So, anyway, I’m going to spend a bit of time on “Love Story”, by Taylor Swift. Why “Love Story”? Because my neighbors yesterday were blaring it for several hours right next to their home-created hockey rink and I have not been able to get the song out of my head since then. As a result, I have not only learned all of the lyrics to the song, but have had ample time to attempt to understand the myriad references in the “US Billboard Top 40 Mainstream number-one single” of February 28, 2009. Don’t get me wrong; I actually like the song, I’m just going to mock it also. I don’t like having songs stuck in my head.

So it’s apparently somewhat about Romeo and Juliet. Apart from the “they don’t kill themselves at the end” and the “tragedy” parts, I think Taylor (yeah, I first typed “Ms. Swift” and then realized how wrong that felt, so it’s Taylor) nails it. The first few stanzas are a pretty clear indicator of the first few scenes of the play, particularly the party/ball where Romeo and Juliet, you know, first fall in love or whatever. There’s some clever references within those verses themselves (“So I sneak out to the garden to see you / We keep quiet ’cause we’re dead if they knew”), which, of course, allude to the famous “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo” scenes (as one can tell, my Romeo and Juliet is a little weak on the edges. What can I say? Hamlet‘s my favorite Shakespeare play).

There’s also a clever little reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, in the next line: “‘Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter”, which I really appreciate; not only does it utterly capture Hester Prynne’s isolation, but it also captures the primary root cause of that isolation, which was her love. I’m not sure that the narrator is necessarily a woman constrained by Puritan society, but the use of the reference really adds to the depth of the narrator’s feelings (in my opinion).

Interestingly, for a pop song (yes, I know it’s technically country, but let’s get real here; Taylor Swift is as much pop as she is country), the change in tempo and vocal usage is accompanied by a change in mood in the song: “I got tired of waiting / Wondering if you were ever coming around / My faith in you is fading”. That’s the Romeo and Juliet we’re used to, as it’s darker and far less bright, and the next line (“When I met you on the outskirts of town”) is, I imagine, a reference to what Romeo and Juliet were intending to do when they left the town. Or something of the sort.

Could the song then function as an idyllic version of Romeo and Juliet, a Utopian hope for them to live happily ever after? Whenever one (correction: one with a heart) reads the story for the first time, one wants them together, to live away from the strife in their lives. Wouldn’t it be nice to see “He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring / And said, marry me Juliet / You’ll never have to be alone / I love you and that’s all I really know /I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress”. The dad thing is especially unrealistic. It’s almost as if Taylor wanted to preserve the love and beauty of Romeo and Juliet while glossing over the rest of it.

Maybe I’m just reading too much into it (y’think?!?). Maybe the chorus (“It’s a love story baby just say yes”) is really the intention of the song. Maybe we just need to pretend like we’re watching the play when we listen to the lyrics. Or maybe people just don’t listen to the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs.

What does Taylor say?

This is a song I wrote when I was dating a guy who wasn’t exactly the popular choice. His situation was a little complicated, but I didn’t care. I started this song with the line “This love is difficult, but it’s real.” When I wrote the ending to this song, I felt like it was the ending every girl wants to go with her love story. It’s the ending that I want. You want a guy who doesn’t care what anyone thinks, what anyone says. He just says, “Marry me, Juliet, I love you, and that’s all I really know.” It’s sort of told in a character kind of thing, where it’s Romeo and Juliet, and it’s not me saying that I’m getting married or anything…but I think it’s fun to write about it.

More thoughts after the jump.

Really, I think people should listen to the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs. I’m going to be honest; half the fun of her songs is the lyrics. And the music videos. And the storylines.

It’s really the last one. Her songs are especially alluring because they’re so developed; each one of her songs, through the lyrics and the  music video, has a theme to it, a story. Picture to Burn has a long-winded progression of Taylor’s anger and disappointment at her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend (as well his letting her drive his truck. Seriously, who gets upset about that?). White Horse is even more developed, as it follows the progression of Taylor’s “relationship” with a boy who ends up cheating on her and her eventual denial (to which a certain friend of mine actually leaped up, cheering, at the end of the song. Some people are a little strange).

Fifteen, which is probably the least Taylor-y of all of Taylor Swift’s songs given that it’s Abigail as the main character, not Taylor herself, follows the progression of first love, and its end, in the freshman year of high school. This brings up two other great things about Taylor Swift’s music; how easy it is to associate with and the fact that it teaches a lesson to the people who watch it. I’m not a teenage girl, but my understanding is that freshman love is fleeting and it can be very hard on a kid. Fifteen’s the story of any-girl, then.

