📝 The Week That Was (May 12-16, 2025)
A roundup of what I wrote, read, watched, etc. over the past week.
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. Let me know what you think about the format in the comments (or email me!1), and if there are running sections you’d like to see on a regular basis.
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.
🏀 Round 2 of the 2025 Playoffs Is Breaking the NBA – I broke down how the second round of the NBA playoffs has gone off the rails — from the shocking uselessness of home-court advantage to the potential for two of the biggest Round 2 upsets in modern history. With Cleveland losing, Boston and OKC teetering, and the championship odds in flux, we’re watching chaos overtake what was supposed to be a top-heavy, predictable postseason.
🏀 Caitlin Clark Has the Formula to Get Even Better This WNBA Season – After a record-shattering rookie year, Caitlin Clark enters 2025 with sky-high expectations — and historical data suggests she could be poised for a major Year 2 leap. I explored how other highly-drafted WNBA guards fared as sophomores, which statistical improvements most often separated development from stagnation, and how Clark is already well-positioned to keep following the upward trendline.
🏁 NASCAR 2025 Midseason Driver Grades – With the All-Star Race on deck this weekend, I graded every full-time Cup Series driver on their performance so far, factoring in wins, standings, driver ratings and expectations. Kyle Larson leads the pack with an A+ as the title favorite, but it hasn’t gone well for everyone: Brad Keselowski and Shane van Gisbergen landed in the dreaded F tier, and several other big names are underperforming.
⚾ Rafael Devers Should Want To Play First Base – When the Red Sox asked Devers to fill in at 1B after Triston Casas' injury, the star slugger declined — but I argued that taking the glove back up could actually help both him and the team. Switching from DH to 1B would boost Devers' WAR, might even improve his hitting, and it could reshape how he’s viewed in MVP and Hall of Fame conversations.
⚾ Baseball Bytes: Are the '25 Rockies the Worst Ever? – This edition of my baseball column digs into the historic futility of the 2025 Colorado Rockies — from their record-setting losses to the long-term curse of playing mile-high baseball. Plus, I also highlighted the 2005 White Sox’s rubber-armed rotation (with divine inspiration?) and celebrated Evan Longoria retiring as a Ray, the club he helped put on the map.
🏒 The Leafs Are Blowing This. (Of Course They Are.) – After jumping out to a 2-0 series lead against the defending champion Panthers, the Maple Leafs dropped three straight and found themselves on the brink of elimination — in classic Toronto fashion. I broke down the numbers behind their collapse, the damage to Canada’s Stanley Cup hopes, and why, sadly, it’s all a little too familiar.
🏁 Kyle Larson’s peak is highest in today’s NASCAR; how does it stack up all-time? - This week’s NASCAR.com piece explores just how rare Kyle Larson’s blowout wins really are, using Driver Rating data since 2005 and historical estimates going back to 1972. With multiple near-perfect outings lately, Larson stands nearly alone among current drivers for how often he posts elite performances — and only a few legends had similarly dominant peaks as well.
🏁🎧 Larson, He’s Just That Good - This week on Podracing,
and I talked about Kyle Larson’s latest dominant win, and the story I wrote exploring his historic ability to blow away the field. Then we surveyed the Cup Series landscape at midseason in my NASCAR driver grades column for ESPN. And we previewed the upcoming All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, discussing the betting odds as NASCAR’s best take center stage.
Programming Note: Check out the 🏀 2025 WNBA Elo Team Power Rankings and Player Rankings 📈page to follow each team’s Elo rating (and coming soon, player Estimated RAPTOR ratings) throughout the new season. Disclaimer: Obviously, these are a work in progress early on, since they are regressed from the end-of-year ratings last season (and there is a new expansion team as well!),2 but they will progressively “learn” as the season goes on.
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 what’s linked here… but that’s also sort of the point.
🏈 How Ivy League Educated GMs Are Changing the NFL With Analytics by
🏈 Visualizations of Penalty Data from the 2024 NFL Season by
🏈 Dak Prescott: The Greatest Rookie QB of All Time by
🏈 ‘Game On:’ The Unique Rise of Joe Theismann by
🏀 The Stunning Numbers Behind the MVP's Groupthink Problem by
🏀 Lost Dynasty: Michael, Magic, and how the Bulls blew a shot to become the Lakers by
🏀 Nike Strikes Back At Me in the New York Times by
🏀 Mapping The WNBA by
🏀 College Hoops Is Closing In on Perfection by
🎲 The Ridiculous Dissonance Of NBA Draft Lottery Conspiracy by
and The NBA Lottery Isn't Rigged // But it says something that this many fans feel that way by⚾ First-Pitch Swinging by
⚾ How Predictive is Clutchness in Baseball? by
⚾ Aaron Judge’s Chase for .400 by
⚾▶️ The Most Insane MLB Clubhouse Of All-Time: Tony Gwynn And The 1984 San Diego Padres by Press Box Chronicles with Jeff Pearlman
⚾ The Spinner Game and The Origins of Strat-O-Matic Baseball by
⚾ Jose Rijo and His Unexpected Tradition by
⚾🧸 The Beanie Baby That Wasn’t: Lessons from Baseball’s Plush Underground and For Mom—Steady and Unwavering by
⚾ Should We Settle on a Name for the Extra-Innings Runner? by
🏁 Remembering Adam Petty, 25 Years Later by
⚽ The Decline of the Number Nine by
⚽ Why MLS Needs to Give Up Its TV Dreams by
📺 Everyone Thinks ESPN Is Dying — Here’s Why They’re Wrong by
🧵 How Knockoff Jerseys Became Better Than Real Ones by
🎵 When Do Pop Songs (and Stars) Reach Their Peak? A Statistical Analysis by
📖 Lost causes, found reasons by
✍️ Kill the Editor by
📝 The Two Cultures // Meditations on fiction and nonfiction by
🎵 One Man's Quest to Remaster Steely Dan's Concert Recordings by
🎵▶️ what is RALLY HOUSE? by Denz1000
▶️ The Rise and Fall of the Global Middle Class by
▶️ Wikipedia's Biggest Mystery (ft. depthsofwikipedia) by Tor's Cabinet of Curiosities
Old YouTube Game of the Week
Every big Subway Series moment 1997-2024 (Yankees vs. Mets)
Music to Play Us Out
Swing Out Sister - Twilight World
Filed under: Weekly Round-up
I’m at neil[dot]paine[at]gmail[dot]com.
I set the new Golden State Valkyries’ rating at 1320 to begin their inaugural season. That’s a bit higher than the 1300 we set for previous expansion teams, but that’s justified based on both their preseason over/under win total and the fact that the WNBA was long overdue for expansion, and almost certainly has the talent base to support the extra roster spots.
High Heat Baseball!!! I LOVED that game.
Thanks for reading, Neil! I appreciate the shout-out.