So Tek has been abysmal as of late.. This past month he hit .127/.215/.183 -- 2 extra base hits in 20 games. That's so much worse than I thought it was before I looked it up.

He's hitting .225 on the season and slugging under .400. And yeah, he still can't throw people out.

So what do the Sox do with him? If he continues to struggle, do you actually bench him for an extended period? If so, would Cash be an improvement? Any LOGICAL trade possibilities (outside of trading for Adam Dunn and sticking him behind the plate)?

I find it hard to believe the Sox will bench Tek, but I figure after a while they kind of have to, right?.... right?

(Take into consideration he was hitting VERY well for the first month and a half of so)

I'd like to see Kottaras get a shot - you know, maybe 40-60 at-bats in the coming month.

While he is only batting .233, he has really turned on the power this year, sporting an OPS over .800 with 15 HR's. He hit only 9 all of last year, so the development seems to be there. He still strikes out a lot (70 times through 69 games) but also walks quite a bit, helping him reach an OBP of .354 despite the batting average.

It's time to see if he can handle MLB pitching.

While this is much more of a stretch, but he's a player I've always liked, I'd be curious to see what the Astros would want for J.R. House.

He continually has more walks than strikeouts. Hits for a pretty high average, with a bit of extra-base power and seems like he would be a good fit for this lineup. However, he's not the strongest behind the plate, but that hasn't exactly been this team's strong suit so far.

BUT ... HE CALL TEH GRATE GAME!!!111

Despite not being an offensive black hole this season Julio Lugo is constantly being rushed out of town, but here's TEH CAP'N hitting roughly his weight. Lugo is only making errors, Varitek sucks at throwing runners out and he can't hit. So unless anyone here believes that being an automatic out in the lineup is worth supposed pitch-calling abilities, perhaps it is time the Sox look to trade or give a youngster a shot. Hey, if they can send Timlin on the phantom DL with 'Can't Get Batters Out' syndrome, then how about sending Tek there with an acute case of Not-Hitting-itis?

But, but, Varitek is the captain and calls a great game. We can live with a .127 BA because the intangibles of a good catcher are there!

I don't understand Tito's logic in not pinch-hitting the captain in the 9th inning of a close game.

I can't even understand why people want to keep him around, let alone give him a Posada-like contract. Maybe this is were Varitek can be a captain and show Kots how to prepare for a game and help him along. I don't think he will because he will be a "threat" despite the fact Varitek should retire after this year.

I'd like them bring Dusty Brown up before Kottaras but, truthfully, neither of them has given any indication that they can provide any more offense than Tek has to this point. I'm not sure how this type of move improves on the current situation.

So it's unlikly that Dusty Brown or Kottaras will have a line better than .127/.215/.183? Kots in AAA is hitting 233/.354/.454 with 15 HR. That line looks mighty fine for a catcher.

Fact: Varitek sucks

Fact: Cash, and Kottaras are worse

Fact: We are stuck with Varitek the way he is until he [hopefully] breaks out of this awful slump

Cash can't hit, period. But Kottaras has shown a lot of power down in AAA and a pretty good OBP, he's probably better at throwing runners out than Varitek (just assuming on that one). The only attribute Kottaras’ lacks is his human ability to call a game, where as Varitek is somewhere between super-hero and god. I don't see how Kottaras’ bat could be any more dreadful than what Varitek has to offer whether you're looking at his overall 2008 numbers or his current stretch of suckitude.

Kottaras is hitting like .230 in AAA. I think at this point its generally accepted that his 'prospect' status is all but gone.

I'm fairly certain TLB could throw more runners out then Tek.

BA is a waste, his OBP is still .350 which is pretty good, his SLG is respectable, and he already has 15 HR. Either he's hitting for extra bases or he's taking a walk, sort of like a cheap catching version of Adam Dunn.

Catchers tend to take longer to develop than regular position players or pitchers. Here are Tek's numbers from his minor league career...

Age 23 - .224/.339/.361/.700
Age 24 - .262/.348/.406/.754
Age 25 - .254/.328/.443/.771 (Tacoma)
Age 25 - .198/.284/.318/.602 (Pawtucket)

He was the backup at age 26 and was starting at age 27. This is why you don't give up on catchers so quickly. They are focusing just as much, if not more, on catching in the minors that the hitting can sometimes take a backseat and therefore they take longer to develop. Kottaras may not be a superstar, but he has more impressive minor league numbers than Cap'n Tek had and is showing some pop and OBP ability at the plate. If his defense is decent at all he should be in line for a shot at sticking with the club at some point.

