Charlie's Back ... and More

The Bulls website is reporting that Charlie Montoyo is coming back to Durham for the 2011 season. Dave Myers, hitting coach, is back for his third season. To replace pitching coach Xavier Hernandez, who left the Bulls at the end of last season, Neil Allen has been brought up from the Rays' Single-A franchise, the Charlotte Stone Crabs.

Good news. We speculated some last year that Charlie, who has garnered just about every award a minor league manager can earn, might be due to move up to the big leagues. We're happy to have him back.

In the meantime ...

Over at RaysProspects we were pointed to a terrific article at MiLB.com that mentions a bunch of last year's stars. The author obviously spent a good bit of time talking with Montoyo and he got some great quotes. Montoyo had good things to say about Chris Richard, Dan Johnson, Elliot Johnson, Justin Ruggiano, Leslie Anderson, and Desmond Jennings. Particularly telling was this quote about Jeremy Hellickson:

“The joke in the clubhouse was, ‘Is Jeremy gonna work today or is he gonna pitch?’ because they always had him working on this pitch or that pitch instead of just pitching a game, and he still had a really good year.”

There's also a hint that Chris Richard might be back for 2011. We can hope.

Then over at DRaysBay we have FreeZorrilla with a first-rate interview with Alex Cobb. With any luck, we're going to see a lot of Mr. Cobb next season.

Back at RaysProspects we find their Top 30 list. These are the guys to keep an eye on during spring training. A couple of them will end up with the Rays, but a few will be spending a lot of time in Durham next year.

Update: The Durham Herald-Sun apparently called Charlie and picked up a couple of quotes.