Do Not Re-Sign Varitek!

I think I might be the only one in this boat, but I do not want the Red Sox to re-sign Jason Varitek unless he is the backup or he gets a non-guaranteed invite to spring training.  I cannot stand hearing all the mush heads assigning arbitrary attributes to Varitek that you cannot prove. It aggravates me to no end hearing people call Derek Jeter a “winner” he hasn’t won anything in 8 years or saying that Jose Offerman was the best in baseball going back on pop-ups.  

Peter Gammons writes in his blog today:

Scott Boras demonstrated his genius by actually getting his spokesmen to report that he couldn’t take arbitration for Jason Varitek because the Red Sox might have released him, which would never have happened. Period. Yes, Varitek will be 37 in April, and only six catchers have ever caught 100 games in a season at the age of 37, but he’s a huge part of the Red Sox’s pitching staff, can platoon with and mentor whomever the Red Sox acquire, and the last time he was a free agent asked Boras to give the Red Sox every opportunity to re-sign him out of loyalty to the organization. His declining $10 million-$12 million in arbitration meant that the market establishes the price, and that is just what has happened.

Is he really that important to the pitching staff?  Would Dice-K & Josh Beckett retire if they couldn’t pitch to Varitek?  His OPS has declined so bad over the last three years and he is now at a point that you assume he is going to make an out every single at bat.  Giving him one year would be stupid, giving him a second year option that is triggered by games played would be even more ridiculous.  The Red Sox have been very good about walking away from players when the time was right: Pedro, Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon. They are letting emotion dictate this decision to resign this stiff.  By giving out all this unnecessary money, John Henry will complain that they do not have the resources to take on a contract at the deadline to improve the team.

Related Posts:

• Jason Varitek And Scott Boras Are Tight
• Mark Teixeira
• Jason Varitek
• Chris Iannetta