Lots going on around the Yankee organization here, so here are some bullet points for you:

• Probably the biggest news was Adam Warren's start last night. He threw 7 innings, and gave up only two hits and one walk. If that wasn't impressive enough, Warren struck out a Trenton Thunder record 15(!) batters. Warren had been struggling a little bit in Trenton, but now his numbers in Double-A look great.
• Juan Miranda went 4 for 5 with a home run, and I'd expect that we see the Yankees call him up when A-Rod comes off the DL or on September 1. Because of Miranda's presence, it wouldn't make sense for the Yanks to add Montero to the 40-man roster and call him up.
• Speaking of Jesus Montero, he went 2 for 4 last night with a home run, a walk, and a strikeout last night. It was his 15th home run of the season.
• Rob Segedin hit his first career home run for the GCL Yankees last night. The new Yankee can definitely hit, and he'll be one to watch for the rest of the season.
• Manny Banuelos continues to pitch well, and last night Frankie Piliere said he reached 97 on the gun. That's the highest I've seen him clocked, and is certainly an exciting development.

Good AJ: 8/15 at KCR: 8 innings, 4 hits, 1 ER, 6 SO, 3 BB, 8/6 GB/FB ratio

Red is bad for AJ, blue is good. The dark green is pretty much neutral.The lime green is slightly positive for the hitter. The small spot of red really far out of the strikezone is a hit by pitch.

In this start, AJ was very effective up in the zone. He really only got hit in one area, middle-out (from the perspective of a right handed batter).

Here are his pitch statistics, courtesy of brooksbaseball.net

*The velocity is a little off. Pitch f/x seems to have some issues in Kansas City.

What's notable here is that AJ actually threw more strikes with his curve than any other pitch. HIs curve also had much less movement that usual, probably allowing him to command the pitch better.

Bad AJ:  8/2 at TOR: 4.2 innings, 8 hits, 8 ER, 4 SO, 2 BB, 9/7 GB/FB ratio

Red is bad for AJ, blue is good. The tan color is almost neutral, though slightly trending towards the hitter. Keep in mind the red here describes a higher run value than the red in the first graph.

As you can see, pretty much everywhere ended up being either neutral or very hitter dominated. The Blue Jays demolished anything thrown on the inner half of the plate (from the perspective of a righthanded batter). However, if you look close enough, you can see a small blue sliver. AJ can sleep safely knowing he absolutely DOMINATED that dot in the strikezone.

Of note here is the poor fastball AJ had on this day. His velocity was down about 1.4 mph and he had less movement than usual too (with the fourseam). He also struggled to command his curve.

The deadline is tonight at midnight, so here is what has happened so far today:

• 27th round pick Martin Viramontes(RHP) will not sign with the Yankees and will instead return to school at Loyola Marymount.
• Josh Dezse, the Yankees 28th round pick, also will not be signing and will be returning to Ohio State University.
• The two remaining signability cases that the Yankees are in on are  Evan Rutckyj(16th round pick), a big left handed pitcher, and the extremely athletic outfielder Mason Williams(4th round pick).
  • Kevin Levine-Flandrup says, "UPDATES: Yankees making progress in negotiations. Close on Rutckyj, still some work to go on Williams. Stay tuned..."

I'll continue to update this thread as news trickles in.

(Update - 10:50 PM): According to Bob Elliot of the Canadian Baseball Network, the Yankees signed Rutckyj for $500,000. This is obviously well-above slot for a 16th rounder, but much less than he was originally asking for.

(Update - PM): Jonathan Mayo reports that Mason Williams has signed with the Yankees for $1.45 million. This is the highest bonus that the Yankees have given out(first rounder Cito Culver got around $950,000). Williams is a very nice addition for the Yanks. It is highly unlikely that the Yankees will announce any other late-night signings. More on Williams and Rutckyj tomorrow.

Here's a list of all of the Yankees signings.

What if tomorrow, the Yankees were to put top prospect Jesus Montero on the 40-man roster, and call him up? In this hypothetical, let's also say that the Yankees are totally fed up with Cervelli. He's been doing nothing at the plate recently, being worse than 50% below average (offense) in June and July. In this scenario, the Yankees are in fact so frustrated with Cervelli, that they decide to shut him down for the rest of the season and work with Kevin Long on improving his swing. How much of a difference would this make, Montero replacing Cervelli?

Let's assume Montero would catch as many games as Cervelli from here on out. Cervelli so far has averaged 2.19 PA's per game this season. If we extend this rate of play to the end of the season, Montero would have 105 PA's.

Offense

ZiPS projects Cervelli to hit to a .303 wOBA for the rest of the season. Over 105 PA's, this would make him about 2 runs below average.

ZiPS projects Montero to be basically league average, but if you want an exact number, -0.18 runs. But Montero has really been hitting lately. If we look at the standard deviations of such a hypothetical performance, we would get 0.049. This means that there is a 68% chance that Montero would have a wOBA between .272 and .370, and 95% chance he would wOBA between .223 and .419.

Recently, as I'm sure you have noticed, Montero has been mashing. If we convert his July and August numbers into their major league equivalancy, we would get a line of .317/.397/.558. This would also be a studly .399 wOBA, which would be about 1.6 standard deviations above average.

If hypothetical Montero would hit to a .399 wOBA, he would produce about 7 runs above average. This would make the difference between Montero and Cervelli about 9 runs on offense, not including baserunning.

Defense

Cervelli hasn't been that good on defense this year, but just as any player can have a down year on offense, Cervelli may just be having a down year defensively. His scouting reports from his time in the minors always praised his defense, and Cervelli was great catching last year. For this reason, I will be a little generous to Cervelli, and say that over a fullseason, he would save a win on defense as his true talent level. If he would have 600 PA's in a fullseason, he would save 1.75 runs on defense over 105 PA's.

Everyone knows the book on Montero; awesome hitting prospect, not so much behind the plate. If we esimate Montero to play replacement level defense behind the plate, say about -30 runs across a full season, he would be about 5.25 runs below average over 105 PA's.

This would make the difference between Montero and Cervelli about 7 runs on defense.

Conclusion

Even with me being very, very generous to Montero, the difference between him and Cervelli would only be about 2 runs total. Sean wrote earlier about why the Yankees shouldn't call up Montero. I just wanted to show that even if Montero were to provide monster offense (.399 wOBA) in a call up, it wouldn't make that much of a difference anyway.