Posted by Alex Speier

The Sox will follow a truncated workout schedule today in order to attend a fundraising golf tournament for The Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. The team will wrap up on the field by about 11:30 this morning, so updates should be coming relatively soon.

As for yesterday…

1) Apparently, the angst about J.D. Drew’s still-uncomfortable back was somewhat exaggerated. Drew has been free to take part in all aspects of workouts, and has thus far been unrestricted in his activity. The Red Sox underscored to Drew the significance of his presence on the field in a recent meeting. “When he’s out on the field, we’re a different team. There’s no getting around it,” Francona said. “We have a different look.”

2) David Ortiz missed Thursday’s workout. According to Francona, the decision to hold him out occurred after Ortiz slept awkwardly on his shoulder, but the slugger is expected to be fine.

3) Thursday marked the first live batting practice session of the spring, with Red Sox pitchers (yesterday, it was the relievers) throwing to hitters. Many batters are content to swing casually or not at all, using the exercise more to calibrate their timing than to actually start swinging. But one exception was Jed Lowrie, who offered further evidence of the progress of his return from a left wrist injury. Batting left-handed, the 24-year-old was able to generate power to both fields, hitting balls off the fence in both right-center and left-center on hanging curveballs spun by Manny Delcarmen.

By the end of last year, it was nearly impossible for him to produce those kinds of drives while batting left-handed, even in batting practice. Now, the strength of his left wrist nearly matches that of his right. Lowrie expects the disparity in strength between his wrists to eventually disappear.

4) The Red Sox are in regular contact with Daisuke Matsuzaka as he prepares for the WBC by training with the Seibu Lions in Japan. The team speaks with him by phone frequently, and had also deplayed Pacific Rim consultant (and former Seibu Lions and Sox minor-league pitcher) Denney Tomori to monitor the pitcher’s program in Japan.

5) It is a dangerous thing to pay Dustin Pedroia a compliment. Sox manager Terry Francona learned that lesson when he introduced last year’s MVP winner to Pirates skipper Ken Macha (for whom Francona served as bench coach in 2003, when Macha helmed the A’s).

“Mach was just making conversation and he said, ‘You know, you remind me of Chad Curtis,’ and he meant it really as a compliment,” Francona said of a player who was noted for his immense intensity. “Pedie was like, ‘Are you (expletive) me?’ Maybe (Pedroia) is right. I went from just introducing a friend to I had to hold Pedie back.”

For more, visit Full Count.

Posted by Alex Speier

The Red Sox announced the complete list of 19 non-roster invitees to their major-league spring training camp in Fort Myers. Notables include first baseman (and top prospect) Lars Anderson, outfielder Josh Reddick and pitcher Daniel Bard, among others:

Pitchers (8): Daniel Bard, Fernando Cabrera, Enrique Gonzalez, Kris Johnson, Marcus McBeth, Dustin Richardson, Billy Traber and Charlie Zink

Catchers (1): Carlos Maldonado

Infielders (6): Lars Anderson, Jeff Bailey, Angel Chavez, Nick Green, Ivan Ochoa, Gil Velazquez

Outfielders (4): Chip Ambres, Zach Daeges, Paul McAnulty and Josh Reddick

Of the 19 invitees, all except Anderson, Bard, Daeges, Johnson, Richardson and Reddick have major league service. Bailey, Velazquez and Zink all saw some action for the Red Sox in 2008.

Posted by Rob Bradford

Thanks to Newman the Intern, here is the transcript from Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein’s appearance on the Dale and Holley Show this afternoon. (Listen here for audio):

What was your interest and what was your view with how things turned out with Mark Teixeira?

Yeah, it’s no secret we had legitimate interest. I think he’s an elite player, a really well-rounded player who’s in his prime and he does a lot of things we like well: he gets on base, hits for power, plays great defense, takes great care of himself. So, he was a good fit for the long term and that was really our interest. Anytime you go after a player who’s going to require a contract of that length, he has to be a good fit for the long term, you can’t to do something like that because you think he’s going to be a good fit for the next one or two years, it has to be a long-term fit. He really would have complemented the core that we’ve developed here really well, there’s no doubt about that. We haven’t yet developed a legitimate power hitter internally, but I think we will. It would have been nice. That was the rationale for our interest. He would have fit into our club over the long haul. We certainly made a run at him. But I’m fine with how it turned out. We didn’t offer him the most money. As it turned out, there was a club that offered more money than we did, and they got the player. Not that that was the only factor in the decision, because there were a lot of factors in it. But you can’t have any complaints when you don’t offer the most money. I thought it was a good sign by the Yankees. Mark did really well for himself. We’ll just have to try to figure out how to get him out over the next eight years. We’ve actually done a pretty good job of getting him out in his career. I hope we continue that.

