Yankees sign 20 year old Dominican pitcher

This is kind of old news, but the Yankees signed a 20 year old Dominican pitcher named Juan Carlos Paniagua last week.  The Dominican Baseball Guy just got the news because the unending number of Yankees blogs all posted the signing (see the story at River Ave Blues or Sliding into Home or any number of Yankees blogs).

The news was actually broken by Dionisio Soldevila on his twitter page.  All the sources say the same thing, that Paniagua was signed for $1.1 million and has a fastball that sits around 95 mph.  There is no biography for him at any of the main baseball statistics sites.

Paniagua will go to the Yankees Dominican academy, so it is anyone's guess when we will see him stateside.  It is possible he may never leave the Dominican Republic.  Unless he stays high on the Yankees prospect list, we may never hear from him again.  However, the Yankees and other teams obviously think enough to give him a big signing bonus.  So it goes for young prospects from the Dominican Republic.