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Some interesting quotes from Theo Nathan Epstein today.

"There's still some unfinished business.  Jason is still out there. As I said at the beginning of the off-season, he's been a really important guy here to this organization and by no means have we shut the door on him. There's still some unfinished business there. And also, in the pursuit of a younger catcher.  We have the two young guys who combined to form a pretty good platoon last year at Pawtucket in George Kottaras and Dusty Brown and we brought in Josh Bard on a one-year deal, someone that we really trust to run a staff and call a game and has been a significant part of the catching solution for a good team in this league and done a nice job. We see him factoring into the equation for sure."

So no matter what negative vibe you got from the recent Teixeira, Boras, Red Sox ménage à trois, you might as well toss it out the window.

The one potential conflict in Epstein's comments would be the idea of having Varitek and a "younger catcher."  If that were the combo, then Josh Bard would again find himself shipped out of Boston.  Poor guy.  Trade/cut me once, shame on you, trade/cut me a second time, shame on me, right?

If the Red Sox do re-sign Varitek, I think we'd all agree that it would be a positive, but at the same time the Red Sox would be basically holding off the inevitable as the Red Sox need new blood at catcher.

There are those who say his divorce last year was a major distraction (and I imagine that kind of thing would be) but you have to consider he is old for a catcher and age might be just as important a factor as anything else in his offensive decline.

My hope is that the Red Sox do re-sign Varitek for a 2-year deal AND go get a catching prospect.  At one point in time I thought George Kottaras was that guy, but I'm not so sure anymore.  To be fair, here are the stats for Kottaras and Dustin Brown at AAA Pawtucket last year.  Between them, they hit 34 HRs.

Kottaras(25): .240/346/.454:  22 HR, 64 RBI, 64 BB, 110 K.

Brown(age 26): .290/.378./471:  12 HR, 55 RBI, 40 BB and 81 K.

Both are on the old side for prospects (not a bad thing as a catcher necessarily) but neither lit the world on fire in 2008 at Pawtucket.  I think purely from an offensive standpoint, I'd go with Brown at this point if left to tap into the organizational options.

If I could trade up, I would.

My bet:  The Red Sox try and scuffle their way at the catcher position in 2008 and 2009 and then trade for Joe Mauer in 2010 or even in 2009 (he, I think, is a free agent after the 2010 season).

Anyway, just a few notes to pass along.