Did you feel you were running an uphill battle with the Teixeira because of the Yankees presence in the negotiations?

Not necessarily. I think in general that’s how I look at free agent negotiations. True open-market negotiations with players that the Yankees will be interested in, I think they’re going to get that player because they just have a bigger margin for error than we do. I’m not complaining. We have tremendous resources. So many teams look up at us and wish they could be in our financial position, but with respect to the Yankees, history has borne out that they’re going to get the player on the true open market. And that’s fine.

We’re not building this organization through free agency. I don’t think that’s an intelligent way to build an organization. We’re building it through drafting players, signing players internationally, developing a homegrown core from within and complementing it with trades and free agents. I always assume that if the Yankees want a player, that they’re going to get him. That’s why it can’t necessarily be a part of our business model to assume we’re going to land the big-ticket free agents.

With respect to this particular negotiation, I don’t think we were necessarily swimming upstream because he was always going to go back to the Yankees in the end. I don’t necessarily feel that way. I know it can be interpreted that way. But geography played a factor here. He and his family are from the Maryland area. I think that brought the Nationals and Orioles into play a little bit. But specifically with regards to the Yankees, they’re just closer than we are to that area. It’s a quicker train ride or car ride for his family. His wife has some family in New York. To the extent that geography and person reasons played a factor, we had that against us in that important column.

I have no problem with how it turned out in the end. We offered a lot of money but we didn’t offer the most money, so in the end, we moved on.

How much did you find the economic playing field different this year? How much did you find doing business this offseason different than it’s been in the past for you?

It was a little different this year. There’s always the tendency for player salaries to increase each year. I think that’s not going to be the case this winter. Obviously, the truly elite free agents got their money, but everyone else seems to be struggling. That obviously reflects what’s going on with the economy as a whole. I don’t think we should be complaining about it. There are a lot of people out there in far worse positions than those who work in professional baseball. It is what it is. It’s been a market where supply and demand dictated certain positions getting more money than others. In general, teams are watching what they spend. They’re not sure if they’re going to have their normal flows of revenue this year and into the future. They’re just being responsible and disciplined in the way that they spend. That’s made for interesting situations with respect to certain players.

Were you surprised when Varitek declined salary arbitration?

That’s a personal decision. I never would publicly speak about my feelings about that. That was a decision for Jason to make with the advice of those he relies upon. It was early in the offseason, first week of December and at that time the market hadn’t truly defined itself. It wasn’t just Jason. There were a lot of players around baseball who were offered arbitration but were looking for multi-year deals and turned down arbitration. Then the market defined itself and those multi-year deals were harder to find.

With Jason it worked out in the end, I think he and the Red Sox have a contract that accomplished a lot of the goals on both sides, mainly for him, it makes it much more likely that he’ll be a Red Sox not only in 2009 but in 2010 as well. So for the Red Sox, we got a player who, as I said, at the beginning of the offseason we said he was an important part of what we do, and we got him at an affordable price so I think both sides are happy.

Did you go into this offseason thinking you would be able to get Papelbon, Pedroia and Youkilis signed to deals?

With Papelbon, he’s an arbitration eligible player, so we knew we’d get him signed sooner or later one way or another and we were glad we were able to get it done before we had to exchange numbers and get into the arbitration process, so that was a positive. With Pedroia and Youkilis, they were among the players we wanted to sit down and have multi-year conversations with and they were really reasonable and so we were able to work something out. I hope we’ll look back and say that was an important part of our offseason, being able to lock Pedroia up for the length of time that we did with him–six years and an option–and then Youkilis four years and an option. We’ve got these guys through their prime years and a club option. They get a lifetime of security. We get cost control, affordability and knowledge that we’ll keep a good part of our offensive and defensive core intact. It’s a win-win there for all sides.

Youkilis is not a traditional cleanup hitter. Are you comfortable with him as your cleanup guy?

