Chris Richard, Jason Cromer, Joe Bateman, Winston Abreu and More

I’m not sure what’s different this year, but I like it. We seem to know much more about potential 2010 Bulls this year than in previous years. Maybe I’m paying more attention since I wasn’t blogging last year. Maybe the Rays and Bulls are putting more information out there. At any rate, with a bit of judicious speculation, here we are in December with some pretty good ideas about the 2010 Bulls roster, especially the pitching staff.

In recent days the Rays have signed quite a few players to minor league contracts, with most of those announced also getting invitations to spring training. Important to me, if not the Bulls, was that three of my favorite Bulls of this year look to be coming back.

Chris Richard, Winston Abreu, Joe Bateman, Jeff Bennett, Jason Cromer, Carlos Hernandez, R.J. Swindle and Richard de Los Santos have all signed in the last week or so. See the Bulls’ press release for details. We saw six of those last year (the exceptions being De Los Santos and Swindle). I’m guessing that we’ll see all eight on the Bulls roster come April.

I’m particularly pleased to see Chris Richard, Jason Cromer, and Winston Abreu back. Here’s hoping that they have great spring training experiences and make the Rays 40-man before they come to Durham.

Other news:

Charlie Montoyo was named Minor League Manager of the Year by the magazine Baseball America.

Rays Index has updated his projection of the Tampa Bay 40-man roster. For what it’s worth, it’s safe to assume that most players on the 40-man but not on the 25-man active roster will be in Durham (assuming they are still with the Rays).

Mitch Talbot was the subject of a long piece by Bill Chastain at MLB.com a while back.

John Jaso was the subject of a short piece over at Rays Prospects.

After a terrible start, Justin Ruggiano is picking up his batting numbers down in Venezuela.

Jon Weber’s OPS slipped below 1.000 and is now just .975 down in Mazatlan.