That’s the same with Teardrops on my Guitar, which, in Taylor’s words, is about a guy:

He was a guy who I met freshman year of high school. He had the most beautiful eyes and this amazing smile. He was so cute and nice – and he talked to me every day… about his girlfriend! Which is like the screeching brake sound. But I had it bad for him. And I just kept thinking, ‘Why am I so invisible to him? Why does he have to have a girlfriend?’

Does that happen to a lot of girls? I know for sure that it happens to a lot of guys (although we don’t write songs about it, nor do we complain in the same way the girls do…no, I’m just kidding! Stop pummeling me!). It also tells girls (well, people) to be more assertive, or aggressive. That’s a theme in Taylor’s music: her songs are about her, are about her own experiences, so they ring true to us (which, I’ll note, completely ignores the fact that her songs also often have great background music).

The prize, of course, goes to You Belong With Me, which, while not the greatest music video of all time, is certainly a good one. It has all the elements: a storyline, good lyrics, a good beat, Taylor Swift in a double-role (something I actually only realized today), a co-star who was in a Christmas episode of House, and some other stuff that I’ve forgotten. Really. It’s good. I can see why it’s good.

If I’m a parent, I know why I let my kids listen to Taylor Swift (although, just as an fyi, one reason I’ve heard that’s most likely the correct one is “because she’s clean” [meaning that she's a good girl, not that she had a shower, although I'd guess both are true]. If Taylor has a scandal [which I doubt will happen; she certainly seems anchored, although it could just be an act], she’s probably screwed out of her key demographic. Then, again, it didn’t hurt Miley Cyrus). I know why I might listen to Taylor Swift as well.

I’d rather I’d not be forced to by neighbors, however.

That’s it for now; I don’t have the effort to talk about SIERA right now, but I promise I’ll have a post on sports up, maybe tomorrow. This is ostensibly supposed to be a baseball blog, after all.

Look, normally I’m a huge fan of ESPN. The idea of a channel (or five) for sports, 24/7 really appeals to the side of me that is convinced that there is nothing else in life besides sports (that’s the majority side of me, for anyone who knows anything about me). I’m also a huge fan of having multiple channels, so that multiple myriad sporting events can be on each channel at once. I’ll be totally honest; it’s addicting. I’m one of those people who watches Sportscenter. For hours. For the same news over and over again. (quick guess: how much life do I possess? person who comes closest IN THE COMMENTS [hint hint] gets a surprise!).

I also like tennis (that’s a surprising one, no?). I do not possess the willpower, nor the time, however, to stay up until 2:00 am to watch the Australian Open women’s (or men’s) finals, no matter how good they are (sidebar: the only time I’ve canceled everything to stay up and watch sports in the middle of the night was the last World Cup. I was in India and for about the first month of my trip, I was still on American time). The idea of showing the games on tape delay (something that ESPN2 has apparently grown very fond of, as I’ve seen everything from Djokovic-Tsonga and Murray-Nadal to Dulko-Ivanovic on tape delay at between 10:00 and 2:00), while, on the surface somewhat prehistoric (you know, those times before texting and iPhones) appealed to me.

Seemed to appeal to the executives at ESPN2 as well, since they advertised that they would show the Henin-Williams final in prime time, as well as an “encore presentation” of the men’s final at 10 am Eastern time. So, even though it was a Saturday night, I canceled all my plans and settled down on the couch at 9:00 pm to see Justine the Comeback Kid and the Defending Champion duke it out in a match that I already knew Serena Williams had won in three sets. Basically, I expected to see three sets.

I saw two.

They played two. Seriously. They played around half of the first set, the second half of the second set, and the third set. For all the advertising, for all the talk about putting the game in prime time, it seemed that the two-hour time slot rampaged past my desire to see what ended up being a great women’s final. Sure, the sections shown were most likely the most “action-packed” (although having entertaining events with Dick Enberg commentating tennis is inordinately painful), but for actual fans, for thinking fans, it isn’t about the part where Justine won fifteen points in a row to close out the second set. It’s about her lead-up, how she managed to figure out Serena Williams’ defenses, about WHY she could do it earlier.

Now I understand the overwhelming compulsion to effusively show thunderous action that is the highlights of the day’s Winter X Games, and I understand that, no doubt, there were throngs of people gathered at 11:00 pm to see snowboard halfpipes or whatever (if you like Winter X Games, I apologize; I hate it when people ridicule my sports too), but for us tennis fans, it’s a utter, complete, total insult to cut off 1/3 of a match. Come on, ESPN2. Come on.