And I was a sick catcher back in Little League. I used to call games like you wouldn't believe.

...!

Yeah - me ,too - it was like, "Throw a strike, or I'll kick your a**!"


"That line looks mighty fine for a catcher. "

This is the key to this discussion, IMO - The wear and tear on the body, and the prep time and concentration in calling pitches lends one less time / energy for hitting.

A good hitting catcher is a bonus - a weak-hitting catcher is not an emergency.

Now, a shortstop that can't hit, makes errors . . . .


Ah, well, Theo traded for glovemen in 04, and it worked, maybe I should trust him on Julio . . . . and Tek.

A weak hitting catcher is not an emergency, an abysmal hitting catcher who can't throw out baserunners is. While I don't want to turn this into a Julio Lugo thread, he is hitting very well for a SS.

If Varitek simply wasn't making contact, that would be one thing. However, right now, even when he does make what looks to be solid contact, the ball simply isn't going anywhere. Last night's game in the 9th inning was one example. Just from the look of the ball coming off the bat, I thought Varitek had tied the game, or better, but it just was a simple flyout that wasn't even deep into RF. To me, that implies that his batspeed has slowed to the point of making him nearly useless even when he centers the ball nicely. This may not just be a slump, although I hope I'm wrong.

I still say Kottaras will never amount to anything at the MLB level, but thats just me ... I suppose anyone is worth a look at this point

I think Kottaras could be a slightly better version of Mike Napoli.

That could be not hitting the ball on the sweetspot part of the bat, i.e., at the end of the bat or up the handle. Every time the Sox have tried another catcher because Varitek was hurt, like Javier Lopez, that other guy has been worse. I think Varitek will comeout of it (not that he'll become a Joe Mauer or a Brian McCann). If they Sox didn't bench Lugo last year (or this) they'll never bench Varitek this year. Too many (get ready) intangibles.

I like Wagner (Portland), but his bat isn't really an upgrade, by any stretch. I'm intrigued by Luis Exposito (Lancaster) who is certainly hitting quite well and seems to have a decent defensive rep....

Some further food for thought...

Varitek is a notoriously sh*tty second half hitter. Each of the past two seasons he has hit .225 (.050 lower than his first half) in 2007 and .229 (.015 points lower) in 2006. The last time he hit better in the 2nd half was 2004, where he had an incredible .942 OPS in the second half (I'll give him credit, his second half was nasty). The only other time where he hit better in the second half was in 1999 when he became the starting catcher. In all other seasons his second half drop has been significant, ranging from a .015 drop to a .074 drop in average. He will usually pick things back up in July, but suffer steep declines on August and September (where he is dreadful).

If this is any indication of how he will perform going forward then the catcher of the future may need to come around sooner than we think.

Mike Napoli's career OBP is .345 and career SLG is .454.

Varitek's 2008 OBP AND SLG were .367 and .421.

Right now, they are about the same guy and nothing Kotteras has done thus far would suggest he could be any better.

If there is an upgrade available, I'm all for it but I don't see one.

In what way? Napoli has far more power then Kottaras will ever have. Napoli hit 31HRs in AA as a 23 year old. His ISOP this year in the majors is .277


Kottaras as a 23 year old in AA/AAA hit 10 HRs. His ISOP this year, in AAA, which is also his highest to date, is .221.

Are you seriously suggesting that those will be Varitek's stats for this year? I tried to ignore that the first time you wrote it but since you insist on drawing attention to your utter lack of baseball knowledge then I suppose I should acknowledge it.

We hadn't even started the second half until a couple days ago...and that he's really not a 'notoriously shitty second half hitter.' He has hit for a .013 less OPS in the second half than the first -- not big enough to even warrant being mentioned. Granted, June is usually one of his worst months, but I don't buy the month-to-month thing much.

Though you did say it was food for thought, so I guess it is.

Im not worried. There are still far worse catchers starting every day in this league.

As players get older they dont go south right away always... often the slumps become longer and more intense first. The injuries are more often and more severe. There will still be stretches where he looks like th old Tek... its just theyll be fewer and farther between. When he goes in a slump it doesnt mean he's all done, as has been announced by people on this board at the onset of every slump for the past three years...

