Grab Some Pine Pull up a bench. Bay Area sports, Michigan, and a model or two.
November 11, 2026
Jamie Silva, Numbers desk
Numbers desk

Jamie Silva

Runs the numbers desk on one rule: a number without its method is a rumor with a decimal point.

When he files: Thursdays, plus any day a number becomes the story.

The full masthead entry →

10Held up
5Missed
13Still open

15 resolved, 67% held up.

Every call, graded

OpenAug 6, 2026

The first veteran contract the San Francisco 49ers sign or extend at $10,000,000 or more in total value, between 2026-08-06 and 2027-04-30, includes at least one void year. Rookie contracts and minimum-salary benefit deals do not qualify. Scored from Over The Cap's contract page for that player, cross-checked at Spotrac. If the qualifying contract carries no void year, the take is scored wrong.

Resolves by Apr 30, 2027

The piece that made itParaag Marathe Left, And Seventy-Two Void Seasons Stayed
OpenSep 23, 2026

Bryce Underwood's passing yards per attempt across Michigan's nine 2026 Big Ten regular-season games is 7.52 or lower, which is his figure across Michigan's nine 2025 Big Ten regular-season games (1,601 yards on 213 attempts). Scored off Michigan's official box scores: his passing yards divided by his pass attempts, each summed over the games against Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State, Indiana, Rutgers, Michigan State, Oregon, UCLA and Ohio State, rounded to two decimals. A game he does not play adds nothing to either total; if he attempts no pass in those nine games the call is void.

Resolves in 17 days, Nov 29, 2026

The piece that made itIs Bryce Underwood a better passer, or did he play Western Michigan and UTEP?
OpenSep 24, 2026

In the first SP+ ratings table ESPN publishes after Michigan's regular season ends on November 28, 2026, Michigan's special-teams rating is 0.0 or better as printed to one decimal. Scored off the SPEC TMS column of ESPN's all-138-FBS-teams SP+ table (Bill Connelly) in its first edition dated after November 28; -0.1 or lower misses. If ESPN publishes no such table by December 8, the call is void.

Resolves in 19 days, Dec 1, 2026

The piece that made itIowa's special-teams edge is 0.8 points, and three games have shrunk it
OpenNov 9, 2026

On December 16, 2026, Basketball-Reference's 2026-27 on-off page for Yaxel Lendeborg shows an On-Off figure in the Difference block's ORtg column (the +/- per 100 possessions On minus Off value, which read -33.1 on November 9) better than -15.0, that is, a value greater than -15.0, covering Golden State's games played through December 15, 2026. If the page is not updated through December 15 when read on December 16, read it on the first later day it is, through December 20; if still not, VOID. If Lendeborg has not played in at least 10 of Golden State's games from November 9 through December 15, VOID.

Resolves by Dec 16, 2026

The piece that made itLendeborg's minus 33 is mostly a number about Curry's minutes without him
Held upSep 17, 2026

San Francisco finishes the 2026 regular season with fewer bases on balls than any other club in Major League Baseball. Scored off the league's official 2026 regular-season team batting record for bases on balls (the season team hitting totals published by Major League Baseball), read the morning after the final day of the regular season. RIGHT if San Francisco's final walk total is strictly lower than every other club's. WRONG if any club finishes with fewer, and WRONG if any club ties San Francisco's total. Intentional walks count, exactly as they do in the official team total. Hit by pitch does not count. If the regular season is shortened and San Francisco plays fewer than 158 games, score it off the games actually played and say so.

The piece that made itThe Giants can hit with men on base. They are last at putting them there.
Held upOct 9, 2026

The San Francisco 49ers acquire at least one interior defensive lineman by trade between Oct. 9, 2026 and the trade deadline at 4 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 10, 2026. Interior means a player the 49ers' announcement or his former club's roster lists as a defensive tackle or nose tackle, or a defensive lineman who played primarily inside for his former club this season. A free-agent or practice-squad signing does not count; an edge rusher acquired by trade does not count. WRONG if no such trade is completed by the deadline.

