This update is powered by . . . an all-star performance of  “In the Midnight Hour”

• Joel Sherman warns of the major contracts of the aging Yankee core.
• Ramiro Pena realizes he won’t be playing short on a regular basis anytime soon.
• Brian Cashman, on Robby Cano:

“He’s already one of the premier guys in the game, but that’s the only thing separating him from taking it to a whole other level,” Brian Cashman said. “If he can be more selective at the plate, he could have a Hall of Fame-type career.”

Since Cano debuted in 2005, his .306 average ranks 13th among all active players and fourth among all American Leaguers who have played at least 700 games, trailing only Ichiro Suzuki (.328), Derek Jeter (.322) and Michael Young (.313).

“He’s still young,” Cashman said. “He really has a chance to make a name for himself that would last forever. That’s the type of hitting talent he has.”

Mark Teixeira, who watched Cano from across the field for four years, didn’t gain an appreciation for just how good the 27-year-old is until last season.

“He has so much talent, it would be easy for him to say, ‘I’m going to let my talent play and I’ll have a decent year,'” Teixeira said. “But he wants to be one of the best – and he can be.”

• Marc Carig Q&As with Jesus Montero, including this bit:

Do you think it’s realistic right now, to be in the majors this season?

Well, that’s what I’m hoping for this year, for that opportunity. I want to be with them. I want to help the team this year. I’m working really hard right now, every single day, to get better and get the opportunity to play with them.

If it doesn’t work out at catcher, have you given any thought to what position you want to play?

I don’t know. Maybe in the future, two, three, five years more, maybe they’re going to put me in another position. But I’m working to be a catcher. I want to be in the big leagues as a catcher.

It doesn’t seem that you’ve got another position in mind.

No. I want to be a catcher with the Yankees.

• Jorge Posada isn’t ready to be moved off of catcher:

Nobody squats forever, and at 38, Posada understands the deal. Yet for a kid who fought his way out of Puerto Rico and a junior college in Alabama and battled voices in the Yankees organization that insisted he wasn’t good enough, he isn’t going away just because of his age and reputation as a catcher whose switch-hitting bat outweighs his defense.

“I am going to make it tough, that’s the way I was brought up,” Posada said. “We got a lot of talent, but I am going to make it tough for them. I don’t want to go away. I am having fun and enjoy playing. To tell you the truth, they are going to really have to rip [the uniform] off me.”

• Chad Moeller opines on some of the best pitchers he’s ever caught, including:

MARIANO RIVERA Yankees, 2008

Easiest guy I’ve ever caught. Plain and simple, the easiest guy I’ve ever caught. You know where the ball’s going to be every time. And it’s just amazing that everybody knows what’s coming, and nobody’s going to square it up. He’s thrown the same pitch over and over and over, and nobody’s done anything with it yet. You’re just picking a side. Not the pitch, you’re just picking a side. He has a two-seamer, which he started using for right-handers a little bit, just when I think he really wanted to embarrass them. But he could always lock the right-handers up because he’d throw the ball right at them, and they’d jump out of the way and it was strike three. It’d come right in the front door.

• The Baseball Prospectus crew will be at the Barnes and Noble on 18th Street and 5th Avenue in NYC tonight at 6PM, for a chat about their newest annual tome.

Back on Thursday.