Oh I don't disagree. I couldn't think of a logical replacement for him that could be acquired by reasonable means, so i'm completely fine with sticking with him. Even if there was one, I don't think it's time to pull the plug yet.

His AB tonight was just atrocious.

He needs some kind of extended layoff, possibly a 15 day "get your head straight" DL stint. It's pathetic at this point, he's an automatic out.

Cash and Brown should be able to hold the fort...they won't put up great numbers, but if Varitek can get out of the slump, then it's worth going through two weeks of games with them(maybe less if they time it around the ASB).

As was the decision to PH him in the first place. Did anyone here think going into either of his at bats tonight that he had a chance?

Yes, people have been quick to write him off in the past but I don't think he's ever had numbers this sucky this deep into the season. He and Manny have had noticeable declines in bat speed this year.

Jason Varitek, PH. Great.

Why do we have to give up to pry Saltalamacchia out of Texas? How about Masterson+.

Tek could be done, do we really want to go into another season with him behind the plate?

If there was still a Francona stupid decisions thread like there was last year, it would've been filled up with his pulling back of Casey two nights in a row.

I guess he's infallible in the eyes of "the Nation" now that he's presided over two World Series', no matter how retarded the decision is.

Casey bats .350 against LHP with a 500 something slugging, so last night he leaves in Lugo, whose numbers were worse(had a slight edge in OBP, but significantly behind in the other peripherals)...even if that was dumb, it was somewhat understandable...but tonight...jesus...Varitek hit .120 in the month of June, hasn't looked good from the right side of the plate for a long time, and the point of the ****ing night off was to rest and hope that it cured the slump...meanwhile Casey is still sitting on the .350 BA and .500 SLG against lefties.

Just unjustifiable in any way whatsoever.

acr, Francona will NEVER be infallible in the eyes of RSN. However, compared to the stiffs that preceded him (Little, Jimy, etc) he's a regular Davey Johnson out there. I figure with the depth of talent that the front office has provided, Francona has to do no better than a "replacement level" manager to be successful. If he ends up costing the Sox essentially zero games (and they are dead on their pythagorean win %, I think) then he has succeeded. At that point it's on the players. Does he screw up and end up losing games with bullets left in his gun? Sure. Does he give Okajima and Timlin too much rope? Yep. Does he tangibly cost the team wins? Not demonstrably. So, yeah he makes some stupid decisions. Yeah he's a major league manager, and by extension a walking, breathing moron. But he's better than a lot of the other walking, breathing morons out there...

...and Tek sure does suck at the plate. Still.

Good points, and I'll admit that Francona's an excellent postseason manager...these regular season games get me very frustrated though.

So the incredibly vast differences between his BA in the first half vs. his BA in the second half don't matter? Only the difference between OPS carries any merit? IF you want to look at career and rely on numbers from several years past, then maybe OPS works out in your favor. However, if you look at it from year to year, particularly in his most recent seasons (I'm a firm believer that three-year splits give you a better picture of a current player), he has seen a drop in numbers across the board in the second half, with the exception of 2006, where he was out most of the second half and had slightly better, but still pretty sh*tty numbers that year. Regardless, when you break it down he has been an awful second half hitter, with a couple outliers of improvement over his career that make his career stats look different.

Yeah, that's basically it. The difference in BA doesn't really matter to me since it's already proven that batting average doesn't really correlate to run production the way many other stats do. It's not that OPS helps or doesn't help my argument, since I had none, it's that I really didn't even look at it because I think it doesn't mean shit.

I only looked up Mike Napoli's '08 numbers and thought that was more in line with his career. I didn't know he had a .345 OBP. Maybe I should have said Mike Napoli of '08, whose OBP is close to .300 and a BA of .212 while having an upper .400 SLG with 12 HR. That to me seems like someone Kots can develop into.

Yes, I think Varitek will not come around. His numbers will probably improve to some extent, but at the end of the season his numbers will probably be hovering around what it is now. Varitek can barely make solid contact right now and even when he does, the ball doesn't exactly fly off his bat. I would love to be wrong and have him come back strong, but like TLB said, his second half numbers don’t look very encouraging.

