This week Major League Baseball approved a new playoff format that would add a 2nd 'wildcard' team in each league. The two wildcard teams in each league will now compete in a one-game play-off game, the winner advancing to play the team with the best record of the three division winners.

It is my opinion that this rule will, over time, hurt the Red Sox more than any other team. It probably is beneficial to MLB overall, but because of the salary inequities that exist in baseball - the Red Sox' chances at a title will be negatively impacted over time.

The reasoning is based on the simple fact that, over time, higher salaries DO result in more wins. Certainly they are no guarantee of winning any single game, series or even a single season. But over time, yes, they do. Look no further than to our 'friends' to the south in NYC.

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At this mid point I thought it would be interesting to look at how the core of this team has been doing. Because of injuries, suspensions and personal family-matter absences, the roster of the C's has been somewhat in flux. Because of that, it can be difficult at times to see through the noise and see how the heart of the team is doing.

Why is this important? Because in the odd chance that the team DOES make it to the playoffs, at that point, nothing becomes more important than how your top 5-man unit performs. Rotations shrink. Coaches go to 8 man units to get through entire games and the lion's share of minutes will go to the best 5-man unit. All concerns about how good your bench is, how to rest your starters, developing youngsters for the future - all that stuff goes right out the window. You win in the playoffs with your best unit.

With the Celtics, Danny famously gambled last year that he could put any good big man in the post behind the "Big 4" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo and that they would still be a dominant unit. That gamble fell short behind injuries to not only the big men he planned to replace Perk with, but also to Rondo.

Many feel that the core "Big 4" is now past it's window and that they can no longer get the job done. Most of the complaints posted on this board are criticisms of the starters. KG is too old and slow and has no hops. Pierce has no legs. Ray can't get open off screens anymore. Both Paul and Ray are accused of turning the ball over like a greased bowling ball. Rondo is inconsistent, moody, and a mis-matched gazelle on a unit of beached manatees. And so on.

If all that is true, then they must suck, right? Well, I thought it worthwhile to take a look at how the "Big 4" is performing in isolation from the rest of the Celtics. Numbers after the jump.

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So at this point, it looks like Danny has probably finished all his moves. There is still a slim chance he may pull something else off, but any further moves become very, very difficult. Not only is Danny more constrained by CBA rules (he can't move folks that he has just officially signed for 90 days) but so also are other teams with many of their players.

So my assumption is that at this point, this is our probable roster going into the 2011-2012 season:

C: Jermaine O'Neal, Chris Wilcox, Greg Stiemsma

PF: Kevin Garnett, Brandon Bass, JaJuan Johnson

SF: Paul Pierce, Jeff Green, Marquis Daniels, Sasha Pavlovic

SG: Ray Allen, Avery Bradley, E'Twaun Moore

PG: Rajon Rondo, Keyon Dooling

A lot of folks look at that and are not excited. They ask, "Wilcox? Stiemsma? Bass? Who are these guys?" and "Where is the big name scorer Danny was supposed to add?" Further, they complain that with Rondo and his supposed outside scoring deficiencies, that our offense will continue to stagnate like it did in the second half of the season last year.

My contention is that the above DOES represent a signficantly upgraded team on offense and that the reason why has to do with the 'no name' interior big men we added. I'll explain my reasoning after the jump.

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In the game thread today (TOR @ BOS, Sep 14, 2011), there was understandably a hell of a lot of anger and stress over losing yet another game with Daniel Bard on the mound.   This is understandable since for Bard to be as suck as he has appeared lately suddenly makes our bullpen look vulnerable.

In the playoffs, you can go far if you have two hot starters and three hot bullpen arms.   That's because you can give the game in the middle to your mediocre arms but use those 5 guys to completely 'own' 4 games out of a series.

With Aceves, Bard & Papelbon, we looked pretty set in the relief department.   For Bard to look so ... awful ... suddenly, is like a gut punch.   Suddenly our bullpen strength has a big gaping hole in it.   Do we now need to extend Aceves into the 8th to get to Papelbon?

The concerns go beyond this year.  If Bard suddenly, permanently sucks - does that raise the leverage / price of signing Papelbon?  Who replaces Bard if he's suddenly, truly yet another formerly-good reliever destined for the discard pile?

Many have been screaming and stressing and wondering if, among other possible causes, Bard is injured.  Legitimate question - after all we went through last year and with our already long list of injured players how can you not wonder and worry about that.

If it is not injury, then what?  Has Bard suddenly just turned into a bad pitcher?  Are his mechanics afoul?  Is there any hope he can correct this?

I decided to break down what I just witnessed in this game.  Was it really a case of Bard pitching bad?  Was he squeezed by  Angel Hernandez - whom I personally believe is one of the worst, most inconsistent umpires on the planet?   Let's look after the jump.

