Varitek Deadline Set By The Red Sox...Pettitte in Yank's Rotation

Jason Varitek and his agent, Scott Boras(s) have until Saturday to take Boston's one year $5 million offer. The Red Sox would hold a second year $5 million option. Should the club decline that option, Varitek would have the option to return to the team in 2010 and earn $3 million. That means two years at $8 million...had he accepted arbitration, he would have pocketed $10 million for 2009 alone. Nice job, BorASS. Hey 'Tek, take the five mill and work on your hitting. We all know you can catch the baseball.

In pinstriped news, Andy Pettitte has agreed to a $5.5 million base salary to join the Yankees very talented five man rotation. Performance bonuses could bring that figure up to $12 million...not bad for a guy who was virtually a .500 pitcher in '08. But good for him, I guess. The Yankee's formidable rotation consists of CC Sabathia, Chien-Ming Wang, AJ Burnett, Joba (the hut) Chamberlain and Pettitte. That's a quintet any club would kill for. Red Sox fans will have to hope that the Yankee bullpen will live up to its awful potential.

Getting back to 'Tek, I don't blame the Red Sox for putting up the deadline...pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks. 'Tek has no other offers out there, at least ones that have been made public, and he has said he wants to come back to Fenway and his fans and teammates. I bet he will, Borass or no Borass.

That's a wrap for this Tuesday, the day before another dump of snow here in beautiful north cental Connecticut. Click on the title to be transported to the SI Red Sox homepage. From there, as I said in an earlier post, you can go anywhere. As always, BE WELL. See you...soon.