You know what makes it worse? The game itself was not much longer than the necessary space in the time slot (it was 2:07 hours for a 2:00 hour time slot) and the fact that ESPN2 was scheduling tapings all evening means that the time slot could have been expanded to accommodate the length of the women’s match; after all, it’s a tape delay. And you know what’s worse than that? The actual play that they showed ended at 10:44, meaning that there was another quarter of an hour where they could have shown the game (they showed the trophy presentation and speeches instead).

If they removed all the pre-match discussions, the analysis between sets, and a bit of the unnecessary advertising, they could have most likely fit the match in their schedule. If they had pushed everything back at most a half-hour (something they could have no doubt done), they could have fit the match right in. But they didn’t. This upsets me.

This morning, I watched the entirety of the men’s match on tape delay and, with the exception of the third set, Henin-Williams was a significantly better match (the quality of the tennis might have been not very different, but the skill level/skill at which the opponents were playing was significantly different and better in the women’s match). The men’s match was the once that received the better coverage and, well, I could see all of. I’m not saying gender has something to do with it, I’m just saying…*

* – (of course, it’s just as likely because Federer is an icon of the sport, but still! Justine’s a great story and this is America; surely people are Serena Williams fans? Right? Right?)

Bah. It doesn’t really matter. I know some people have been expecting rants from me, so I’m glad to oblige with this little mini-rant. To be honest, I’m much more at home talking about the finals.

Analysis after the “jump”, broken into little sections about various thoughts of mine.

Stats courtesy www.australianopen.com. Their serve analyzing tool is awesome. You should check it out.

Murray thought #1: Service Numbers:

Food for thought.

As – aces
1S% – first serve percentage
2SW% – second serve winning percentage
RP% – percentage of receiving points won by Federer on Murray’s serve

STAT          SET 1          SET 2          SET 3

As              0                    2                8

1S%           45%               59%           60%

2SW%        33%               54%           60%

RP%           46%               39%            31%

I think this really encapsulates exactly how Murray went about his service games in the match. The last row should be a fairly good indicator of how successful Federer was against Murray’s serve; one can see that this indicator goes down as the other indicators go up (not really a surprise). Murray’s service game drastically improved as the match went on, which is essentially what the last row seeks to say.

As indicated by the top three rows, I think this can be credited to two factors: Murray’s improved first serve and the impact this had on his second serve. As the match opened, I cannot recall a single service game where Murray actually looked comfortable and powerful against Federer; as the match bore on, Murray steadily became more and more comfortable and his first serve returned. One of the primary marks of success in a Grand Slam is winning service games and as I looked earlier, one of the main components of this is having a dominant first serve. Murray’s returned earlier in the match (particularly in the tiebreak) and his first serve returned, his service games improved.

The second factor is his improved success on his second serve. As the game wore on, Murray was able to increase the number of points won on his second serve. I’m not totally sure why this is the case, but my theory is that it had to do with the placement of his serves and the dominance of his first serve. Around half of his second serves are on the edges of the court and, from my memory, those were later in the match; perhaps he gained more confidence or control over his serve as the match wore on. His first serve was already illustrated to be more dominant, so it could be some kind of residual effect (which I’m not sure exists or not; I’d like to check that out).

Murray thought #2: Playing Style

There was much discussion among the commentators of the match about Murray’s style of play. I have my own impressions.

In the first set particularly, Murray and Federer seemed to be playing in two quarters of the court, instead of the whole thing. Murray would hit his backhand to Federer’s backhand, who would strike back, and so forth. The commentators (Patrick MacEnroe particularly) believed that this was a purposeful strategy on the part of Murray to play the game on his backhand side, his stronger one. I’m skeptical. It may simply be that I was watching Federer more than Murray, but it seemed to me to be a strategy on the part of Federer as well.

Federer would control the ball with his backhand and go progressively to the farther and farther to Murray’s left, forcing him to react, move to the center of the court, and move back to the left. It seemed to me that Murray was having problems with movement to his left and, it seemed just to me that Federer recognized it as well. Later in the match Murray was constantly touching his left calf, the muscle that he would have pulled had he been quickly lunging to the left and I’m convinced that Federer saw this prior to the match and decided to pick up on it.

The thought of Roger Federer, a player with as much control and strength as he has, tamely going along with his opponent’s strategy in a Grand Slam final and winning(!) seems very far-fetched to me. I’d prefer to think that it was a purposeful strategy on the part of Federer as well (or even both. One could argue that it was a happy medium between the two strategies.

