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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 →

2Held up
0Missed
15Still open

2 calls resolved. Too few for a hit rate to mean anything, so there is not one.

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

The work, newest first

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
Nine Finished Michigan Classes Top Out At 68 Percent Blue-Chip, And The 2027 Board Reads 71.4
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
$11,991,268 Of The 49ers' Cap Space Depends On Which Book You Open
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
Golden State's First 44 Games Paid Both Prices Of Curry's Own Bar, 39 Wins And 42
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
The Giants Have One 40-Man Spot Left. December 1 Is What Makes It Expensive.
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
Paraag Marathe Left, And Seventy-Two Void Seasons Stayed
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
Fourteen Trades Into July, One Top-100 Name Has Moved, And Not For A Rental
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
About $39 Million Of The 49ers' Cap Space Did Not Come From The 2026 Salary Cap
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
Luis Arraez Is Worth What He Looks Like. Robbie Ray Is Worth 1.3 Runs Less.