I spent years defending him. The last few years, I tolerated him. Now I'm growing to hate him. Everyone else can blame Scott Boras, but Jason Varitek is the one responsible for his predicament.
Firstly, anyone who hires Scott Boras is out for money. There's no two ways about it. If you want the big bucks, you hire Scott Boras. He's the Ari Gold of baseball.
Secondly, Varitek can't look in the newspaper and see how pathetic his batting average was last year? CC Sabathia (.235) had a better average than Varitek (.220). And NO 37 year old catcher considerably improves at the plate. It doesn't happen. Best case scenario: Varitek doesn't get worse. Yet he was offered $10 million, or $108,000 per hit (he had a whopping 93 last year), AND HE TURNED IT DOWN?!?
Jason, you hit .220 last year, then .118 in the postseason. Yes, you're the team captain, and you're great with the pitching staff, but nobody pays $10 million for a .220 hitter, at least not on purpose.
And now this garbage about not realizing that refusal of arbitration means other teams would have to give up a draft pick to sign him. That's your fault for not knowing that. You have to be smart to go to Georgia Tech, don't you?
And the fact that teams don't want to give up a pick, which aren't extremely valuable in baseball, to sign him further reinforces how below average he truly is.
Jason Varitek had a home in Boston. He was the captain, had won two World Series, caught 4 no-hitters, could always get money from Bernie & Phyl's, and was offered $10,000,000 to stay here.
He turned it down.
Fuck him.
I don't disagree, but his off-season issues might mitigate his poor performance at the plate (and is compounded by his stubbornenss to remain a switch hitter.)
ReplyDeleteNot sure Plan B is any more attractive.
Amen!
ReplyDeleteI think choice of agent should be used as indicator of a player's character.
If you get a chance, read "Baseball Between the Numbers". It's a great book and one section tries to quantify "calling a good game". It's hard to do, and overrated IMO. Lots of teams win the world series without Jason Varitek.
I'm not quite at the "Fuck him" stage yet, but I'm inclined to agree with all the arguments you made here. He/Boras vastly overestimated the market for his services and now it's going to cost him, and rightfully so. Without the big bats in the lineup (Manny's Gone/Ortiz isn't the same old Big Papi) The sox seem to be headed towards more of a small ball approach with players with good BA's and some speed on the base paths. With this new approach a black hole in the lineup like Varitek can really kill the Red Sox run production.
ReplyDeletewell put.
ReplyDeleteBoy talk about Freudian displacement. Do you seriously think Varitek or any player isn't in it for the money? Assuming the intensity of his feelings for fans is equal to the fan's for him is more than naive.
ReplyDeletei thought i was alone on the island of dump Jason Varitek! Though i don't know that i'm ready to tell him off, i'm simply ready to not sign him.
ReplyDeleteThe sox painted themselves into this catcher corner- unloading shoppach, not working with kotteras, but at this point, I would rather have kotteras in the order than varitek.
The rapport with the pitchers is smoke up our skirt. If Paps and Beckett and Lester can't throw strikes to bard or kotteras, than we got worse shit to worry about.
Meh. I'd give him $10 to sign, with the understanding that he's going to pass the job along, either at the end of the season, or even in the second half of this one.
If there was a better option out there I would agree. Even though Boras is the baseball anti-christ and Tek should get what he deserves (to a degree), the Sox still need him. I would argue for 2 seasons. They still need to bring in the catcher of the future (via trade). Who is going to teach whoever that is next season?
ReplyDeleteHe won't leave anyway. He dates Heidi Watney.
ReplyDelete