Jason Varitek Rumors: Monday

11:26pm: According to Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, the Red Sox have set a Saturday deadline for their offer to Varitek.  Silverman does not expect the Sox to sweeten their offer.  He adds that Varitek "is believed to have instructed his agent not to discuss monetary terms with any other teams during the entire free agent process."  For their part, the Red Sox will wait on Varitek before pursuing a trade for a catcher.

5:55pm: Rob Neyer of ESPN.com believes the Red Sox will get what they want no matter what: A cheap Varitek or no Varitek at all.

12:24pm: Tony Massarotti confirms Bradford’s numbers on Boston’s offer.  The incentives are based on awards rather than health or playing time.  Massarotti suggests Varitek could prefer to eliminate the ’10 option.

9:26am: Yesterday, WEEI’s Rob Bradford wrote that the Red Sox made this offer to Jason Varitek: $5MM for ’09, with a $5MM club/$3MM player option for ’10.  The offer has a deadline attached.

The Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman writes today that the one-year plus an option offer to Varitek is worth between $3-5MM.  He believes the Red Sox are "unwilling to wait much longer" and unwilling to budge much.

Jon Heyman wrote on Thursday:

It’s still a mystery to many why Varitek didn’t take arbitration. And even Red Sox owner John Henry asked Varitek in their well-publicized meeting a week ago why he didn’t take the arbitration offer. The reason is that Varitek didn’t believe that accepting arbitration would guarantee him a spot on the team.

Buster Olney called this notion "laughable" in today’s blog, labeling it as a Scott Boras talking point to cover for a poor decision.  Peter Gammons agrees.