Oh, yeah. It’s not my responsibility. I think Tito is open to hitting him all over the lineup. When people say that Youkilis isn’t a traditional cleanup or middle fo the order hitter, I think they haven’t quite noticed how he’s evolved as a player. When he first came up, his clear strength as an offensive player was his plate discipline. He would show power sporadically, only on certain pitches he could drive. He’s really changed. You’ve probably noticed the last couple of years, and last year in particular, that he’s still got an above-average walk rate, still got above-average plate discipline, but he’s sacrificed a little bit of that patience to look to drive the ball earlier in the count. He’s adjusted his approach a little where there are a number of different places in the strike zone where he can drive the ball. If you look at his numbers last year, they probably reflected that. The Kevin Youkilis of 2008, that guy can probably hit cleanup for any team in baseball, any day of the week.

Is Jason Bay on your list of someone you would like to get signed this offseason as well?

We said at the beginning of the offseason that we weren’t going to talk about who we wanted to lock up, we’d just let you know when it got done, so I don’t want to get into those specifics. But the offseason’s not over yet, but with prospective free agents a year from now, or even other players a few years down the line, it makes sense to let this year’s free-agent market determine itself so you have a reliable recent set of data points before you embark on those negotiations. There’s still a lot of good position players out there who haven’t signed yet. That might put some negotiations out until later in the offseason than would otherwise be the case.

What did Bay bring to the team after he came to Boston?

You saw it. He’s an underrated offensive baseball player who has the ability to hit for power very consistently. His consistency of power output has been overlooked. You can write him up for 30 homers every year, he can drive in about 100 runs. He also does his share of working the count, and will draw his walks and get on base, which we like. He’s a very good baserunner, despite not having great speed, and at times throughout his career has been a very good defensive player as well. He’s kind of what you’re looking for in a player. He’s reliable production, and someone you can count on knowing what his output is going to be at the end of the year. You can write him into the middle of your order. He’s just a calm, veteran presence–plays the game hard, plays the game right, and is a really good teammate. He fit in really well on this club.

Were you surprised you were able to sign John Smoltz at reasonable dollars and what are you thoughts about him?

Yeah, I think our assumption a year ago, and the middle of the year when you kind of go through the free agent list and take a look at who might be available, we just assumed he would be back in Atlanta, and even early this offseason, but when we found out that the potential was there for him to be available, that his rehab was ahead of schedule on the video, we thought it was certainly worth a look.

He’s been a guy that any club would love to have. The only checkmarks against him were age, the shoulder surgery and the fact that he wouldn’t leave Atlanta, so once it was clear he would be available to talk to other clubs and that his rehab was going extraordinarily well we went down and saw him throw and he threw a bullpen for us in early December that would have made us really happy if he had thrown it in early March, and that’s really all we needed to see. He is a bit of a physical freak and can defy age to a certain extent, and he’s recovered from surgeries really well throughout his career. He’s a guy that’s never been nothing but dominant whenever he’s thrown a baseball over the course of his career in the major leagues. So those are the types of guys you can bet on to have success, even late in their careers.

Are you concerned about Jon Lester’s innings jump last year?

I think that any time you jump innings you want to be concerned, but there are a lot of factors that mitigate that. The total last year is a little bit artificially high because we started the season so early. His first outing, for instance, in Japan–that counts, but he would have had that anyway in a spring training game. And he was so efficient with his pitching last year that he got deep in games while maintaining his delivery without having stressful innings. Those are things that factor into the equation as well.

But particularly with our young pitchers, we want to have a more gradual progression. Jon, I think he was just so strong last year and so reliable into the playoffs that we had to push a little bit past where we wanted him to go. I think the good news is that he checked out extremely well with all of his end-of-season testing, had a very productive offseason, he’s already here in Fort Myers. We sent (trainer) Mike Reinold to check on him during the offseason, and he had one fo the strongest shoulders in our whole organization. He’s young, strong, and we’re not going to do anything irresponsible with him. He’s a guy you can feel pretty good about betting on for the long haul with his mechanics, his body, the way he takes care of himself between starts and the way that we’ll use him.

How do you feel about the World Baseball Classic and having some of your players participating in it?

You know, I think it’s a great event, it’s a lot of fun to watch and it’s good for baseball. If you were designing an ideal spring training, you would have all your players in camp and have control over how they’re used, but it is what it is. I think there are pitch count limits in place throughout the tournament that will prevent any serious damage. We’ll just cross our fingers and hope that our players come back healthy. I can’t wait till they get back to camp. But I’m not going to sit here and complain about it. Every club goes through it. In the big picture, it’s a great thing for baseball. Obviously, if G.M.’s had their way, if managers had their way, they’d have all of their players for all of the spring. But we’ll adjust. It’s not the end of the world.