However, as Murray became better and better as the match continued, one thing that woke was his aggressiveness. Now, unsurprisingly, I’m normally against any player being too aggressive or attacking (or really being attacking in any form), especially against one of the greatest players in the history of the game, but the more Murray opened up his forehand (and Federer’s), the better he played. In the third set particularly, Murray was moving Federer around and Roger Federer seemed very much out of sorts. While I normally wouldn’t endorse such a strategy, for Murray, frankly, it worked.

Ahh, what a match it could have been. If Murray came out firing from the beginning and the entire match was like the third set (instead of the backhand passing of the first two sets), I have trouble imagining that the match would have been a straight-sets victory for the Swiss superstar. It takes a very close match to get to a 13-11 tiebreak and, to be honest, it looked like it could have been longer.

As one last note to the above, Murray as many unforced errors (18) in the last set as in the two before. In the last set Federer also hit 18 unforced errors.*

* – setting aside for the moment, that is, that I think there’s no real distinction between “forced” and “unforced” errors. Just like with the statistic “errors” in baseball. I used unforced errors here because www.australianopen.com, where I am getting my statistics, only has unforced errors on a set-to-set basis.

Federer thought: Underhanded Compliments

Shorter thought. Normally I’m a huge fan of Roger Federer because I find him a gentlemen (although no idea if that’s actually how he is in real life). He’s generally quite polite, kind, and complimentary to his opponents both before and after matches, particularly in finals. It’s a good habit and endearing as well.

I don’t really like how he dealt with Andy Murray here. Between his comments prior to the match about how Murray wasn’t his level of play or after the match when his compliment to Murray was how Murray played a “good tournament” (as opposed to “a great game”) didn’t really make me like him all that much. It may just have been his delivery, but the latter comments came across as somewhat bratty. I don’t like bratty. Bratty isn’t good.*

*-If Federer is becoming brattier, that might be different from the natural progression of other players. Agassi, for example, started as a total brat and became a cerebral superstar as he aged. We can see how legendary brats like MacEnroe and Connors have mellowed since they began to broadcast. I’m not sure if Federer will ever be their level, but there’s a certain arrogance to him that reminds me of Sampras. Sampras, of course, is still very arrogant.

Is Federer afraid of Murray or does he just think Murray is well below his league? I’d be willing to wager it’s a combination of both. Federer’s still a great player and I respect him a great deal, but I’d respect him even more if he continued to hold to the high bar that he has set himself with his past actions.

Williams thought: Racism?

How many black players on the tour can you name? I get six (James Blake, Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, and Donald Young). There are more (there’s even a black tennis pros site), but if I can’t tell them off of the top of my head, the chances that some anonymous people who are reading this blog know more is quite low (and if it is the case, please comment! I’ll be very impressed. I only knew Young because he partnered with Melanie Oudin once; I barely know who he is). That says something about tennis.

Anyway, the defending champion, now-five-time-champion Serena Williams did not have a match that I can remember where the crowd was behind her. That’s not a surprise. She’s one of the aforementioned types of people (a brat) who hasn’t been on her best behavior recently. She’s also American and, due enormous resources and the heavy-handed international presence of the country, Americans rarely are super-liked by foreign fans (there’s also a tradition of Americans being brats. Huh. Wonder if they are related. And, yes, I may get into politics in this blog. Currently I’m on sports. Comment if you want politics!).

I’m just curious as to what percentage of the lack of support is due to her country and her antics and what percentage is due to some unconscious racism. My guess? Very little is due to the color of her skin. It’s easy enough to dislike someone who verbally abuses linesmen.

Henin thought #1: Better Finals

This was the first three-set women’s final since 2006, when Amelie Mauresmo defeated Henin (then Henin-Hardenne; she’s since separated from her husband) in the final at Wimbledon. Since then, seven women, more than any other four-year stretch in WTA history, have held the #1 ranking. Doesn’t that mean we have parity? Does it really? Are better finals better or is parity better?

Personally, I’d like both. With the Williams sisters, Henin, Clijsters, and ten million Russians all returning to tennis strength, I think we might just get that.

Henin thought#2: Match Strategy

I was going to comment on how easily Clijsters and Henin managed to get to the finals of their respective majors, but their both great players and I’ve already covered the idea of parity so I think I’ll leave that alone for now. I expect a flurry of media articles on the subject, so I don’t want to flood your inbox.

I’ve always remembered Henin for her defense. She was always quick on the court, excellent movement, and that amazing backhand. I remember her standing toe-to-toe with players who were far bigger and much more powerful/stronger than her (Amelie Mauresmo comes to mind) and forcing them into long rallies where she would run them down or make shots that they could not stop, all the time using their power against them. That’s what’s so fun about Henin. She’s small but she’s tenacious and I love players who play good defense.

