The Week That Was (October 13-17, 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.
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.
⚾ Starting Pitchers Are Having Their Moment Again This Postseason (Well, Sort Of) - This October, aces like Yamamoto and Snell have revived the lost art of the dominant playoff start — even as modern bullpens still gobble up most of total leaguewide innings — providing a brief glimpse of what postseason baseball used to be all about.
🏈 The Chiefs Are Who We Thought They Were - After a wobbly start, Mahomes and Kansas City have stabilized exactly to expectations — or at least, what their expectations should have been with their luck in close games regressing.
⚾ Have the Dodgers Finally Cracked the Postseason Code? - After years of underachieving, L.A.’s October dominance these past few years has led to talk of a new formula — but did they find some secret sauce, or just finally have their talent, luck, health and timing align? (Or is there even a difference?)
⚾ Are the Mariners Vindicating Jerry Dipoto’s “54 Percent” Strategy? - Seattle’s patient plan to aim at a .540 winning percentage every year has finally paid off, turning a philosophy mocked for its controlled mediocrity into a real-life blueprint for success as the Mariners sit on the cusp of their first-ever World Series.
🏁 Playoff Field Has Parted, but These Underdogs Can Still Make a Difference - As the Cup Series heads to chaotic Talladega, the playoff picture has split sharply between favorites and long shots — but drivers like Byron, Logano, Elliott and Blaney still have paths (however narrow) to shake up the Championship 4.
🏁🎙️ Mulligan Math - In this week’s Podracing, Tyler Lauletta and I broke down Denny Hamlin’s clutch Vegas win to punch his ticket to the Championship 4. Then we talked about the playoff chaos at the top and bottom of the leaderboard — with Byron crashing, Blaney bottoming out and Logano noting “there’s no one left to steal points from” — and dove into my playoff odds model to see who still has a mulligan (Briscoe), who doesn’t (Byron) and who’s down to desperation-mode only (Blaney). Finally, we previewed Talladega and made our one-and-done picks as our contest goes down to the wire.
🏈🎙️Football Bytes: We Don’t Bet London Games - Me and Tyler debated who’s actually good in this scrambled season, and argued about the Packers’ aura versus their reality. A winning week had both of us feeling bold — until we remembered the rules: Avoid Thursdays, avoid London, and respect Jacoby Brissett.
⚾ MLB’s Final Four Is Too Close to Call - Ahead of the LCS, I wrote that four balanced teams — the Dodgers, Brewers, Mariners and Blue Jays — were entering the “Final Four” with eerily even odds. Ultimately, one of those series truly lived up to the hype (M’s-Jays), and one was a total and utter dud (Dodgers-Brewers). That’s why they play the games… At least I made a cool fake logo for the Final Four, in the mold of those old NCAA logos from the 2000s:
Chart of the Week
Best combined Batting RE24/Pitching Game Score starts for Shohei Ohtani in his career (Friday’s NLCS Game 4 is pretty clearly the best combo):
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 Jerk Store Called. They’ve Got Your New Coach. by Michael Weinreb
🏈 Penn State fired a winning coach to find a great one. What does history say about that decision? by David Ubben
🏈 It’s not just you. College football coaches are getting fired sooner than ever by Craig Meyer
🏈 Why Fired Coaches Still Get Paid Millions by Jadrian Wooten
🏈 In this economy // A look at college football buyouts, plus a line score from this past week. by Chris
🏈 How to Succeed in College Football’s Newest Era by Edward Egros
🏈 Finding The (Un)Luckiest QB of All Time by Robbie Marriage
🏈 SumerBrain Claims to Revolutionize Football Analytics. I Will Not Be Using It by Arif Hasan
⚾️ Why are you killing (almost) all our forkballs. by robneyer
⚾️ AI at the Tabletop by SGJ Jamie
🏀 Mark Cuban vs. Pablo Torre: The No-Holds-Barred Interview by Pablo Torre
🏀 Deandre Ayton was a top NBA Draft pick — but the Lakers don’t need him to play like one by Ben Wylie
🏀 You’re going to miss a lot this season by Henry Abbott and CoachThorpe
🏀 Jakob Poeltl: A Triumph of Substance Over Flash by Paul and The Center Hub
🏒 At What Point Can a Coach Know What His Team Is Going to Be? We Ask an NHL Coach That Question by Mark Scheig
🏒 The Dallas Stars are fighting more, why it might actually matter by Sean Shapiro
📊 Playing the Other Side: A Framework for Prediction Market Intelligence by Ariel Calista
🎬 What Are the Best “Bad” Movies? A Statistical Analysis by Daniel Parris
Old YouTube Game(s) of the Week
2004 ALCS, Game 5: Yankees at Red Sox (Note: This was exactly 21 years ago today!)
Music to Play Us Out
Pat Metheny Group: The Way Up (Part One)
Filed under: Weekly Round-up
Thanks for sharing the link!