I don't associate the great blogging at hardballtalk.com with trolling, so I was surprised to see a post yesterday called Why not let Jason Varitek manage the Red Sox?
There's a large number of reasons why this is a bad idea, some of which are touched upon in the post, but at the end of the day the reality is that he was the Captain of a team that self-destructed. Most of the players on that team will be back next year, so if the captain couldn't get them to play together last year, why would naming him the manager all of a sudden make a difference? And making a 40 year old catcher who couldn't throw out baserunners in his prime a player/manager idea is an idea so absurd i'm not even going to address it.
I like Tek - he's been a great player for the Red Sox. But he's played his last game with the team and if he manages a baseball team it will be at some point in the future.
The Red Sox do have an opening for first base coach, but I suspect that Cherington et al will want fresh blood.
ReplyDeleteIt's really too bad for Varitek that he didn't retire last year. Had he done so, he would always be remembered fondly. Whether fair or not, his reputation seems to have taken a real hit in the past year.
The most likely scenario, if he wants to stay in baseball, would be to go down to the minor leagues and coach there for a while.