The piece that made itOsa Odighizuwa ranks 108th against the run. Tampa Bay has the 2nd.

The work, newest first

Lendeborg's minus 33 is mostly a number about Curry's minutes without him
The finding

Lendeborg's minus 33 is mostly a number about Curry's minutes without him

Basketball-Reference lists Yaxel Lendeborg at -33.1 On-Off through ten games, next to a PER of 20.2 and a true shooting percentage of .630. The number is two team results subtracted: Golden State is about 3 points per 100 possessions worse than its opponents in his 323 minutes and 20 to 30 better in the 162 minutes he sits. A replay of ESPN's play-by-play puts the on-court figure at -2.5 and the gap at 22. Curry was on the floor for 120 of the 162 off minutes, and those 120 minutes are plus 60. Curry's presence beside Lendeborg does not move the rookie's own on-court number; Draymond Green's presence moves it 19 points down and Georges Niang's 16 points up. The off column is about 320 possessions, and a bootstrap over the replayed stints puts its 90 percent range at plus 2 to plus 38 per 100.

Jamie SilvaNov 9, 20266 min read
The other 49ers get no more sacks with Nick Bosa on the field
The projection

The other 49ers get no more sacks with Nick Bosa on the field

Across Nick Bosa's five seasons of 8 or more sacks, the rest of the 49ers sacked quarterbacks on 5.1 percent of dropbacks with him on the field and 5.2 percent with him off it. The same test on 228 seasons of 8 or more sacks since 2019 finds teammates' rates fall when the star plays, and the team gains about half of his own sacks. Bosa's larger effect sits on throws that are not sacks: about 14.5 fewer expected points per 100 dropbacks, nearly three times the median rusher's, with wide error bars. The projection is 2 to 4 points a game and fewer than 41 sacks for the season.

Jamie SilvaNov 5, 20266 min read
The Sharks' opponents miss the net more than anyone's. Last season, the least
The explainer

The Sharks' opponents miss the net more than anyone's. Last season, the least

Opponents have missed the net on 38.5 percent of their unblocked attempts against San Jose this season, the highest rate in the NHL, after the lowest rate in the league last season with the same two goaltenders. MoneyPuck's expected-goals measure credits a goalie for every miss, which puts Yaroslav Askarov about six goals above expected; counting only shots that reached him, scaled to the league's own conversion rate, he is about two above and Alex Nedeljkovic about three.

Jamie SilvaOct 29, 20266 min read
How much of Brock Purdy's 105.6 passer rating belongs to Brock Purdy?
The finding

How much of Brock Purdy's 105.6 passer rating belongs to Brock Purdy?

Brock Purdy finished Monday's win over Washington with 1,524 career regular-season attempts and a 105.6 passer rating, first among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 attempts, ahead of Lamar Jackson's 102.7. Against the league average over the same seasons, 90.7, he is 14.9 points better. Of 81 quarterbacks who entered the NFL in 1999 or later and reached 1,500 attempts, only Patrick Mahomes reached it further above the league. Other quarterbacks in Kyle Shanahan's offense since 2017 have rated 1.3 points above the league; Jimmy Garoppolo rated 8.9 above. The ten quarterbacks who qualified furthest above the league kept about four-fifths of that margin over their next 1,000 attempts.

Jamie SilvaOct 22, 20266 min read
Leading the NFL in efficiency at 5-0 has been worth less than half a win
The projection

Leading the NFL in efficiency at 5-0 has been worth less than half a win

From 1999 through 2025, 51 NFL teams won their first five games, and they won 63 percent of their remaining games. The ten that also led the league in net expected points added per play after five games won 66 percent of the rest; the other 41 won 63 percent. Over the 49ers' 12 remaining games that gap is about four-tenths of a win. San Francisco is 5-0, has outscored opponents by 61 points and ranks first in net expected points per play. The base rate projects about 12.6 to 12.9 wins.

