A tale of two veterans

Often in sports, we hear that teams show no loyalty to their aging players or that the players value money over team loyalty.

Granted, it's a rare example, but we never hear much praise when both team and player do right by each other. Tim Wakefield wants to keep pitching for the Red Sox. The Red Sox want to keep him on their team. Wakefield only cares about a contract that guarantees he'll stay in Boston as long as he's able to pitch. The Red Sox wanted a little monetary assurance in case he is unable to keep pitching at an All-Star level.

Hence, they scrapped the perpetual $4 million contract in lieu of a two-year guaranteed deal with incentives that could net Wakefield nearly as much as the original deal. Wake said he will retire after this contract:

They actually came to me with a two-year. We were wondering they were going to pick up the option again and this kind of negates that. I think this is a fair deal. If I’m healthy, I’ll be able to make about as much as I did the other years. In essence, they gave me a two-year deal and that’s a huge plus for me.

Things look less clear with another long-time Red Sox, Jason Varitek. The team, to no one's surprise, declined the captain's $5 million option. He has five days to decide whether to accept his $3 million option.

I was surprised that he did not accept arbitration last year; I would be shocked if he is stupid enough this year to let Scott Boras persuade him not to accept his player option to try to pursue a situation that pays more and offers more playing time. Unfortunately, unlike Wakefield, Varitek doesn't always do what's best for himself and the team, although the Globe said Varitek is "likely" to stay put.

If he does, he will not be the starting catcher, as the Red Sox made another expected move to pick up Victor Martinez's 2010 option:

"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 (Jason Varitek) decision is before we move forward. He's got five days to exercise his player option. You can always negotiate but in this case it's his decision to make."