Varitek as Bench Coach in '10?

by JonnyNYC on Oct 27, 2009 4:07 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

In some ways I see Mills heading to Houston as a chance to solve the Tek situation rather well.

He still brings value to the club in several ways - it's just that none of those ways are behind the dish or at the plate anymore.

If the Sox don't pick up his option, but rather offer him a position on Tito's bench you still get his preparation, leadership, ability to call a game and ability to work with the pitchers.

I'm not sure if he'd be ready to hang up the spikes yet, but I would like this move for the Sox.

Not sure if Kotteras is what you'd want as a back up or that Brown or Wagner would be much better, I'd think you can bring in a cheap experienced Vet to compete in spring ball though and gain defense over Tek, if nothing else for '10.

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Also - why is UZR for catchers such a small sample of players?

I can find virtually no data on this position on Fan Graphs

by JonnyNYC on Oct 27, 2009 4:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

There is no UZR for catchers

The catchers you do see who have UZR played another position during the year and that is their UZR for that position, NOT the catchers position.

by drabidea on Oct 27, 2009 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yep.

There’s not much that UZR can tell about catchers at this point, at least not without misconstruing the data.

@bs_uf15bosox9be 12 pieces of bacon, a Red Bull, and go get 'em; Learn to use SB Nation

by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Oct 27, 2009 8:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No one has been able to rate catchers’ defensive abilities statistically yet; wel,, there is no public stat that does, Theo hopefully invented something. FG’s does not take catcher defense into account in their WAR numbers, so Mauer is probably even better than FG’s rates him.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Oct 28, 2009 3:26 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Tek should be a player/coach...

He should be bench coach/second string catcher. However he is going to take a huge paycut, but he may take a huge paycut anyway, because he probably isn’t going to find much work in MLB, or in a similar role as Greg Zaun.

by superferret on Oct 27, 2009 9:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Tek has an option.

There is a $3M player option for Tek in 2010. He is not going to give that up to be a bench coach. That would be crazy. If he is not on our roster as a player (if we eat the $3M), then I would expect him to sign somewhere else. If the guy still wants to play, then he is going to, even if the Sox don’t want him.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Oct 28, 2009 3:28 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Varitek's options are limited with other teams.

He can’t really hit anymore, he had a .703 OPS in 2009. He can’t throw out baserunners. His main strength is calling games, and nursing the pitching staff. I can see a low revenue team may want him in the same category that the Sox want as… a hybrid of a player/coach. He is probably going to spend most of the time on the bench if he is a MLB roster player.

If he plays for another team, he is going to take a huge paycut, probably at the MLB minimum, as a back up catcher. His $3 million option is by far the best he will find out there.

Is Tek a Type B free agent if he decides to use his player option?

by superferret on Oct 28, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree.

$3M will be the most he can get, so he will probably excercise the option and be with us next year. In that case, yes, he will probably be more of a coach than a player. I was more responding to the idea that he would be our bench coach. That won’t happen.

There is also a chance that we just cut him, at which point he probably could get $1M somewhere, which is more than the $100K that he would make as a coach. And right now he is projected to be a type B free agent, but we would not offer him arbitration most likely, and therefore he will not cost picks. I think.

"Ninety percent [of my salary] I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
-Tug McGraw

by BTLove on Oct 28, 2009 6:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs