By Neil Paine

Our last guest writer is the brilliant sportswriter Neil Paine, who writes Neil’s Substack and co-hosts Podracing.

Hello! My name is Neil Paine, and I will be your Numlock emcee today. I’ve been given permission by Walt to assemble an all-sports version of the newsletter this morning, so let’s dig into some of the big numbers from the world of bats, balls and pucks this week…

Record Books, Revamped

More than three years after committing to include statistics from the Negro Leagues in its official records, MLB has officially added this data to the canon of major league history — and with that news comes significant changes. First and foremost, the initiative provides long-overdue recognition to many great players who had been denied their rightful place due to racial injustice. It also rewrites the record books. Slugging catcher Josh Gibson now holds the all-time record with a batting average of .372, surpassing Ty Cobb, and he leads in on-base plus slugging (1.177 OPS) as well, dethroning Babe Ruth. On the mound, Satchel Paige has the third-best single-season ERA now, among other notable changes. These changes mostly affect rate statistics, as the Negro Leagues played shorter schedules than the American or National leagues. But even without including totals from barnstorming or independent games, some important leaderboards have been significantly transformed.

Major League Baseball

Boston Really Needs This

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, it became really tiresome to hear Boston sports fans crowing over the unprecedented success their city enjoyed in all the major pro sports. (Or at least, I would imagine it was tiresome. I grew up a Red Sox fan, so I mostly thought it was great.) That winning has slowed down a little in recent seasons; no Boston team has won a championship since all the way back in 2018, when both the Sox and the Patriots won. But if there is a team in the bunch that hasn’t won as much as it should, it’s the Celtics, who are in the NBA Finals next week. Over the previous eight seasons, the C’s have won 73 playoff games without also winning a championship, which would immediately be a new NBA record for winning-without-winning if they don’t end up taking the title this year.

Neil's Substack

Clark’s Spark

It’s been an up-and-down start to the 2024 WNBA season for rookie No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark. Her Indiana Fever have lost eight of their nine contests so far, and she’s endured more games in single-digit scoring than she had in her entire college career at Iowa. But there are still plenty of signs of the player who electrified fans in college and became the all-time NCAA Division I career leader in points. On Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Sparks, Clark produced the first 30-point game of her young pro career, adding six assists, five rebounds, three steals and three blocks. And as ESPN also noted among her most important statistics: “The Fever drew a near-sellout crowd of 16,013 on a Tuesday night.”

ESPN

Third Time’s the Charm?

ESPN unveiled its projections for the 2024 NFL season on Thursday, and the big headline was that the San Francisco 49ers were their favorites to win Super Bowl LIX next February in New Orleans. Their Football Power Index model gives San Francisco a 15.8 percent chance to win the championship, well ahead of the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs (11.9 percent), the Detroit Lions (no, that’s not a typo — they’re third at 10.3 percent) and the Dallas Cowboys (8.7 percent — no, that’s not a typo either). The only catch for San Fran is that the most likely Super Bowl matchup is Niners versus Chiefs — a championship rematch that the 49ers have already lost twice since the 2019 season. But who knows? Maybe the third time will really be the charm.

Seth Walder, ESPN

Boooooo-chard

The crystal ball for the Stanley Cup playoffs remains as murky as ever, with each conference finals series still very much up for grabs. But if the Edmonton Oilers can build on the momentum of their 5-2 win over the Dallas Stars in Wednesday’s Game 4 of the Western finals and advance to play for the championship, there’s a good bet that defenseman Evan Bouchard will be in the middle of it all. Bouchard’s 1.44 points per game is currently the fifth-highest rate ever for a D-man in the playoffs with a minimum of 15 games played. His six goals, 23 points and +15 plus/minus already puts him in a club with only five other defensemen in the history of the NHL playoffs. Teammate Connor McDavid may be the biggest star in hockey, but Bouchard has been just as important to Edmonton’s chances this spring of ending Canada’s long Cup drought.

Stathead Hockey

A Normal Day at Citi Field

It’s fair to say that things aren’t going super well for the New York Mets at the moment. The team is mired in a brutal May that saw them go into Thursday having lost 19 of 26 games, including losses in 15 of their previous 19 and eight of their previous nine. Things boiled over in the eighth inning of Wednesday afternoon’s loss to the L.A. Dodgers, which saw relief pitcher Jorge López get into a shouting match from the mound with third-base umpire Ramon De Jesus over a call, get himself ejected, and then toss his glove into the stands on his way to the dugout. After the game, López told reporters he was the “worst teammate” on what originally sounded like he termed the “worst team in probably the whole fucking MLB.” López later clarified that he was just talking about himself, not his team, but the Mets designated him for assignment anyway.

Anthony DiComo, Twitter

No Scrubs

The New York Yankees are among the best teams in baseball again, rebounding from last year’s 82-80 showing which was the franchise’s worst in more than 30 years. What’s their secret? Well, big seasons from stars like Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and breakout shortstop Anthony Volpe have certainly helped… but another underrated reason for the Yankees’ success is that they don’t pencil any truly terrible players into the lineup. As of Wednesday, only 4.6 percent of the team’s playing time (between plate appearances and innings pitched) was devoted to players producing below the replacement level of performance that a team could get from any low-level free agent or minor leaguer. That was easily the lowest in baseball — and a far cry from other contending teams like the Phillies, Blue Jays and Orioles, each of whom give around 20 percent of their playing time to sub-replacement players. Sometimes, one of the keys to winning is just not sucking.

Neil's Substack

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Neil’s Substack Analytical but narrative -- blending the past and future of sportswriting By Neil Paine

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