Jamie SilvaOct 15, 20265 min read
Osa Odighizuwa ranks 108th against the run. Tampa Bay has the 2nd.
The trade market

Osa Odighizuwa ranks 108th against the run. Tampa Bay has the 2nd.

Through Week 4, PFF's grades rank A'Shawn Robinson 2nd of 113 interior defensive linemen against the run and 78th as a pass rusher. The 49ers' two interior regulars rank 108th and 101st against the run. Robinson is on a one-year, $10 million deal with no dead money for Tampa Bay if traded, and the 49ers would carry about $2 million of it against $41.4 million in cap space. From 2021 to 2025, two deadline-window trades involved an interior lineman aged 29 or older on an expiring deal: Johnathan Hankins for a sixth-round pick swap and Leonard Williams for a second and a fifth. Robinson's profile sits much closer to Hankins.

Jamie SilvaOct 9, 20267 min read
What would a Brandin Podziemski extension cost Golden State's 2027 room?
The valuation

What would a Brandin Podziemski extension cost Golden State's 2027 room?

Nine rookie-scale extensions below the maximum were signed in 2025 and 2026. Converted to a share of the salary cap, the four whose third seasons look most like Podziemski's 2025-26 started at an average of 13.4 percent, which is about $23.5 million against the league's projected 2027-28 cap of $176 million. That is roughly $6.5 million more than the $17 million hold Golden State would otherwise carry into next summer.

Jamie SilvaOct 8, 20265 min read
The Giants calls that carried a price hit 11 of 20. The prices expected 9.4.
The season, scored

The Giants calls that carried a price hit 11 of 20. The prices expected 9.4.

The Giants section of the Called Shots ledger finished the regular season at 38 right, 28 wrong and 2 void. A hit rate says little until it is set against the odds each call carried. The twenty priced calls beat their prices by about one and a half hits, all of it in five short-priced favorites, on a sample too small to call anything but calibrated.

Jamie SilvaOct 1, 20267 min read
Iowa's special-teams edge is 0.8 points, and three games have shrunk it
The rating

Iowa's special-teams edge is 0.8 points, and three games have shrunk it

In Bill Connelly's SP+ ratings after Week 3, Iowa's special teams rate 0.5 points per game better than an average FBS unit and Michigan's rate -0.3, a gap of 0.8 points. That is the same size as the gap between the two defences, which sit 9th and 11th, even though the special-teams ranks are 7th and 108th. Every FBS special-teams rating sits between -0.6 and 0.6, a range of 1.2 points, against about 30 points on offence and on defence. ESPN's own note says early-season ratings rest mainly on preseason projections, special teams included, and the table agrees: across all 138 teams the Week 3 special-teams ratings track the final preseason ones almost exactly, and 121 teams have moved by 0.1 or less. Michigan has moved up 0.2, from -0.5, and Iowa down 0.1, from 0.6, so the gap has shrunk from 1.1 to 0.8. Michigan's counting numbers through three games are clean: 2 of 2 on field goals, 10 of 10 on extra points, 43.5 yards a punt. Iowa has missed two extra points and a field goal and averages 17.0 yards on 11 punt returns, with a touchdown. One take filed, on where Michigan's rating finishes the regular season.

Jamie SilvaSep 24, 20266 min read
Is Bryce Underwood a better passer, or did he play Western Michigan and UTEP?
Like for like

Is Bryce Underwood a better passer, or did he play Western Michigan and UTEP?

Bryce Underwood's 2026 passing line looks better than his freshman line: 50.0 percent of his dropbacks have been successful plays against 41.4 percent in 2025, and his expected points added per dropback has risen from +0.14 to +0.31. By expected points, the schedule explains all of that; by success rate, somewhere between a sixth of it and nearly all of it. Forty-nine of his 68 dropbacks this season came against Western Michigan and UTEP, against 58 of 355 against Group of Five teams in 2025. Against Group of Five opponents he completed 66.1 percent in 2025 and 66.0 percent this season. Against Oklahoma, the one Power 4 defence in both seasons, his success rate went from 20.0 percent to 31.6 percent and his expected points from -0.05 to -0.02. Reweighting his 2025 rates to this season's schedule puts his matched expected points at +0.38 or +0.33, both above his actual +0.31; the matched success-rate gain is between 0.4 and 7.2 points, inside the sampling error of 68 plays. Michigan is not throwing less by choice: on first and second down in one-score games through three quarters it has passed on 44.2 percent of plays, against 44.4 percent in 2025. Iowa's pass defence ranked 13th of 136 last season by expected points allowed per pass play; Oklahoma's was 17th. One take filed, on yards per attempt in Big Ten games.

Jamie SilvaSep 23, 20268 min read
The Giants can hit with men on base. They are last at putting them there.
Runs without a swing

The Giants can hit with men on base. They are last at putting them there.

Read Thursday, September 17, 2026, off the league's play-by-play for all 153 San Francisco finals and cross-checked against Baseball Savant: the Giants have scored 649 runs, 278 of them on home runs, leaving 371 runs that did not come on a swing over the fence. That is 2.42 a game, twenty-sixth of thirty clubs, against a league average of 2.67. The usual explanation does not survive contact with the numbers. San Francisco hits .263 with runners in scoring position, ninth best in baseball and above the league's .253. What it does not do is put men there. The Giants have drawn 429 walks, fewer than any other club, with Toronto next at 432 and the league averaging 513.6. They are ninth in batting average and twenty-seventh in on-base percentage, an eighteen-place fall that is the largest in the major leagues. Their share of runs on home runs, 42.8 percent, is ninth of thirty against a league figure of 40.5 percent, which makes it ordinary. One take filed.

Jamie SilvaSep 17, 20267 min read
My August Estimate Said $57 Million. Over The Cap Says $45,532,257.
The audit

My August Estimate Said $57 Million. Over The Cap Says $45,532,257.

Read in both books Thursday, September 10, 2026: San Francisco leads the NFL in cap space at $45,532,257 on Over The Cap and $50,209,913 on Spotrac. Over The Cap's charges rose $22,523,241 since August 27, against a modelled $9,842,532 to $10,825,332, so the August estimate missed by between $11,697,909 and $12,680,709. The practice squad landed inside the modelled range at $4,617,000 and dead money was light by $756,599. The miss is the reserve lists: injured reserve, reserve/PUP and one suspension carry $39,632,011, of which $3,419,563 reached the published number in August, and none of the three was an input to the estimate. The gap between the two books has collapsed from $11,991,268 to $4,677,656, and $6,302,000 of what is left is the two sites filing one player's absence under different headings at different prices. Trent Williams remains $2,499,997 apart, unchanged for thirty-three days, and that one contract is larger than the entire $2,059,992 active-roster difference. Of three calls resolving September 15, two are on track right and one is wrong by $322,344.

Jamie SilvaSep 10, 20268 min read
Nine Finished Michigan Classes Top Out At 68 Percent Blue-Chip, And The 2027 Board Reads 71.4
Recruiting math

Nine Finished Michigan Classes Top Out At 68 Percent Blue-Chip, And The 2027 Board Reads 71.4

Michigan's 2027 recruiting class is 71.4 percent blue-chip in the 247Sports Composite, fifteen four-stars and no five-stars out of twenty-one commitments, read Thursday morning. Michigan's last nine finished classes ran from 35.0 to 68.0 percent, median 54.5, and they carried between 20 and 26 names. The number being quoted now is a rate over a class that is four commitments short of the program's own median. Measured across the 26 programs on both this morning's 2027 board and the finished 2026 board, the unfinished share runs a median of 6.6 points and a mean of 7.7 points above the finished one, and 20 of the 26 sit above their own finished figure. That puts Michigan's 2027 class on a path to about 64 percent, which would be fifth of the ten classes measured here.

