During his new gig on WEEI, former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said the Red Sox need Jason Varitek back as their catcher.
“There’s a lot of reasons,” Schilling said. “I think [the Red Sox] went into this winter very intent on trying to find that catcher of the future. I think the plan was to offer ‘Tek arbitration and have a trade made for a kid … somebody to bring in for the next year or two, because I think that the initial plan was to offer [Varitek] arbitration. [They thought,] ‘Of course he’s going to accept it,’ and then next year, they might be in this spot
“I think they were going to start to wane the staff off of a Jason Varitek and onto the catcher of the future.”
“I think you’re looking at about $45 million invested in this pitching staff next year, and if your catcher doesn’t work with your pitching staff, it’s not one player that has a down year, an off season, it’s potentially the entire staff,” Schilling continued. “That might be overstating how many guys would have good or bad seasons based on Jason being back there, but I’m very comfortable with saying that there is very little chance that every guy on that staff won’t be better if he’s back this year. He’s the kind of guy that makes you as good as you can be each start.
“Jason knows us as good, if not better, than some of us know ourselves.”
“They’re going to know in Spring Training if it’s not syncing up [with a young catcher],” Schilling said. “But it’s too late at that point to do anything, because you’ve already signed this kid to be your catcher of the future. Now what happens if this catcher of the future comes on, takes on the No. 1 job, and he can’t cut it the first month?
“My point is it’s an irreversible mistake if you take that path.”
Once WEEI posts the audio up in the archives, I’ll link to it.
I’ve said all along that I feel losing Varitek could hurt the pitching staff and Schilling backed that up during the interview. Eventually at some point, the Red Sox will need to move on. I just hope it’s not this year because the team assembled right now has all the makings of a World Series Champion again.
Schilling also touched on the Manny Ramirez incidents, that he wants to pitch in the second half and that he thinks he isn’t a Hall of Famer.
The latter part won’t need to become discussion until he officially retires from baseball. Then we’ll have five years to discuss whether or not he belongs.
Update: Here’s the full audio of Schilling’s first appearance on WEEI.
[audio:http://media.weei.podzinger.com/archive/TheBigShow/2009-01-22_Curt_Schillings_First_Segment.mp3]