Aside from all of the impressive number crunching you all have done, one thing that is astonishing to me is Varitek's pitch selection. Two at bats that stick out in my mind were both against Tampa Bay. The at bat in the 9th against Balfour a couple of nights ago when he swung at 3 fastballs at his eyes and ended the game and the next was his at bat in the early innings (I believe it was last night) when he had a 2-0 count in his favor and the guy hasn't shown much fastball command at all and the next pitch is in the same spot (eye level) and he swings at it. I believe there were men on base at that point too. I was under the assumption that pitch selection usually gets better as a player ages due to experience and smarts. It doesn't help that his bat speed has declined significantly either which makes me wonder even more about swinging at those terrible pitches. Did he think he grew to 6'11" right before the Tampa series so that those pitches would be stomach high?

His hitting is outright frustrating and atrocious and his second half numbers are just as terrible. Maybe he needs more off nights instead of just when wakefield is pitching.

Bench Varitek? Come on - he is an ALL-STAR after all.

Between Jeter and Varitek starting for the AL this year, they're going to have to win this game with mystique and intangibles. They sure ain't gonna win it by actually playing baseball well.

Just wait til Scott Brosius and Paul O'Neill are put on the NL roster, then we're f'ed in that category as well.

Seriously though, what the hell is Varitek doing on that team? I know the players voting him in shows all kinds of respect and all, but how about some props for players that actually deserve it this year?

I love Kieth Law's article ripping into the selection of Tek, but at the same time suggesting Ivan Rodriguez over Dioner Navarro.

Varitek isn't starting, Mauer is.

Ahh, well that is a bit better, I guess.

Whenever you're pissed at Varitek, just remind yourself...

I've been turning to it a lot here lately.

Carlton Fisk would have dropped A-Rod like a bag of dirt.

Agreed.

The replay of that actually pisses me off. At one point Tek lifts him up and gets both of his feet off the ground. At that point anything less than a body slam is a let down.

He did give him a nice glove sandwich though.

From Keith Law:

"Varitek has been so bad at the plate this season that he’s below replacement level for catchers—that theoretical player who any team could grab from Triple-A to fill that roster spot."

I mean, the topic asks "and replace him with who?" but it doesn't really matter. ANYONE would be better than Tek this season.

You can't just release Varitek, he's such a huge part of the team and in the clubhouse. (Even if you don't buy all the great with pitchers stuff, he's a leader who everyone respects, you don't mess with those guys without consequences.)

Cash is a terrible hitter, but has caught Wakefield well and is hitting as well as Varitek is.

So what can we do?

I'd try starting Cash two days a week instead of one. This would give Tek more down time to rest while also reducing his prep time for catching. He could get some more BP this way.

In the mean time, try and find a catcher of the future.

Law appears to have it sized up pretty well. Tonight against the O's Varitek's bat looked very slow and he had a costly throwing error at second. The throw beat the runner, but tailed on a bounce into CF.. Sure looks like Varitek could use an extra day of rest. Cash should be strong and well rested, but Varitek would probably protest. The FO needs to get to the bottom of this since Varitek wants to return next season with a new contract.

A good catcher is pretty valuable IMO and no price is really too high for one that has a good glove and can provide offense from a traditionally defense oriented position.

If Salty is the real deal (or whoever Theo keys on) then I'm not against paying a high price like Bowden to get him.

Sort of ironic that the two contemporaries Tek and Posada both seem to have run out of gas at the same time.

Those two are like those Lincoln/JFK assassination things... both switch hitters, etc... very strange how their career paths have mirrored each other in so many ways.

Well this is a pretty stupid opinion to have. At first you acknowledge that he's been below replacement level, then you say "THEY CAN'T JUST RELEASE HIM!!!" In every quantifiable facet of the game Varitek sucks, he is one of the very worst players in baseball. As far as the "leader" I'm pretty sure that a group of adults who are good at baseball can imagine to still play baseball at a very high level without a corpse on the team. As a matter of fact, you'd think removing a black hole from the line up would improve the clubhouse/team because they would be playing better and everyone likes winning. Furthermore Dougie was regarded as an awesome clubhouse presence and Varitek needed a day to cry after he left, and the team is still doing fine with out him. That "you can't just cut him" is pure bullshit. As far as handling pitchers go, can't it just be that the Red Sox have good pitchers?




He's also a better defender by about a mile and has an amazing arm.



DFA him.




By all means give the better player less playing time. Next lets move Beckett to the bullpen and Masterson to the rotation.




Right on it!

Well, I know Varitek sucks, but he's not just a run of the mill free agent, he's the captain of the team and a hero in Boston. That's why I think you can't just DFA him, he's earned a certain level of respect to finish the season.

Just releasing him would be a PR disaster IMO.