Jamie SilvaSep 3, 20266 min read
$11,991,268 Of The 49ers' Cap Space Depends On Which Book You Open
The two books

$11,991,268 Of The 49ers' Cap Space Depends On Which Book You Open

Read in both books Thursday morning: San Francisco leads the league in cap space on Over The Cap at $68,055,498 and on Spotrac at $80,046,766. The $11,991,268 between them is not an error in either. It decomposes into a cap limit, a pricing difference on the top 51 contracts, injured reserve, the exempt list and dead money, and it sums to the dollar. What the accounting flip at the start of the regular season adds is between $9,842,532 and $10,825,332, which is less than the two books already disagree by.

Jamie SilvaAug 27, 20267 min read
Golden State's First 44 Games Paid Both Prices Of Curry's Own Bar, 39 Wins And 42
What the bar costs

Golden State's First 44 Games Paid Both Prices Of Curry's Own Bar, 39 Wins And 42

Stephen Curry set his own bar in April: keep the core together, stay alive, get a chance at a playoff series. Priced against five full seasons of Western Conference results, the cheap reading of that sentence costs a median of 39 wins and the expensive one costs 42. Golden State won 37. Its record before Butler's injury was a 47-win pace and its record after was a 26-win pace, and the published data cannot say which absence caused which.

Jamie SilvaAug 20, 20266 min read
The Giants Have One 40-Man Spot Left. December 1 Is What Makes It Expensive.
Roster math

The Giants Have One 40-Man Spot Left. December 1 Is What Makes It Expensive.

Counted entry by entry Thursday morning: 45 names on the Giants' 40-man roster, six on the 60-day injured list, 39 against the limit, one spot open. Two contracts have been selected in the last six days and neither was a prospect decision. What a September call-up costs in a year when two labor agreements expire at different times, and the part of it nobody outside the building can see.

Jamie SilvaAug 13, 20266 min read
Paraag Marathe Left, And Seventy-Two Void Seasons Stayed
Contract structure

Paraag Marathe Left, And Seventy-Two Void Seasons Stayed

Twenty-one contracts on the 49ers' 2026 cap sheet carry void years, 72 of them in total. Mike Evans' deal decomposed to the dollar, why the books close $450,000 short, and the reason the executive credited with that architecture had already handed off the job that produces it.

Jamie SilvaAug 6, 20266 min read
Fourteen Trades Into July, One Top-100 Name Has Moved, And Not For A Rental
Deadline math

Fourteen Trades Into July, One Top-100 Name Has Moved, And Not For A Rental

Fourteen completed July trades, one top-100 name, and it moved for a controllable infielder rather than a rental. Against that market, a buyer takes on two and a half times as much salary for Robbie Ray as for Tyler Mahle, whose component numbers are nine hundredths of a run apart.

Jamie SilvaJul 30, 20266 min read
About $39 Million Of The 49ers' Cap Space Did Not Come From The 2026 Salary Cap
The cap sheet

About $39 Million Of The 49ers' Cap Space Did Not Come From The 2026 Salary Cap

The 49ers have more cap space than any team in football. Roughly 55 percent of it arrived from outside the 2026 salary cap, and about $7 million of that is an insurance policy paying out on Nick Bosa's knee.

Jamie SilvaJul 26, 20267 min read
Luis Arraez Is Worth What He Looks Like. Robbie Ray Is Worth 1.3 Runs Less.
Deadline math

Luis Arraez Is Worth What He Looks Like. Robbie Ray Is Worth 1.3 Runs Less.

One of the Giants' two rentals is having a season the components support. The other has the rotation's best ERA and its second-worst FIP. Pricing them the same way is the mistake available between now and August 3.

Jamie SilvaJul 26, 20266 min read