I’m sick of Jason Varitek.

It’s not his fault, really. The fault lies with Bernard Pollard more than anyone else. Figure Brady plays this year and the Pats at least make the AFC Title Game, right? If that happens, this Varitek talk gets pushed off center stage for a good four weeks or so.

I get it. The Bruins are good, but nobody wants to buy yet. We’ve been there with the Celtics. I suspect we all think Cassel will be gone next season and nobody really wants to start a Cassel/Brady thing, so we are left with the Sox. And the only drama in that village is Varitek (or Veritek, if you are Michael Felger).

He’s obviously going to wind up with the Red Sox (he may have already signed by the time you read this, in fact). That’s not the thing. And he’ll sign a two-year deal for a salary that probably isn’t insulting to either side. No problem, as Cate Minihane would say. None of that bothers me. Will Varitek kill the Sox over the next two years? No, even if he hits .220 he’ll be okay enough defensively that he’ll still be in the middle of the pack at his position. And the 10-12 mil (total, not yearly) isn’t going to turn John Henry into James J. Braddock, so what is it? Why do I want to put my foot through the TV (or radio, I guess. Can you put a foot through a radio? I just tried. No luck.) every time I hear his name?

The Pink Hats. And Tim McCarver (I actually blame McCarver for everything, but this time it has some justification.)

Look, I try not to get worked up with the “new” fans, I really don’t. It’s okay that they wouldn’t be able to pick Bernie Carbo out of a lineup if it were just he and the cast of Little People, Big World. That stuff doesn’t bother me. What gets to me is that they now hold on to the ital>idea>ital of Varitek more than the player himself. So now I have to hear from Teddy in Waltham about how Varitek manages a pitching staff and read on blogs how “The Captain” wills his teammates and makes them better with his mere presence.  This stuff fails what I call the Stuart Scott Test. Anytime you want to make a point regarding anybody in sports, think if Stuart Scott would make that same exact point. 

Does Varitek improve a pitching staff? I don’t know for sure. Curt Schilling sure seems to think so, and I think he’s knows more about pitching than I do (though I think he is WAY off in that post on two things. (1) That the players voted Varitek to the 2008 All-Star Game does not speak “volumes to the ‘intangibles’ that Jason has”. I’m thinking it has more to do with the players not caring and checking the name of the best-known player. And probably they all hate A.J. Pierzynski (who was hitting .287 at the break last year, 70 points higher than Varitek. And I don’t want to hear the “calling a game” argument. The White Sox were second in the AL in team ERA and first in quality starts at the time). (2) The idea that Varitek was “the cornerstone” of two World Series teams is a little strong.  I can go with “a cornerstone”, I guess, but c’mon, Curt. I know you and Manny aren’t exactly Jim and Pam at this point but at least give me Ortiz.)

My point is that if you are going to give Varitek credit for his work with Lester and Dice-K and Papelbon and all the other guys that pitched well (and maybe he should get full points) then how about a little bit of criticism when things don’t turn out so swell? 

Pretty sure I didn’t hear Allison from Cambridge call in and question Varitek when Matt Clement took that nosedive in 2005 (5.72 ERA in the second half). And why couldn’t he fix B.K. Kim? Why did Keith Foulke collapse under his watch? Was it his fault that Jeff Suppan was so brutal in 2003? Josh Beckett in 2006 with a 5.01 ERA?

Again, he’s not going anywhere (name me one team other than Boston where Varitek makes any sense in 2009), but can we take a second and acknowledge that Theo and the Crew have a pretty good track record when it comes to parting ways with icons? Now that the four-year deal for Pedro is over I think we can give the Sox a third-round TKO on that one.

Pedro Martinez 2005-08: 32 wins

Paul Byrd 2005-08: 48 wins

And does anyone miss Johnny Damon? He’s actually been pretty good in two out of three seasons with the Yankees, but his days as a true impact player have passed.

One other thing about Varitek that seems to be lost in the sea of intangibles—the guy is going to be 37 this season. Catchers do not bounce-back at age 37. Most don’t even make it there. The decline begins for most catchers two or three years before.

Yogi Berra at age 37: .224 average, .297 slugging

Johnny Bench: Okay, he didn’t make it to 37 as a player, but had his worst year of acting on “The Baseball Bunch” at that age.

Gary Carter: .246 average, six homers in 246 at-bats.

Bob Boone: Pretty good comparison to Varitek at this point. At age 37 Boone hit .248 and slugged .317. I guess you’d take .240 from Varitek at this point, right? I think that is about the very best you can expect from him in 2009 (he has been a .220 hitter for a year and a half now). 

Again, it’s not Varitek’s fault that some still believe that the Red Sox pitching staff would turn into 12 Steven Adler’s if he left. It’s not his fault that Tim McCarver commented last season that if “Varitek were in the Army, he’d be a Colonel”. I still have no idea what that means. It’s not his fault that there are people out there that think he has some miraculous powers because he had an extra letter on the front of his shirt.

My prediction? He hits .236 in 108 games and the Sox win 92 games. My prediction if he didn’t sign? The Sox would get roughly the same production out of the catcher spot and win, oh, 92 games. I swear to you that the pitchers would find their way to the mound from the dugout. I remember Josh Beckett once pitched some games in October vs. the Yankees in a different uniform, throwing pitches to someone else. Same for John Smoltz, I’m pretty sure he was on the mound for the greatest World Series pitching duel in history. Don’t think it’ll much bother Tim Wakefield, either.

Just think: only about 300 days or so and we can have this argument again. And when we do, I will not allow “he sprints to the dugout after he strikes out” as a good reason for another contract. 

Kirk Minihane, WEEI.com Contributor, is the resident Fantasy Sports expert for WEEI.com. Email him at kminihane@weei.com and read his blog at WEEI.com