Is our pen that strong if Tillman does win the spot, all those guys have to go the minors? Don't think so.
If Tillman fails to win the 5th spot, why the hell not put him in the pen? If Trembley believes what he said ("Tillman is going to be a great young pitcher," said Trembley) then unless he is just atrocious, I am missing something.

Milt:

I agree. Tillman, unless he looks lost during Spring Training, should be in the pen on opening day.

Since I believe baseball is learned through repetition and trial and error, I think Tillman would be better served starting every 4 days in the minors rather than throwing sporadically in the bullpen. Frankly, I think Tillman still has some things to learn and work on in the minors anyway.

That said, let's read between the lines here. What else is Trembley going to say? Even if his rotation was set, he's not going to tell the pitchers heading into spring training, "Hey, thanks for coming, but our rotation is set. Feel free to stick around and play some catch." Especially true with so many kids like Berken, Patton, Hernandez, Arrieta, and Erbe. He probably wouldn't want the risk of complacency setting in with Matusz, Tillman, and Bergesen either.

Good points all, but I like the idea of putting future starters in the pen to pitch, watch, listen and learn. There will be ample opportunities for long relief stints from the pen. Back in the day, as they say, the pen was the holding spot for a young starter-to-be, a la Jimmy "Cakes" Palmer.

I like the learn-by-doing approach myself. I think lineups are a lot tougher now and conditioning is more important than ever. I worry about Tillman getting enough innings in the 'pen and then not being ready to throw 180-200 innings as a starter. On the other hand, he's really got nothing left to prove in Norfolk.

I agree, but where? I would not want him gaining experience pitching in a girls softball league. I am not comparing the minors to a girls softball league, but I wouldn't compare the minors to majors either.
I would like to see him learn by facing major league level hitters.

No offense intended to female softball leagues, players, or any persons associated with such organizations, including anybody, or anything, anywhere.

Well, it's a bind, which is what I'm trying to get at. Use him in the bullpen and he faces ML hitters, but he's probably lucky to get 120 innings in, so his conditioning suffers a bit. You can't just expect to throw him into the rotation the following year and get 200 innings out of him. So, he loses a year or two in terms of becoming a guy who's going to give you 7 innings every time out, and that puts pressure on your 'pen for another year or two. On the other hand, put him in Norfolk and he gets lots of innings, but against hitters that he's already outclassed.

When I say put him in the pen, I am not suggesting leave him there. Like Jack said, there will be long-relief ops for him the stretch out , and hopefully, at some point he would earn a spot start and work his way into the rotation. This is assuming he does not win the spot in ST. The O's handled his contract-time correctly by delaying his arrival last season. The clock is running now, they should utilize his talent. If he cannot handle it, they should send him down and determine if he is worth screwing around with at all. If he can handle the majors, he should be there doing it.
As to innings, I agree, he has to throw more than 120, but no more than 180.

If you look at the O's schedule they only have two days off in April, so there will not be a lot of opportunity for a 4-man rotation unless they want to start pitchers on three days rest rather than four. Or perhaps Patton is out of options and Tillman has options so to keep Patton they need to keep him on the major league club and option Tillman or Matusz. It would not be to protect him from innings because Matusz and him are in the same category.

Bergesen update…

Is "tweaked" the new cool evasive word? He didn't bruise, strain, or tear anything. He tweaked something.
Our staff is far too fragile to film commercials. Dangerous stuff, those shoots.

Tweak has been around for a long time in the context of "tweaking" a child's nose with a gentle pinch and slight turn.

In another sense we used to use "tweaking" in the Marine Corps as a term for making a fine adjustment to either a draft document or a piece of equipment to make it a bit better.

In any sense it is scary that Bergesen can hurt himself filming a commercial. I thought only Jay Gibbons could injury himself by something mundane like sitting on the bench or getting a cup of Gatorade.

See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCxxd8MVwTA...player_embedded

Thanks for the link Sluggo. That was a very polished commercial. It looks like he was coming with the heat…I guess they wanted to hear the pop of the glove but not the arm pop/tweak.

Arms and shoulders are funny things. Some guys like Nolan Ryan throw a 100 miles an hour their entire lives and never feel a thing. Then sometimes guys do things to their shoulders and arms during long toss. I'm not sure it's conditioning or training. From what I understand, the next big thing in sports medicine is in researching whether there is an actual detectable predisposition to muscle and ligament injuries.

As an aside, I know Bergesen was instructed to take it easy on his arm this past winter and that he has hardly thrown at all. Perhaps that may have something to do with it, perhaps not.

Mark Prior had one of the smoothest deliveries that scouts ever saw. It was predicted that this would prevent him from having any kind of arm injuries. So much for that thought.

I buy the thought that a smooth and flawless delivery might help minimize the likelihood of arm injuries. But the idea that it prevents arm injuries is a misconception.

No matter how you do it, repetitive throwing motion is bad for the arm, elbow, shoulder, etc. It can happen to anyone, at any time, doing anything.

EDIT: To be honest, while I'm sure it helps, I don't even know how much a proper and technically correct delivery does to minimize arm injuries.

Career:

I suspect there is no good answer to your question. My only scientific evaluation of this has to do with my own situation. As a former competent but not world class athlete, with lovely form and good hand eye coordination, I had hoped that would translate to freedom from injuries. Yet, despite my flawless, perhaps perfect form in the use of my mouse, I have NOT been able to avoid feeling occasional tingling and soreness of the right forearm.

My trainer says rest is the only real solution, along with occasional stretching exercises.

I know people who use the computer and their mouse more than I do, with less desirable form and smoothness of delivery and they are problem free. Go figure.

Such is life.

Andrew, whomever figures out the answer to that question would become a very rich person.

I can't even wrap my mind around what one could possibly study to obtain the answer.

It is akin to the mystery of the AAAA player--one who is obviously too good for AAA but who somehow just cannot cut it in the MLs. This is probably more a mental strength issue, but like the physical weakness hidden inside someone's body, that just keeps them from physically performing with longevity.

Had a roommate in college who was an all american in track and ran a sub 4 minute mile. His assessment of my best friend, who also ran track, but did longer distances like the 3000-5000-steeple chase: World class aerobics. Only problem--my friend's body just broke down just as he was pressing to turn the corner in his running career. My friend has that thin wiry distance runner frame and he just could not keep healthy. He ran himself to hurt.

Small footnote of irrelevance. My friend ran in junior college for the track team--four man eight mile relay (I think that was it--two miles each)--with Dana Carvey, the comedian.

I work in an office building with mostly overweight slobs. Those folks live forever. We have a couple of guys that run at lunch time. They never seem to make it to retirement. One guy was in better shape than I ever was. He ran at least 3 miles every day until he just dropped dead at 52. It was really sad.

An arm can only throw a certain number of balls, a heart only has a finite number of beats. No need rushing to end either I suppose.

I run for cover sometimes when it is raining. I see people running down the road periodically and no one is even chasing them? I don't understand it.

I've been known to make a beer run on occasion.

Since I normally see those folks after lunch, I assume they had bad TexMex. Run for the Border/Bathroom.