No way.I am not trading Buchholz just yet.I think our coaches have messed around with his mechanics too much.I would give him next year and hopefully he will deliver.As for a new catcher, i cant argue but who is out there?
Salty is a premier catching prospect. I would have traded Buchholz for him last year before he struggled so I'm not being reactionary. You have to give up quality to get quality, and Boston has depth at pitching and nothing at catcher. Since Texas desperately needs pitching while having a ton of depth at catcher (including Teagarden, who they like more than Salty), Salty is one of the few catchers actually available and Boston seems like an ideal trading partner.
Are you saying a rookie pitcher had it right over a veteran catcher who has caught four no-hitters and has two world championships. Do you understand that everytime Varitek goes on the disabled list the Red Sox tank? Do you understand in the last two world series wins that the biggest reason why the Red Sox won was because the way the games were called from behind the plate. Veritek did not have a poor series. He may not have hit the ball that well, but was brilliant behind the plate. Some teams go with a weak hitting shortstop because they are so valuable. The Sox can have Jason hitting poorly because he brings more to the table then any other position. BTW, he's starting to hit.
I don't get your point about the rookie pitcher vs. the legend of Tek. Are you replying to my issue with Tek calling for three balls when Masterson had Vlad 0-2? I didn't say anything about anyone "having it right." I said that Tek was an idiot to call for the "stand out his crouch" high fastballs on 1-2 and 2-2 with the tying run at the plate.
"Every time Varitek goes on the disabled list" is obviously referring to 2006. When Varitek went on the DL in 2006 he was a much better player than he will be next year, so how the team did without him doesn't really tell us much. Boston also lacked a viable replacement and were only able to acquire the corpse of Javier Lopez through a waiver trade. Things wouldn't be so dire with an entire offseason to replace him.
Oh, and the rest of the offense wasn't as good in 2006. The 2008 Sox were able to survive Tek sucking this year so I don't see why the 2009 Sox would fall apart without him.
As for the subjective "his gamecalling is invaluable" argument, do you realize that no one has been able to find any statistical correlation between catchers and pitcher performance? Sabermatricians have studied what happens when the pitchers stay the same but the catcher changes. They've also studied when pitchers change teams and work with different catchers. They haven't been able to find any proof that catchers have any effect on pitchers, let alone that they have a huge effect which clearly overrides offensive performance (to be clear - I'm talking about pitch calling and not other defensive aspects of catching).
I'm not saying he has no effect. I'm saying that if he (or any catcher) had such a large effect it would somehow show.
Oh, and one last note on Varitek in the ALDS. Lester had an amazing series. Matsuzaka was somewhat disappointing and Beckett was disappointing. How exactly was Varitek "brilliant behind the plate," assuming (as you do) that his pitch-calling is so vital to the success of Boston pitchers?