More players . . .

33) JASON VARITEK
Position: Catcher. 2001 stats: .293/.371/.489. 2002 spring training stats (through March 21): .194/.242/.290. 2002 Baseball Prospectus projection: .282/.363/.457.
Baseball Prospectus predicts a more-or-less full recovery, but I wonder. It took an awfully long time for the pain to subside last year, an awfully long time for him to begin even the rudimentary elements of his rehab, an awfully long time to play back-to-back games this spring. In addition, the read-between-the-lines quotes from the early days of camp -- "The elbow is going to be an ongoing battle for me" and "There are days when there is more soreness than other days" and "I kind of know I have to work at my own pace" and "It's a day-to-day thing" -- indicate a man still trotting slowly in the early laps of a comeback, not one sprinting toward the I'm Back! tape at the finish line.

Which is too bad, because what a year he was on pace for last season (and what a year we could have expected in 2002) before he got hurt. It's not to say he won't fulfill BP's projection. It just that it's questionable now, and in fact it's questionable that he'll ever return to the heights he'd hit before breaking his elbow last June.

Jason Varitek has always been an enigma to me. When people were lifting him into the Pudge Rodriguez class after his breakout 1999 season, I was the skunk at the garden party, urging caution. In 2000, I was wondering if he was strictly a Fenway Park hitter whose '99 successes were another example of the age-27-fluke-year theory. And last season, when he seemed well on the way to proving me wrong, he suffered an injury that has me looking at the glass as half-empty yet again.

What makes it all even more interesting is that I appear to have completely missed the boat on this topic if you consider the almost superstitious awe the Sox players (and the brass) seem to have of Jason Varitek. His injury is always mentioned as being as par with Garciparra's and Martinez's as one of the reasons for the team's calamitous nosedive last season. Just yesterday, Pedro said Varitek was "just as important as Nomar, just as important as me, just as important as Manny" to the team. None of us can argue that the Sox' catching -- and pitching -- was significantly worse after last June 7, though none of us can argue that the loss of Pedro Martinez, who went down in the same general time frame as Varitek, probably had more to do with the pitching decline. Or can we? Dan Duquette claimed Varitek was worth "two runs a game" to the Sox, which seems patently absurd, but as as early as last May 11 we sensed there might be a reason to try to get our arms around this etherial subject.

I don't know if we can. It just strikes me that if the professionals are that adamant about it, there must be something to it.

In which case, I'm delighted he's back. Even if he's not, and even if he can no longer be, the hitter he'd developed into during the first 2 1/2 months of the 2001 season.

34) RICH GARCES
Position: Relief pitcher. 2001 stats: 67 innings, 3.90 ERA, 55 hits, 25 walks, 51 strikeouts. 2002 spring training stats (through March 21): 8 innings, 3.38 ERA, 8 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts.
Remember when everyone used to worry about Mo Vaughn going into quick decline because of his weight? Why do we never hear the same concerns about Rich Garces? His ERA has risen from 1.55 to 3.25 to 3.90 in consecutive seasons. In the second half of last year, he had a 4.88 ERA and his strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped from 2.54-to-1 in the first half of the season to 1.64-to-1. Had Vaughn's hitting stats plummeted like that, all you would have heard was how fat he was and how quickly he was going to age and, look, we're seeing it now! But this guy, for whatever reasons, remains our lovable El Guapo and never is heard a discouraging word.

It just strikes me that when an athlete is as obscenely overweight -- obese, really -- as Garces, and he's past 30, and his numbers have dipped in each of the last three seasons, it's not unreasonable to think his physical condition might be a concern. A serious concern. I appear to be an army of one at the moment, but I think my ranks might swell a bit if Garces's numbers continue swooshing down the mountain.

35) DARREN OLIVER
Position: Starter/reliever. 2001 stats: 154 innings, 6.02 ERA, 189 hits, 65 walks, 104 strikeouts. 2002 spring training stats (through March 21): 8 innings, 1.13 ERA, 6 hits, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts.
His fate appears to be in Casey Fossum's hands. The brain trust apparently feels -- with reason -- that Fossum is the best lefty on the staff, but are divided over whether to keep him in Boston to pitch out of the bullpen or ship him to Pawtucket to get in some innings as a starter. If they choose Option B, Oliver probably stays, since Butch Henry (6.75 ERA, .318 batting average allowed) has more than likely pitched himself out of the picture.

There's no reason to think Oliver is anything more than what he's been for the last several years in Texas. His OPS allowed last year was .881, which means the average guy in the batter's box hit like Trot Nixon when Oliver was on the mound. (It also must be noted that .881 was the best OPS allowed Oliver had as a member of the Rangers since 1997. In 2000, the average hitter against Oliver was turned into Edgar Martinez.) Nor does the STATS Scouting Report offer any comfort or hope. ("[He] pitches as if his left shoulder were injured again" . . . "He has an inconsistent delivery, poor velocity and tends to wear out early" . . . "[Showed] an amazing inability to make big pitches"). Think he might be better as a reliever than as a starter? Hitters went .398/.418/.648 -- a 1.065 OPS -- during Oliver's first 15 pitches last year. Blaming his surroundings isn't a serious option, since baseball-reference.com rates The Ballpark as completely neutral, favoring neither the picther nor the hitter in 2001. Goes to show how desperate the Sox were to rid themselves of Carl Everett when Darren Oliver -- who, as an added bonus, is scheduled to make $5 million this year -- is not only all they were offered, but something they'd accept.

At least the new ownership says it'll eat bad contracts. So even if they keep Oliver, and even if he's as bad as we fear, he might just be holding a seat for Jeff Wallace . . . if Wallace ever gets healthy.

37) FRANK CASTILLO
Position: Starting pitcher (I hope). 2001 stats: 136 2/3 innings, 4.21 ERA, 138 hits, 35 walks, 89 strikeouts. 2002 spring training stats (through March 21): 9 2/3 innings, 4.66 ERA, 9 hits, 4 walks, 9 strikeouts.
I pray Grady Little and Company aren't serious about this (so far unsubstantiated) talk of moving Tim Wakefield back into the rotation, since Frank Castillo would be one of the two candidates -- Dustin Hermanson being the other -- to bounce back to the bullpen. Castillo is one of those types of pitchers I'm sick of signing (over 30, not capable of going deep into games, never going to be any better than he is right now), but the dual facts are 1) he's here, so it behooves the Sox to put him in a position where he's most likely to succeed, and 2) he's far most likely to succeed in the starting rotation than he is in the bullpen, considering his injury history.

Plus, he's not bad. He had a terrific season for Toronto in 2000, and a pretty good year for the Sox in '01. If you accept him for what he is, you realize he's a more-than-decent, back-of-the-rotation starter.

You listening, Grady?

Mondays are a heavy day for me workwise, so more than likely this is going to become a four-day-a-week, Tuesday-through-Friday endeavor. We'll finish up the player ratings Tuesday.