Thoughts about Mike Lowell’s health and the feelings he might have about the rumors concerning him?

As you know he had surgery on the labrum in his hip and we projected him to be ready by the start of the season. That’s still the case. He’s had some really good weeks and some that were frustrating to him. But he’s started swinging the bat and doing some agility work, and he’s pretty much on schedule to be available by the end of spring training and that’s really what we’re focused on, what he’s going to look like at the end of spring training rather than the beginning. If we’re smart about this, he’ll have his limitations early in camp. We’re not going to rush him out there and make sure he can play in the first spring training game. That just doesn’t make sense. So far, it’s been a very routine, normal rehab with some ups and downs along the way.

As far as the feelings he might have, Mike’s a veteran and he understands there’s things organizations have to do when elite players become available, players that might fit for the long haul. Teams that expect to win every year go after those players and that’s the nature of it and I think Mike understands that. Doesn’t mean your feeling don’t get affected a little bit, doesn’t mean that you like it, but Mike’s a veteran and he’s been through it before. We’re talking regularly about his rehab. He’s ready to go. He’s focused on helping the Red Sox win a World Series in 2009. You can not like something personally, but still understand it professionally at the same time.

Is your offseason done or are there move you would like to make if you can?

I think we’re probably done. There are always non-roster invitees that might fit as we round out our spring training roster and there’s always trade discussions as well, so I wouldn’t rule anything out but nothing is that hot or active right now. I think most teams are packing up and heading down to spring training, seeing what they have the first few weeks of camp and then trade discussions will pick up from there. But we’re pretty much set at most positions and I feel good about our depth and redundancy that we have here in camp, and we’ll need it because it’s a long season, and every season we’ve built up depth we’ve needed it to survive the attrition of the season. So we’ll see how we look on the field in a week or so.

Posted by Alex Speier

Red Sox first baseman/outfielder Mark Kotsay underwent surgery on January 29 for a displaced disc fragment in his back in response to back pain. (Kotsay’s signing became official on January 15, after he had undergone a physical.) Few details for his recovery timetable are available as of yet, but a Red Sox official did say that Kotsay is not expected to miss much of the regular season.

All the same, his injury would seem to offer some clarification of the motivation behind the recent agreement to terms with first baseman / outfielder Brad Wilkerson (reported at WEEI.com yesterday). Kotsay has a history of back problems, and required surgery on a herniated disk in 2007. He has been on the disabled list four times with back problems: in 2003 with San Diego, when he missed two weeks due to spasms; the first two months of the 2007 season following the aforementioned surgery; again in the final month and a half of the 2007 season with the A’s; and for much of last June with the Braves.

Posted by Alex Speier

More on the agreement to terms (pending a physical) between the Red Sox and Brad Wilkerson: it is a minor-league agreement, with Wilkerson making the major-league minimum if called up to the majors. He would, however, receive performance and roster bonuses that could increase the value of the deal to as much as $2.5 million. Wilkerson would get $275,000 for each of the following roster thresholds: 60, 90, 120 and 150 days on the active major-league roster. He could also receive $200,000 bonuses for reaching each of the following numbers of major-league plate appearances: 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500.

Wilkerson would serve as a kind of insurance for first baseman/outfielder Mark Kotsay (who has identical plate appearance bonuses to Wilkerson), though without the ability to serve as a backup centerfielder. Though left-handed, his career numbers are slightly better against left-handers (.262/.359/.446) than they are against right-handers (.243/.347/.439).

Posted by Alex Speier

As first reported by MLBTradeRumors.com, the Red Sox are close to signing first baseman/outfielder Brad Wilkerson to a minor-league deal that includes incentives based on major-league playing time. Wilkerson is a career .247 hitter with a .350 OBP and .440 slugging mark. In 2008, the 31-year-old hit .220/.308/.326 in a season in he started with the Mariners before getting released mid-season and picked up by the Blue Jays.

Wilkerson would serve as a kind of insurance for first baseman/outfielder Mark Kotsay, though without the ability to serve as a backup centerfielder. Though left-handed, his career numbers are slightly better against left-handers (.262/.359/.446) than they are against right-handers (.243/.347/.439).

Posted by Rob Bradford

So, here we are, finally clear from the Jason Varitek stalemate with only the formalities that come with such a signing left. From the moment the catcher filed for free agency (Oct. 30) until the Jan. 30 verbal handshake, 92 days of speculation/rumors/analysis/more speculation passed.

