5:31pm: Ben Cherington tells Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe (via Twitter) that the Red Sox have not made Varitek any kind of formal contract offer.
3:31pm: The Red Sox have offered Jason Varitek the chance to come to Spring Training and compete, but they aren’t offering the 39-year-old catcher a roster spot, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reports. Varitek seems likely to choose between accepting his longtime team’s invitation and retiring. If he does report to Spring Training, he’ll do so with the knowledge that Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Kelly Shoppach are likely to break camp with the Red Sox.
Varitek, a Scott Boras client who earned $2MM in 2011, doesn’t appear to be seeking opportunities elsewhere, Heyman reports. The Red Sox would have interest in hiring Varitek for a non-playing role at some point, but it's not as though he's unable to produce at the Major League level. He posted a .221/.300/.423 line with 11 home runs in 250 plate appearances in 2011, though he stopped just 14% of stolen base attempts against him. "Our hope is that Tek will always be a part of the Red Sox in some way," GM Ben Cherington told reporters last month.
How the mighty have fallen.
ouch. if another team won’t give him a big league deal, he should really just accept a position off the field
Would Varitek wanna play in triple-A? I think he would be more incline to take a coaching position.
IMO they are trying to ease him into a sox coaching gig
While I understand Varitek isn’t the best choice at his position any longer, offering the guy a minor league deal is really kind of insulting. He should have called it quits before going down that road.
I imagine that is what the F.O. was hoping for.
Anyone else think this a slap in the face? That’s insulting in my opinion…
+1
What do you expect from a 3rd-place organization?
Yeah, because when I think of third place teams, I can recall all the times they insult their players. I would much rather finish fourth and avoid that stigma!
Wow.. They never continued rehiring stumbling drunkards as a manager (Billy Martin) nor did they also rehire cocaine users even after they were outed (Claudell Washington) but immediately fired the only coke user ever to have been outed as manager (Hobson) and never had a sausage chewing wino of the likes of Martin at the helm.
Agreed.
um no,
not just a slap..but a solid backhand. if you want him to be a coach then tell him that, dont offer him a minor league contract and make him earn a spot on the roster after everything he’s done for that organization
Couldn’t agree more.
How is it a slap in the face? Would you rather they not offer him a spot at all? At least he gets a chance to compete for a spot on the team… To be honest, he’s pretty lucky he was even offered this chance. No one else will want him.
Maybe it was taking this drastic option for Boras to stop pestering Cherrington with spam emails and text messages about a job. Now he can either sign on the dotted line or have Tek just go away for good and leave him alone.
Varitek probably would’ve preferred them telling him he can play forever. But what they did say–that he can play as long as he deserves his spot, and that they hope he’s always with the organization–is about as classy and loyal a thing as they can do without compromising the roster.
Totally agree – right move. He will be a valuable coach.
I actually kind of like this, oddly enough. Basically, it segues pretty nicely into his very likely future as a coach, and this could cement that that future begins
somewhere in the Sox organization. No problem with him acting as a
mentor to Salty and Shoppach in the spring…again. But he’s about as
likely to break camp as I am, and there’s no way that he accepts a minor league assignment. Mutually beneficial way to put an end to his playing career. Finally.
Totally agree with you. Tek was my favorite Red Sock for the longest time. Sad to see him go, but it’s time.
Is this basically the same thing that happened with Bernie Williams a few years back?