Monday Rockpile: Bergman set for MLB debut

Christian Bergman will get the call and start tonight's game against Atlanta as he fills in for the injured Jordan Lyles. Bergman's stuff has never impressed scouts, but he's gotten outs at every single level so far, and when you do that, you eventually get a stab at the major leagues. It's always interesting to see guys like Bergman pitch their first few games at this level because you tend to get pretty quick answers in terms of if they are all smoke and mirrors or actually polished to the point as a pitcher where they can get guys out even though they lack shiny tools.

If you missed the news over the weekend, the Rockies received yet another potentially devastating blow on the pitching front. Dan Winkler, who is leading all Texas League starters in ERA, left Saturday's game with an elbow injury that could be significant. He'll get an MRI, possibly as soon as today, but I wouldn't expect good news on this front. Combine this with Eddie Butler's call up, and suddenly Tulsa's rotation just got a whole lot less exciting.

At the bottom of the Winkler link, there's also a note on Michael Cuddyer's shoulder. It sounds like the team is going to make a decision today as far whether or not he has to go on the DL. If he does, he will be the corresponding roster move to Bergman's call up. If not, somebody else is going to be headed to the minors. Either way, another name will have to come off the 40 man roster today to make room Bergman's presence. As always, be sure to visit Greg Stanwood's Rockies Roster page to keep track of what's been a wild week of transactions.

Quick Front Office Thought

As fast as things are coming apart this season for the Rockies injury wise, they could be headed for disaster again. All you need to know on that front is Christian Bergman making a June start. If we do head down that road, I would expect some changes at the top of the front office this fall. I know many of you out there don't believe this, but there is actually some accountability there.

Even though this particular crash (and we're bordering on a crash right now), would have more to do with injury circumstances out of their control than other failures, I'm not sure the same general structure can stay in place after four consecutive horrible seasons. It's just the way this thing works; especially with the lack of depth that helped get them into this mess in 2011 and 2012.

The tricky part would be sorting out what they did well this year, where they fell woefully short, and what is out of their control, because as far as 2014 is concerned, there's a big load from all of these categories. It could even lead to a resign from the top and somebody overseeing the strengthening minor league system stepping up, since that's where any future success is going to come from. This would allow them to keep many of the philosophies responsible for the improvement at the lower levels while making some changes to the process as the top.

I'm not sure that's what most here want to see, but it will be a tough balance of holding people's feet to the fire when A) this particular disaster was partially beyond their control and B) many people inside and outside the organization like the direction of the farm system. Still, the wolves are growling at the door and a bad summer here might finally usher in change. If they're not going to go outside the organization, the best move for the club would be to find somebody who knows what they're doing overseeing players that will be important in the future and roll with him from there.

Now for the fun part of the article

Let's do some Tulo links today. First up, Sports Illustrated documents how Tulo used Novak Djokovic's routine to help him prepare better for the grueling MLB season. Our shortstop makes an interesting observation in how his position is similar to tennis with all the lateral movements. It's an interesting place to look for answers, but it does make sense the more you think about it. Hopefully it continues to work out as well as it has so far, but either way, it's awesome Tulo goes as far as he does to put himself in the best position possible for success.

Scott Lindholm gives us his AL and NL MVP predictions, and of course, Tulo is mentioned. He does however make a rather clumsy mistake when he says that Tulo has only played in more than 150 games once, when in reality Tulo did that in both Colorado trips to the playoffs in 2007 and 2009.

The money quote is where he says that "the Rockies aren't going anywhere in October except golfing, but it will be Troy Tulowitzki's award to lose." However, I still think it's too early to say it's Tulo's award to lose with 100 games left, and if the Rockies don't turn their play around, the road to the MVP gets even tougher for Tulo. As we saw in 2011 with Matt Kemp and in each of the last two seasons with Mike Trout, MVP voters don't tend to like voting for guys on teams who don't make the postseason. The last time it happened in the NL was Albert Pujols in 2008 and the last time it happened in the AL was with Alex Rodriguez in 2003.

If the season ended right now, Tulo would likely be the MVP, even on a losing team, but there's a whole bunch of baseball left, and somebody on a team playing better baseball than the Rockies is likely to get very hot at some point.

Last week before the draft, Lookout Landing lamented about how the Mariners almost took Tulowitzki with the third overall pick in the 2005 draft. Instead, they drafted based on a positional need and passed on the best player available. Tulowitzki tumbled to the Rockies at pick No. 7, and the rest as they say is history.

If you've been following Purple Row really closely for the last month, you'll know that our own Drew Creasman has been comparing Troy Tulowitzki to Mike Trout. Well the folks at Halos Heaven saw that series, and they were not too pleased. Here's their rebuttal.

Around MLB

Manny Machado embarrassed himself and his team over the weekend as he tried to injure multiple Oakland players.

David Ortiz hit a three run bomb in the ninth inning last night against the Tigers to give Detroit another loss this season in which they had a late lead. As good as the star players are on this team, they have a some major holes, and a division title that looked so certain to some a few weeks ago shouldn't seem so certain anymore, especially with Justin Verlander's velocity dropping.

The Hall of Fame turns 75-years-old this season. Here's ten facts you may not have known about it.