If you can remember a hot-stove topic that began with so much drama yet was punctuated with as much head-shaking and eyebrow-raising, send the instance along. From all corners, the saga felt exhausting. How many different ways can you ask if game-calling can be quantified, or dip into statistics displaying how far the captain’s offensive game had fallen?

So, I ask the question few want thrown out for fear of needlessly allocating more of your day to deciphering the merits of Varitek’s presence in the Red Sox lineup: Could this all happen again next offseason?

The answer is — not likely, and this is why:

Varitek is in the midst of signing a contract that will pay him a guaranteed $5 million for this season. OK, we get that. He will be making five million bucks this season. What he does during that period of money-making paves the way for the semi-interesting part.

Let’s just say Varitek flips his trend on its ear and rebounds offensively, duplicating his numbers from 2007 when he hit .255 with 17 homers – which the Red Sox would take in a heartbeat. If that was the case, the questions would be:

A. Do the Red Sox pick up the team option of $5 million? My answer: Probably. If Varitek can make that kind of rebound (which would be semi-historic in the pantheon of 37-year-old catchers) it is enough of a sign that he could do it for one more year after that.

B. If the Red Sox don’t pick up Varitek’s option, does he activate his own option of $3 million (plus the potential of $2 million in incentives)? My answer: No. Those numbers — coupled with the notion that he has reversed his trend — are enough to give the catcher confidence that he could secure close to the kind of multi-year deal desired at the outset of this offseason’s foray into free agency.

So if that free-agent card is played once again, don’t expect a scenario like this offseason’s to play out. The reason? Because I doubt, even with those improved numbers, Varitek would be a Type A free agent.

Now, in case you didn’t realize, the catcher’s well-publicized status as a Type A free agent was made possible by the Elias Sports Bureau’s rankings. The way this is done (and excuse me if you’ve heard this one too many times) is that Elias takes the player’s stats over a two-year period and matches them up against other players at his position.

If a player is determined to be in the top 20 percent of his grouping, he will be classified as a Type A free agent, forcing whatever team that would sign said player to forfeit as high as a first-round draft pick (though exceptions exist, based on a) whether the team has one of the first 15 picks in the first round, in which case that selection is protected and no better than a second-round pick could be offered as compensation; or b) whether a team has signed another Type A free agent with an even higher Elias ranking, in which case the compensation pick - much as the Yankees signed three Type A free agents this year, and it was the Angels that received their first-round pick for Mark Teixeira, the Brewers who got a second round pick for CC Sabathia and the Blue Jays who received just a third-rounder for A.J. Burnett). The team losing the player would also receive a sandwich-round pick, between the first and second rounds of the draft.

I know … boring! But when laying out the scenario for Varitek next offseason it is important to understand these elements. So again, let’s go off the premise that he puts up his ‘07 numbers. While that would obviously duplicate the same two-year production that got him classified as a Type A this time around, that presumably wouldn’t be the case for next year.

Thanks to USA Today’s site, this is what the Elias rankings for American League catchers looked like this year:

A players

1. Joe Mauer 89.401

2. Victor Martinez 88.018

3. Jorge Posada 84.793

4. A.J. Pierzynski 78.111

5. Jason Varitek 76.037

6. Ramon Hernandez 73.733

B players

7. Dioner Navarro 70.968

8. Ivan Rodriguez 69.585

9. Mike Napoli 68.664

10. Kurt Suzuki 67.051

11. Kenji Johjima 64.977

12. Gregg Zaun 59.447

13. Kelly Shoppach 57.834

OK, which of these names on the Type B will be jumping up with a reasonably solid season by their updated standards? Near locks to do so, in my eyes, are Dioner Navarro and Mike Napoli, with Kurt Suzuki and Kelly Shoppach also likely to leapfrog Varitek. And Type A guys who might drop down (besides Varitek) include Hernandez, who is now in the National League with the Reds, and possibly Posada if he doesn’t bounce back from an injury-plagued ‘08.

So, if Varitek does indeed slip out of the Type A range even with a solid bounce-back year, and neither the team or player options are executed, it is likely that we have a much cleaner free agent pursuit of the catcher. And these are the reasons why:

1. Even if the Red Sox offered Varitek arbitration, his free-agent status would not be compromised. If he is a Type B free agent, then another team could sign him without parting with a draft pick. The Sox would only be entitled to a sandwich-round pick, meaning that the circumstances that completely destroyed the market for his services this year would not exist. It would be a bit of a gamble for the club to offer Varitek arbitration, since he might receive significantly more than the $5 million option that the club holds. But, for the Sox, an overpayment might be worth the risk considering that they would receive a sandwich-round draft pick if he declined arbitration and signed with another team.