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In explaining his reasoning for The Trade, Danny Ainge alluded to how well the Celtics had played with players at the 5 other than Kendrick Perkins.  I'm sure then, that many of you have been wondering, "Well, how well is that?".  

Since then, a lot of articles and blogs have been bombarded with rebounding totals, points per game, etc.etc. for Kendrick Perkins, Nenad Krstic, Shaquille O'Neal, Glen Davis and every big man this side of the Mississippi.

The problem with those individual numbers is that they don't always tell you much because they have no context.  They don't really give insight into Danny's thinking.

When your goal is to field a winning TEAM, it is important to not get too focused on individual numbers.  Instead, you want to look at how the various players have performed as members of your team.

After the jump, here are some numbers that illustrate how the various 5-man units that the Celtics have put on the floor this year have performed.

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This should be interesting:

http://www.nesn.com/2011/02/report-red-sox-invite-new-zealand-softball-star-te-wara-bishop-to-spring-training.html

Apparently he is quite the athlete so this falls under the 'raw physical potential' category.  He's just 17.

I am pretty sure that this is fast-pitch softball, not slow-pitch.   NZ has some pretty competitive soft ball leagues.

So far no New Zealander has yet cracked MLB lineups, though a couple have made it into minor league systems.

Folks should also, of course, realize that this completely invalidates all of our Sox Prospects Rankings!!!!!

Wrapping up the Maroney + Moss + Branch deals so we can see exactly what the New England Patriots got:

On Sept. 14 we traded Laurence Maroney and a 6th round 2011 pick to the Denver Broncos for a 4th round 2011 pick.

On Oct 6 we traded Randy Moss and a 7th round 2011 pick to the Minnesota Vikings for a 3rd round 2011 pick.

On Oct  12 we traded a 4th round 2011 pick (i.e. Denver's) to the Seattle Seahawks for Deon Branch.

What we got and what we gave and a poll after the jump.

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The Celtics summer league 'bench' gave up a huge lead.   They allowed 36 points in the 4th and ended up losing 86-85.

Here is the painful box:  http://www.nba.com/summerleague/games/20100708/INDBOS/gameinfo.html

Like in the last game, the 'starters' (Gaffney, Harangody, Erden, Lafayette & Thomson) all looked pretty good and the Summer Cs raced out to a huge lead by the half (58-31).   But the second half was all Pacers.

I'm not going to post a lot of words here since I only saw about a 3rd of the game.  I thought I'd create this thread for folks to comment on the game.

Some things that jumped out at me in this showing (we trounced the Bobcats, fwiw):

The 'starters' (Gaffney, Harangody, Erden, Lafayette & Thompson) all played much better, especially as a team, compared to the first two games.  One look down the box score in the +/- column is telling.

Semih Erden looked a TON better than his first game.   Maybe he just needed some rest and a chance to get to know his teammates?   His +/- was +29, tops in the game, in just over 25 minutes of play.

Janning was a prolific scorer off the bench (20 pts) but while he was in the defense wasn't so good - that wasn't all his fault, but that's why his +/- was a mere +3.   H also grabbed 8 rebounds - a very good game for him.

Harangody continues to impress me with his hustle and game smarts.

Here is the box score for those interested:

http://www.nba.com/summerleague/games/20100707/CHABOS/gameinfo.html

According to multiple news sources, Jason Varitek has joined the long list of injured Red Sox with a broken foot.  He's expected to be out 4-6 weeks!

http://wbztv.com/sports/jason.varitek.broken.2.1784387.html

The Red Sox have re-acquired Kevin Cash from the Houston Astros.

Wow - this is getting ridiculous.  

Right now we have the following injured that I can think of off the top of my head:

• Jacoby Ellsbury,
• Josh Beckett
• Victor Martinez
• Dustin Pedroia
• Jason Varitek
• Manny Delcarmen
• Jeremy Hermida

I'm kinda sick of many of the 'analyst' sound-bites about Game 7.

One that really bites me is the whole "The Celtics lost because they got out-rebounded on the offensive boards!"

Well, we did lose.  But it wasn't because of the Lakers grabbing offensive rebounds.

Details after the jump.

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Elsewhere,  we've all commented on some of the marqui matchups in the wing players, in the backcourt and at SF.  Ray & Rajon versus Kobe & Fisher.  Pierce vs Artest.  Those are huge matchups and it will be interesting to see how they play out.

However, ultimately, it will all come down to the battle of the big men.   We have to deny them the paint.  Its that simple.

If everyone was healthy, and no other issues were a concern I would say without hesitation that we have the edge in KG+Perk+Sheed+BBD against Gasol+Bynum+Odom+???.   Those question marks are because LA has no other PF/C listed with any real minutes played in the playoffs (Powell has played 32, Mbenga 10). We have 4 top quality, experienced bigs to their 3 - that's an extra 6 fouls to give right there.  Yes, Artest or Walton can play PF in a pinch, but they give up size when they do.

