In this space on Saturdays, I do a weekly round-up of sorts: Sifting through what I wrote that you might have missed during the week, what I’ve been reading and watching myself, and some other fun things that have been going on.
📝 What I did this week
Here are the things I wrote or podcasted about during the previous week, sorted in descending order by quality, popularity and/or current relevance.
🏇 What to Watch For at the 2026 Kentucky Derby - Ahead of today’s Run For the Roses, my buddy Nick Devlin and I dug into a bunch of data to identify a series of “rules of thumb” that might help you choose the right Derby winner. Also, a bonus narrated version is here:
⚾ The Reds Are Running Baseball’s Ultimate Stars-and-Scrubs Experiment - Cincinnati has been one of April baseball’s most pleasant surprises, in part because of the star power of players like Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart. But they’re also doing it in spite of nearly half their roster producing below the replacement-level, putting them on pace to be one of the most “stars-and-scrubs” type teams in MLB history.
🏀 The Nuggets Are Running Out of Time With Nikola Jokić - As Denver was on the verge of losing in Round 1 to the T-Wolves — which did end up happening — I wrote about how rare and finite a resource 15-WAR seasons (like Jokić has produced six years running now) are in NBA history, and how much of an opportunity they offer for deep playoff runs… chances Denver has mostly thrown away.
⚾ Rob Thomson Was the Phillies’ Fixer — Until He Became Their Next Fix - The irony of Thomson — whose (highly-successful!) Philadelphia tenure started when he breathed life into Joe Girardi’s disappointing 2022 Phillies — being replaced when his own 2026 Phils fell victim to the same brand of disappointment, was not lost on me.
⚾ The Red Sox Cycle Comes for Alex Cora - It was the week for managerial firings in MLB, as Boston dismissed Cora as well a few days before Philly’s change. In his case, it was more indicative of how chaotic and aimless the Red Sox have been for nearly two decades now — and Cora’s inability to rise above the volatility as the 2018 championship recedes further into the rearview.
🏒 Minnesota and Dallas Are Still Settling Their Hockey Divorce - The two states have a unique (and uniquely messy) relationship around their hockey teams, which came to a head during Round 1 of this year’s NHL playoffs. And after years without closure, the Wild finally got the last laugh when they eliminated Dallas this week.
🏁 When Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stepped Out of His Dad’s Shadow in Texas - It was a double NASCAR story week from me! First, with the Cup Series headed to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to go back and analyze Dale Jr.’s first career win through the lens of my new historical Driver Rating estimates.
🏁 Does Kyle Busch’s rough season turn around from here? - Busch had his best run of the season (by far) at Talladega, so I wrote about whether it (plus a crew-chief change) would spark a turnaround for the once-great driver. As part of that, I used my new driver similarity-arc tool to pick out historical examples of drivers who fell off similarity, then rebounded at a later stage of their careers.
🏁🎙️ Podracing: Hurricane Season - In this week’s episode of Podracing, Tyler Lauletta and I discussed our latest example of calling our shot with a race winner — this time, Carson “Hurricane” Hocevar, who prevailed at Talladega (then provided a memorable celebration). Next, we talked about my piece on Busch and the drivers he could emulate. And finally, we looked ahead to Texas, a surprisingly chaotic mile-and-a-half oval.
📊 Chart(s) of the week:
Here were my favorite items of the week from Scoreboard, my daily newsletter for Sherwood News…
🏇 On where Kentucky Derby winners make their charge from during the race…
🏃 On the sub-two-hour marathon being broken…
🏀🏒 On the fates of teams who go down 3-0…
🏀 On the history of NCAA tournament expansion…
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👀 Some interesting things I read/watched this week
A collection of articles (with a heavy focus on my fellow Substackers), videos and other media that I enjoyed and/or found thought-provoking over the past week. I don’t always 100% agree with or endorse what’s linked here… but that’s also sort of the point.
🏈 The Consensus Draft Board Debate is Sports Culture War at Its Worst by Freddie deBoer
🏈 Why NFL draft predictions are always wrong by Gregg Easterbrook
🏈 What Premier League Soccer Can Tell Us About the Future of College Football by Edward Egros
🏈 2026 Dynasty Wide Receiver Pre-Draft Model by Joseph Bryan
🏀 The tournament is expanding. God help us all by Eamonn Brennan
🏀 Nikola Jokic and the Closing Window in Denver by Kevin O’Connor
🏀 Nikola Jokić’s Legacy Will Probably Be Fine by Ethan Strauss
🏀 Recapping What Might Have been the Craziest NBA Playoff Night Ever! by Jeff Fogle
🏀 The 13 worst men’s college basketball coaching hires of this century by Craig Meyer
🏒 Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers are running out of chances with each other and Better luck next year: What is the problem with the Columbus Blue Jackets? by Adam Gretz
🏒 The NHL’s Ratings Surge Has an Awkward Explanation by Ethan Strauss
⚾ Cody and Corey used to be Dodgers and The MVPs not in the HOF by Mark Kolier
⚾ 1st Cy Young poll of ’26 shows two clear, familiar favorites by Jason Foster
⚾ What the #%$! Is Wrong With Nando? Digging Into Fernando Tatis’ Power Outage by Michael Cecchini
⚾▶️ The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Biggest Snub by State of Stats
🏇 The Kentucky Derby Invented Modern Sports Spectacles by Jacob Feldman
🐎 Kentucky Derby 2026 odds, post positions, favorites and analysis by Neil Greenberg
⚽ The FIFA World Cup: A Product Most Football Fans Can’t Afford by David Skilling
⚽ The World Cup Is Offering a $150 Train Ride To Nowhere. It’s All James Dolan’s Fault. by Michael Weinreb
🏁 NASCAR’s overlooked disruptor: How Jeff Dickerson turned Spire into a contender by Nate Ryan
🌪️▶️ Tornado Alley Is MOVING and That’s a HUGE Problem by Maiya May/PBS Terra
▶️ Old YouTube Race Game of the Week
2004 Kentucky Derby
🎵 Music to Play Us Out
Fleetwood Mac - “Gypsy”
Filed under: Weekly Round-up
Thanks for the mention and reading material, Neil.
Thanks for the mention Neil!