Season of the Living Dead: the Resurrection of Jason Varitek

But he’s a back up right now, so replacing is a waste of resources. It’s not like VMart will walk and the Sox will make Tek the starter again. And the Sox have had young catchers in the system, they’ve just not panned out. And how many of these great young catchers could the Sox have picked up? It’s an extremely hard position to evaluate and it’s not like they’re getting a first rounder in the draft.

Nobody is hoping for Varitek to be the starting catcher again—not even Varitek! However, since the normal offensive output from a backup catcher is expected to be somewhere between that of a shortstop and an NL pitcher, the fact that Varitek is excelling in the reduced role of backup catcher IS encouraging.

Also, NG, something to think about: a top-caliber catching prospect—say, with anything like the potential of Varitek circa 2002-2004—is considered a very, very valuable commodity. So valuable, in fact, that the odds of the Sox being able to draft them is essential zero, because they would have already been snapped up by another team higher in the draft. (Don’t forget that the Sox typically have to wait for two dozen players to go off the board before they get their first selection!)

And stop shouting—you come across as Abe Simpson shouting at clouds.

I think the issue is that there has been a league-wide movement of locking up younger players earlier and earlier so the free-agency classes haven’t been as good. And also the shortage of catchers, there just aren’t any around that are very good in a complete game sense. There are a few catchers who are really good at throwing out runners, there are a few who call great games and there are a few who can really hit but there are way fewer who can actually put it all together. Tek hung around because his bat wasn’t awful and called a good game, and is a leader on the team and, there just haven’t been any better options that have shown themselves. We do have some some promising talent that should be up soon but I think the lack of good catchers in the league proves the point that even if we had been drafting earlier for catcher, there wasn’t much talent or we’d have seen it at this point and the teams that do have depth are usually dealing with an injury at catcher that is tying up their prospects like Montero or Teagarden or Salty.

Further more, I think that the team has dealt with aging players rather well. They aren’t ignorant of the affect of age on people, they know what happens and what to expect. That’s why we have people like Beltre and Cameron on short term deals. Maybe signing Lowell to his extension wasn’t the best idea, but Theo sort of had to do it, it’s the way things are done and he did take a discount. The change in Lackey and Beckett’s ability this year was absolutely unpredictable, this isn’t football where players hit 32 and drop off the planet, baseball players decline but it’s usually a bit more graceful than jumping from a 4 ERA to a 7 ERA.

A GM can’t be better than what the system allows him. Right now, if you want to fill a hole in free-agency than you have a few options. The first is to sign the star free agent to a long term deal he can never hope to live up to (Tex, A Rod, CC, Lackey, Beckett, Soriano etc) or sign a cheaper, older player who still has talent and hope that they won’t decline too much like Smoltz, Beltre, Cameron. Or you can sign a middle of the road player like Penny or Kelly Johnson who doesn’t necessarily have talent on their side but they do have age and potential. And then there is building from within. There still isn’t a good way to evaluate amateur talent and have a perfect draft in which every selection goes on to have brilliant major league careers. It’s a crap shoot. Theo does better than most with scouting and drafting and our farm has been really good at producing starting caliber players that are very good like Youk, Pedey, Bard, Lester, Buch, Paps and Ells but it just isn’t possible to fill a team with prospects. They develop differently, they wash out, they take years. And then if you want to trade for a younger player on another team it’s going to cost an arm and a leg to do so, hindering your growth at other positions and making you go out and dealing with free agency.

Theo has done a good job of maintaining a competitive team in one of the most difficult divisions of baseball to play in. We have our homegrown talent (see above), our over priced stars in Ortiz, Lackey, Beckett, Lowell, Tek and our mercenaries in Beltre and Cameron. Drew is the example of the perfect contract that we were lucky to get now that he moneyball secret is out.

What do you want the front office to do? What is your plan? You’re always complaining about the way things are, not they should be! Make a damn suggestion once in a while about an actual, viable, move that Theo could do instead of what he actually has done and how it would be beneficial and cost effective.