I can’t see it happening, but apparently Jason Varitek may elect to sit out the 2009 season or even retire.
According to a baseball source, the deadline by which Varitek must accept or decline the Red Sox’ latest contract offer is set for 8:30 a.m. on Friday, leaving less than a day for the matter to play out. According to the same source, Varitek is seriously considering the option of sitting out the 2009 season and/or retiring rather than accepting the contract offer made to him last week. (Boston Globe)
I don’t see the benefit to sitting out or retiring. You aren’t going to earn any money. Plus, sitting out for a full year will only serve to reduce your earning potential a year later… a year older.
Varitek should just take the $5 million, one-year offer and be happy that even in this economy where way too many people sit home jobless, he gets multimillions. I know that it’s through no fault of his that the market has been dictated for players to be multi-millionaires, but there’s got to be a line here, and sitting out because of $5 million doesn’t make sense to me. If he sits out, he’s ending his career. Period.
No, this is a ploy for some team — whether it’s the Red Sox or another team — to blink. Varitek will play in 2009, and the only way it’s for the Red Sox is if it’s at their price.
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Retirement? This would have to be the second-worst piece of advice Mr. Boras has provided his client.
Maybe Boras is losing it.
I thought that given the market and the fact that Tek can’t catch up to Jamie Moyers’ fastball that $5 million was SUPER generous. If he wants to sit out a season or retire let him. I’ve said before that I’d much prefer Bard to start at catcher over Varitek.
I’ll make my prediction now, Bard will be more productive this year than Varitek was last and the pitching staff will not suffer at all. Shouldn’t be too hard seeing as all Tek did was call fastballs and strikeout at the plate.
Well why wouldn’t he call for fastballs, when he’s behind the dish? From personaly experience, he knows they’re hard to hit …
excellent point
I knew this was going to get ugly.
Mr. Varitek: If you were truly the captain of this team you would have fired Boras the minute the Manny hit the fan, manned up and agreed to arbitration.
Your actions show your character and it’s not the sort I want on a team I root for, let alone being the main face of player leadership.
The world outside of baseball is nice. Hopefully you’ll find peace in it.
MR, don’t forget to log into your account!
Anyways, I really do want Varitek back. Not for a lot of money, but I do want him back so he can help start the transition to a new catcher.
He’s been way too important these last few years that I don’t want to “shock” the pitching staff into change, or even the team… the Sox are used to Varitek’s patters… attending meetings, etc. and most other catcher’s don’t do that.
I really would like him back in a platoon role and then see him phased out.
I’m teh suck with the internetz.
Gave up trying to log in long ago.
Not very good with paypal either.
haha. Your username is “Mostly Running.” without the quotes. Password is whatever you set it to be. If you need it reset, e-mail me what you want it to be.
Once again, MR, you cut to the core of the matter. There are other principles involved here besides highest bids, and this has been disappointing. It must be like another messy divorce for Tek, but it is also that way for the Sox and Sox fans, doubly painful after the Boras engineered loss of Manny and Teixeira. We can hope that Daisuke and Ells will stand up and fire Boras.
I agree with Evan that Tek should be back. I personally wish Theo had put in some incentives based on BA, HR, RBI, ERA, BAA, etc. (not AB’s, as he should platoon.)
But he didn’t. So what. Turning up your nose at a 2-year deal at more than double what Zaun, Navarro, Ausmus, Shoppach, I-Rod get has my head spinning. I hope Tek signs. If he doesn’t, it’s his choice and I totally agree with Bob that Bard can start and hit at least to his 2007 stats. I am also certain that Kottaras & Brown can compete effectively for the backup role. In fact, Bard/Kottaras/Brown would provide the most powerful bat from the 8 hole the Sox have had in years, giving the Sox the luxury of time to decide best options. No matter what happens tomorrow, but IMO the options are good..
I think we may be getting a little hasty here by impugning the character of Jason Varitek. I certainly think he should take the money and be happy with it, I’m not sure how he could possibly be expecting more, but to question his character? This has been mishandled from the start, both by Tek and the FO, its sadly clear now how little the position of captain really meant to both sides of the table here. Its easy to look at what Boras said at the beginning of the off season about intangibles and game calling and say its bunk now, but the man still does have things to bring to the table, just not more than 5 million dollars worth. If he doesnt take this deal than I believe we can say we did all we could for him, from the arbitration offer to now, and then sit back and wait for him to try and come back in the summer.
This is probably the worse case scenario for the Red Sox. If he retires we are: 1. left with only 1 catcher 2. missing out on draft picks and 3. likely to take a PR hit. I’m not a huge Varitek fans but last year he stunk and was still worth $5.6 million. I just can’t imagine him being much worse than last year. Hopefully they just wise up and use him in a more limited role. So yeah, hopefully this doesn’t get any more ridiculous and they compromise at something like $6M.
Jeez Gerry and Dave B, upload an avatar already! Doesn’t have to be your face ;)
If he doesn’t take the offer, I’d just say good riddance and move on. Not getting the draft pick would be unfortunate, but I can’t imagine the Sox catching that much flak considering that they offered him arbitration earlier and were supposedly stunned that he rejected it.
Regardless, it’s time to revisit the trade talks for Montero and Salty. I can’t see the Sox going into Spring Training — let alone the season — with Josh Bard as the only catcher with significant ML experience on their roster, so my guess is that if Tek doesn’t sign, Theo will bite the bullet and put Buchholz in a deal.
8 hours and 27 minutes to decide, Tek.
(And for the record, I’m hoping that he does not take the offer.)
Jon Heyman reports that the Sox reached a two-year deal with Tek. Label me disappointed.
‘Tek is signed. 1 year plus the option, with new incentives on the option. So, what do we argue about now? Can Lowrie be the next Pedroia?