That said, there are additional concerns.  It isn't that simple.

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Lately there has been much call and cry about how the Celtic's problems are because they can't rebound.

People look at the raw rebound totals ranking every team in the NBA and see the Celtic's at the bottom and jump to the conclusion that we must be a poor rebounding team.

That is a mistaken conclusion, but working from that point, they then conclude that if we are a poor rebounding team, and we struggle, our struggles MUST be because we are a poor rebounding team.

This is a case of starting with false premise (that raw rebound totals are comparable between teams) and leading on to another (the Celtics are a poor rebounding team) to then reach a third (poor rebounding is the source of our woes).

After the jump, I will try to explain why the raw rebound totals are misleading.  Further, I'll try to show how rebound rates lead to the basic philosophy behind the Celtic's strategy of play.   Finally, I'll end with pointing out how deviating from their strategy just killed them in their loss to Memphis (as well as a few other games).

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I hadn't seen any discussion on OTM about this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/columns/story?columnist=mcdonald_joe&id=4943324

So I thought I'd create a fanpost for it.    I'll steal the banner quote from the above:

"My calling is to play this game, but now that I have two small kids
there are things I look forward to do outside of baseball that you
can't do because of the eight-month season. Do I stick around for a
year or two more? Do I finish up strong and see where I'm at? That'll
be an on-going battle during the last year of my contract, for sure." - Drew

Most folks here know I'm a big Drew fan - he does everything in the game I want out of a player.   Gets on base.  Creates outs.   Rocket arm.  Cool under pressure.  I loved the way he looked so professional both in the field and at the plate.  I'm a results oriented sorta guy and never got the hate that certain media jerks kept heaping on Drew.

I especially grew disgusted at the many misconceptions that folks perpetuate about Drew.  His first season with the Red Sox his numbers were down a bit.   Coming right off the big contract signing, folks screamed he was dogging it and didn't care.   Most folks don't realize that his child was ill and that was clearly a distraction.   A lot of ignorant fans think he's "soft" and injury prone.  They call him "Nancy Drew" and think he doesn't try harder to stay on the field.  Even fans who like Drew often make comments to the extent that they don't think he stays healthy.

Well, he's no Cal Ripken, Jr.  But since Drew has been a Red Sox player, only Ortiz, Youkilis & Pedroia have played more games.   He's played 386 games over these last three years.    And note that Ortiz is a DH and Youk is a first baseman.  That kind of puts the lie to Drew being unable to get on the field and earn his money.

I won't go into all the many stats that show how Drew has been one of the top 2 or 3 Right Fielders in the game in overall value for us.   Those have been plastered all over many discussions on this board these last few months.

I'm hoping that Drew will put up those same sorts of numbers to close out his career.

Finally, I also respect Drew for placing family at the top of his priority list.   I'll miss seeing him in RF in Fenway.  But if this means he retires a Red Sox, (just in time for Westmoreland, Kalish & Co.) that's okay.  He'll be 36 so that should be just about the right time to go out walking tall.

Amidst all the constant chatter about trades  - big / small / stand pat - I thought it would be useful for folks to look at some of the Celtic's numbers from the pre-all star break.

This might help folks understand just what is and isn't working with the team as they toss trade idea after trade idea out and about.

First and foremost, the most important thing to point out is that despite much lip service given to defense and a supposed 'lack of athleticism' to stop other offenses,  largely the problems are on offense.

Specifically offensive turnovers.  I'll dive into specifics after the jump.

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Everyone is noting how important it was for the Celtics to get some rest after playing 8 games in 12 days.  And clearly there were some obvious signs of tired legs in the last 3 games of that stretch (front rimming the basket, giving up on slashers when on defense, etc.).

But I note that Pierce and Doc and a couple others really commented more about the importance of getting in some practices.  Then Donny Marshall made a comment last night after the Utah game that made me think that one problem that the Celtics face in stretches like that is the problem of poor competition.

Some of the teams in the NBA are so bad that literally, the Celtics can't improve by playing them.    They need to practice - where they literally are playing much tougher talent than most teams in the NBA - in order to stay sharp and avoid picking up bad, lazy habits.

I think that sort of bit them in the Suns game.  Yes, they were tired.  But they also clearly were not sharp in technique and I think probably had gotten away with lazy defense against some of the weaker teams and that left them flat footed when Nash & Co. came running.

By mid-season, the team should have reached a level of conditioning (especially for guys coming off injuries like KG) where tiredness should not be as big of a deal.  But they are probably going to face more stretches of poor teams where they will have to guard against playing down to the level of the competition.

Thoughts?