Today is the day of the All-Star Game, and the Red Sox are represented quite well. There is, however, one person undeserving to be there, and that’s our captain, Jason Varitek. His defense, pitch-calling and leadership may be All-Star caliber, but his offensive game is most certainly not. ‘Tek is hitting .218/.299/.354 on the season which isn’t eye-opening for a 36-year old catcher but becomes almost unbearable when that catcher makes $10 million and is having the worst season of his career.Can Varitek turn it around? Maybe. He had a .809 OPS in April and followed that up with .913 in May. He’s fallen apart since, with .380 (!?) in June and .476 so far in July. He’s barely passable (.709 OPS) at home but on the road he falls apart with a .606 OPS. Whether or not you’re a fan of OPS or not, the message is the same. He’s fallen, big time. Is it a slump? Maybe. Is it the beginning of the end, a fate that befalls almost all catchers at this age? Probably.
So where do we go from now? Of course, there’s a whole second half to play. But Varitek’s going to end up as a free agent after the year, and we know a few concrete things:
- Varitek is unfailingly loyal to Scott Boras,
- Scott Boras will get the best contract he can regardless of team,
- Varitek will enter his age-37 year,
- Boras will undoubtedly be using Jorge Posada’s contract as a benchmark (how’s that working out for them? Oh wait, a couple months into the contract and he’s not even catching anymore),