2. The Sox could deem the risk of paying Varitek more than what they feel he is worth through the arbitration process unacceptable, even not worth the chance at a draft pick. Simple logic suggests that the Red Sox attach at least a $2.5 million value to such draft picks — as was evidenced by their willingness to pay Varitek an extra $5 million in arbitration (an award of $10 million or more, compared to the $5 million salary they were willing to pay him for 2009) for the chance at a pair of picks this offseason. If the team expected that arbitration would result in a salary of, say, $5 million more than what Varitek was worth, it might deem the potential risk of his accepting arbitration to be greater than the potential reward of either having him return or of the draft pick they would get if he left.

I believe if such a scenario did arise the Red Sox would offer arbitration and Varitek would decline, viewing the offseason after a bounceback year as his last chance for a coveted multi-year deal.

So, to summarize, if Varitek has another down year, he will take his $3 million player option with incentives. If he rebounds with a season like two years ago, the likelihood is that Red Sox choose to activate their own $5 million option. But if he does fall into a category that might make the team shy away from such a $5 million commitment, it is my opinion that he would be offered arbitration, decline it, and you would have seen the last of Jason Varitek in a Red Sox uniform.

Bottom line, there won’t be another 92 days like the ones you just witnessed.

Posted by Alex Speier

A Red Sox official denied a report that catcher Jason Varitek faced an 8:30 a.m. deadline to accept or walk away from the Red Sox’ one- and two-year contract offers, suggesting that the situation would not be resolved this morning, and was unlikely to reach a conclusion until at least this afternoon, and perhaps later. We will keep you updated as the situation develops.

Posted by Alex Speier

Curt Schilling, in his weekly appearance on the Big Show, suggested that based on his recent conversations with Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek, he expects the career Sox to come to terms on a one- or two-year deal.

SCHILLING: “I’ve talked with Jason a couple different times about this. I think there’s probably some discussion going on around the parameters of a deal since it was put on the table. In fact, I know there (has been). I think you’re going to end up with a deal that nets Jason the $10 million over two years, somehow guaranteed or tied into some incentives, that keeps him here, or I think he might end up taking the one-year deal. I’m not positive, but at the end of the day I think it’s going to be Jason Varitek catching for the Boston Red Sox, which is really all I care about.

GLENN ORDWAY: If he can get the $10 million over two years, that makes a lot more sense.

SCHILLING. After he fires his agent, it makes a lot more sense.

ORDWAY: You think that’s a possibility?

SCHILLING. No I don’t, because I know how much Jason thinks about Scott. But I would probably be on day six of having no agent if it had been me. But again, he’s been with Jason for a long time, through a lot of stuff.

Posted by Alex Speier

This morning, WEEI’s Michael Holley suggested that negotiations between the Red Sox and catcher Jason Varitek showed little sign of progress. Here’s the exchange between Dale and Holley:

Holley: I have moles, who have told me that if the deadline were today, which is Thursday, we’re a couple days away or a day away-
Dale: Yeah supposedly it’s tomorrow.
Holley: If the deadline were today, no deal.
Dale: OK and that’s what I’m asking, I mean are you getting indications of that or is it an opinion? Which is perfectly valid as well I just wasn’t sure what it was based on.
Holley: If the deadline were today, no deal.

Now, Tony Massarotti of boston.com, citing a baseball source, reports that the catcher “is very seriously considering the option of sitting out the 2009 season and/or retiring rather than accepting the contract offer made to him last week.”

To review: the Red Sox offered Varitek a one-year $5 million deal with a 2010 club option for another $5 million or, should the club not exercise it, a $3 million player option. (The Sox also offered a straight one-year, $5 million offer for 2009 without the options.) That proposal came with a deadline, which Massarotti reports is for Friday morning.

It seems hard to fathom Varitek retiring due to a perceived slight. In the past, he has expressed a desire to play for as long as he can, likely into his 40s. It could be that the notion of retirement is being used to create leverage where none exists- just as agent Scott Boras used the threat of a return to Japan by Daisuke Matsuzaka in a largely unsuccessful effort to get the Red Sox to adjust their demands in December 2006.

Clearly, the next 24 hours will be fascinating to monitor, with some resolution perhaps near at hand for the longtime staple of the Red Sox.