The Sox declined the $5 million option on Varitek’s 2010 contract, but he can elect to pick up his $3 million player option. Baseball sources indicated last night that Varitek will accept his option and will notify the Sox as soon as today. Varitek has five days to accept the option. His agent, Scott Boras, was due in Chicago last night.
“We’re going to really look for Victor to be the everyday catcher next year,’’ Epstein said. “What puts us in the best position to win is for Victor catching as much as he can. The spot we’ll have available is for more of a traditional backup. We’ll see what Tek’s decision is before we move forward.’’
Asked whether he was comfortable with Varitek as the backup, Epstein said, “Yeah, I think so. There’s a school of thought that says he’d perform better with a bit more rest.’’
As for V-Mart, who had his $7.1 million option picked up, catching the normal load for a front-liner is something he said he wanted to do when he first came to Boston. Yet the Sox tried to stick with Cleveland’s plan of having him play first base sometimes in an effort to keep him fresh. In the past, catching more has not made an appreciable difference in his hitting. He caught 124 games in 2004, 140 games in ’05, 83 games in ’06, 121 games in ’07, got hurt in ’08 and was limited to 55 games behind the plate, then last season caught 83 games. But he was in his 20s when he was catching that much. Martinez turns 31 Dec. 23.
“He really sees himself as a catcher,’’ Epstein said. “We have to be smart about it. We can’t push him to the point where we have diminishing returns. He feels he can catch a bit more and prepare himself to do that. We haven’t put an exact number on it. A lot depends on the exact shape he’s in. We expect him to be in really good shape. He’s a really hard worker. We’ll have to figure that out as we go.’’
