Jason Berken, Brad Bergesen and David Hernandez, outfielder Nolan Reimold and catcher Matt Wieters have gotten the most attention during their big league debuts ...

Is Bergesen is real prospect (notwithstanding TINSTAAPP)? I was driving around this morning when he called into a Bay Area radio show. (The Orioles are in Oakland and he's a Bay Area native.) The host didn't really ask him anything about pitching, baseball, his prospects, etc. The big question (Gary Radnich) asked was about slump busters: "Would you bang a random girl if doing so would help you break out of a slump?" Bergesen said he's married and, alas, would not.

Berken, Bergesen and Hernandez are all sort of iffy prospects, C to B- according to Sickels. Hernandez is ranked a little higher than Bergesen, who's a little higher than Berken. the other three mentioned are all ranked B+, and don't forget ERBE, too.

Rowell is still not hitting much, and now has been moved to corner OF, cause they don't think he can handle third, either. He's still young, but the clock is ticking.

Hernandez looked good to me, but then, I saw him against the Tigers.

To me, Berken and Bergesen are just like Guthrie--righties, sinkers, throwing strikes but not great K rates, neither of the youngsters throws as hard as Guthrie, and none much more than a #3 or #4 on a contending team.

Hernandez has had ridiculous K rates in the minors, but scouts aren't as impressed, so we'll see.

Rowell is still yo--OK, repeating A ball--OK, repeating A ball, poorly, he better start hitting. Like, soon.

I doubt that Bergesen will be one of the O's five best starters by 2011; the conventional wisdom is that he's very close to his ceiling already. He's got a nice hard sinker, a serviceable slider, and a so-so change. None of his pitches are particularly good for missing bats, as evidenced by his extremely low strikeout numbers.

One question is whether, like Jim Johnson, Bergesen could throw harder if he were working in relief. If he were sitting at 94-95 instead of 91-92, he could be very tough out of the pen.

Billy Rowell needs to start figuring stuff out soon - he's still young for the Carolina League, but if he can't put up better numbers than he has so far in his second year in the league, he won't look much like a prospect any more...

The nice thing about Bergesen, Berken and Hernandez are that they might actually belong in a major league rotation. That doesn't sound like much but for the O's it's a huge step up after enduring Eaton, Hendrickson, Liz, Olson, Cabrera, Birkins, Burres, Trachsel, Penn, Benson, Waters and so on.

To be fair, even the incarnation of Benson that pitched for the Orioles belonged in a major league rotation, till he got hurt again. He'd have been a really good fourth starter, and it's possible to imagine a team making the post-season with him as its third starter.

it's possible to imagine a team making the post-season with [Benson] as its third starter

On the other hand, it's possible to imagine - nay, to remember - a team making the post-season with John Maine in its rotation. The hard part is believing the same team had Steve Trachsel as its winningest pitcher...

In an alternate universe, the Orioles' rotation is Benson, Bergesen, Berken, Birkins, and Burres right now.