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description=Analytical but narrative -- blending the past and future of sportswriting. Click to read Neil’s Substack, by Neil Paine, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.;
author=Neil Paine;

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neil s substack substack subscribe sign in home notes basketball baseball football hockey racing other sports forecast models weekly round ups the junk drawer archive about spain the best team maybe ever won one of the best world cups ever eventually la roja dominated argentina from start to finish but needed extra time to complete a record breaking championship run 13 hrs ago neil paine 25 1 1 2026 world cup odds tracker aggregating each team s polymarket odds to advance through and win the 2026 fifa world cup 13 hrs ago neil paine 77 20 spain won t fall behind argentina can t be put away something has to give spain has not trailed for a single minute of the knockout stage argentina has trailed more than any finalist since 1966 only to keep escaping late jul 17 neil paine 19 2 we don t know what we want from all star games fans rejected the nba s artificial spectacle then baseball gave them something more real and they hated that too jul 16 neil paine 7 1 2 what a major less season would cost scottie scheffler golf s aging curve says the world s no 1 player still has time to build his major résumé but it also says every empty prime year matters jul 15 neil paine 19 2 updating models view all 2026 nascar cup series driver rankings tracking the top drivers in the sport all season long 41 mins ago neil paine 9 1 3 2026 mlb elo power ratings playoff odds wins above replacement war rankings the following table is a list of mlb teams with their elo ratings and their predicted wins throughout the 2026 season 2 hrs ago neil paine 21 3 21 2026 wnba elo team power rankings and player rankings power ratings for every wnba team and player this season 2 hrs ago neil paine 13 8 2026 world cup odds tracker aggregating each team s polymarket odds to advance through and win the 2026 fifa world cup 13 hrs ago neil paine 77 20 all posts view all spain the best team maybe ever won one of the best world cups ever eventually la roja dominated argentina from start to finish but needed extra time to complete a record breaking championship run 13 hrs ago neil paine 25 1 1 spain won t fall behind argentina can t be put away something has to give spain has not trailed for a single minute of the knockout stage argentina has trailed more than any finalist since 1966 only to keep escaping late jul 17 neil paine 19 2 we don t know what we want from all star games fans rejected the nba s artificial spectacle then baseball gave them something more real and they hated that too jul 16 neil paine 7 1 2 what a major less season would cost scottie scheffler golf s aging curve says the world s no 1 player still has time to build his major résumé but it also says every empty prime year matters jul 15 neil paine 19 2 baseball s all stars live in the present first half performance dominates all star game selections more than ever except in the bullpen where reputation still matters some jul 14 neil paine 10 2 2 the hr derby s lefties are poised to break the bank citizens bank park has become the most lefty friendly derby venue in recent history giving kyle schwarber and bryce harper among others a built in jul 13 neil paine 20 4 the worst players in baseball might be pretty good or they used to be at least baseball s worst performers are not always the worst players sometimes they re just the ones with enough track record to be allowed to fail jul 10 neil paine 17 1 2 the world cup s party crashers make their last stand the greatest final four in world cup history is within reach and france argentina spain and england should each win but the odds say at least one jul 8 neil paine 19 1 2 the past month has broken the 2026 mlb season one of the strangest junes in baseball history has thrown everything we thought we knew about this year into doubt jul 8 neil paine 22 2 more talent and one big fifa reversal still bought the usmnt the same old result despite higher expectations than ever the stars and stripes bowed out in the round of 16 like always jul 7 neil paine 28 1 4 world cup soccer is a lot less random than you think for a chaotic sport where most games are decided by 1 goal the better team usually prevails especially in the biggest games jul 6 neil paine 12 1 the celtics won the future and lost the plot boston may have won the asset math but they traded jaylen brown to a rival at the exact moment they should have been maximizing the present jul 2 neil paine 51 7 recommendations view all 142 statistical thinking in sports analytics ron yurko fiddler on the proof zach wissner gross sportfolio by nikola vuković nikola vuković cfa nate ryan nate ryan how to succeed in sportswriting without really trying gare joyce 2026 neil paine privacy terms collection notice start your substack get the app substack is the home for great culture this site requires javascript to run correctly please turn on javascript or unblock scripts