So what happened? She was unusually aggressive against Serena Williams, a player in the Mauresmo mold. Henin is more versatile, a better athlete, and a better technical player than Williams but Williams’ one advantage is her incredible strength/serving ability. So where was the Henin I remember? Henin was aggressive, attempted to make every shot a winner; she was far different from the way I remember her.

Part of this, I imagine, was reactive. If you look at the statistics for the match, Henin and Williams are nearly equal in every statistic except serving and break points: Williams has an advantage in aces (12 to 4), fastest serve speed (198 kmph to 179 kmph) and break point success (55% to 31%). From what I remember, it was simply that Henin had more opportunities to break and could not, since Williams would use an ace or a big serve, something Henin was not utilizing.

I imagine this is partially just Henin not having played for a long period of time. At one point in her career she was a great server; she’s just been on a very long break. I guess this will come back. One last table/food for thought:

UEr – Ratio of Williams unforced errors: Henin unforced errors (simplified whenever possible)
Scr – score in set, Williams-Henin.

STAT         SET1       SET2       SET3

UEr            1:1          13:7        9:10

Scr            6-4          3-6        6-2

Funny how it just boils down to mistakes.*

*-Yes, yes, I know unforced errors are badly defined, stop reminding me, self.

Blog thoughts?

You have something you want me to write about? Something you dislike about this? anything? Please comment! I love it when people comment, shows that people actually read this, and it makes me feel better. Also, I might just do a personalized rant/analysis jest foar youuuu. And you know you want that. *wink*

Seriously, if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, concerns, anything, please comment.

I also accept complaints about length.

I’m a huge sports fan, so a lot of this will be about sports and baseball especially (because baseball is quantifiable and very prone to statistical thinking). I’ve published lots of stuff in varied places all over the internet, but at least here I can put what I want. There really won’t be a rhyme or reason to what’s exactly on here, but that’s on purpose; that’s how I think. Hey, for all I know, there might just be short stories or something here too!

Please comment! I have the little hit-tracker on the side to satisfy my curiosity/overwhelming need for ego-stroking, but if you comment, that makes me feel even better! And that’s what you want…right?

I have a list of sites on the sidebar; mostly baseball stats websites for now, but I’ll probably add more later. Give them a check if you’re interested based on the description: I promise only to link to the very best.

I’ll have a “jump” in all of my articles, just because I think it’s really cool-looking.

Without further rambling, the article! Tennis! Yay!

Anyway, I’ve been watching a fair bit of the Australian Open (by “a fair bit”, I mean “far far too much”) and generally am one of the sorts to enjoy tennis. By implication, this means that I’m also the type to be curious as to what exactly makes tennis players click – how do they do what they do? Specifically, in a recent match between Roger Federer and Nikolay Davydenko (the numbers one and six in the world, respectively. No idea how they met in the quarterfinals; if someone understands the Australian Open seeding, please tell me), it seemed that the primary difference between the players was that whenever Federer got into trouble in his service games, he had an ace (or two, or three, or even just a big serve) to throw out to even out the game, while Davydenko had an unfortunate habit of double-faulting in said situations.

Naturally, a lot of this is just from my eyes (which are, of course, simultaneously the most reliable and unreliable sources of information in the world), but this got me thinking: how well do aces and double faults predict a player holding serve? Naturally, players who have better serves will have more aces and will hold their serve more often (here in America, the player who is immediately associated with this kind of thinking is Andy Roddick), but to what extent is that true? I wanted to investigate further and, since “having a life” is beyond me, I decided to do just that.

So I used a sample size of sixty-three male players. More specifically, I looked at their success over the last year. There are several problems with this dataset: first, I used the totally-arbitrary cut-off of fifteen games played. I have no idea if this cut-off is too small or too high, while second, I used the data from the whole year, so I’m combining surfaces – never a good idea!  Oh well, at least it’s a fun exercise. Third, I’m not accounting for player ability. Federer and Rafael Nadal are weighed the same as Lukas Lacko.

All statistics courtesy tennisinsight.com.

Actual data after the “jump”.

Okay, here we are. Glad you made the horrific crossing over the chasm.

So, my first idea was to see whether the ratio of aces to double faults fit well with the data for holding serve. That’s the most intuitive logic; using a baseball analogy, a pitcher is good if they get strikeouts and limit walks. The aces are free points (strikeouts) and the double faults are free points to the opponent (walks). I think the analogy works pretty well.

The data, on the other hand, did not.

Click to enlarge.

The r-squared value for the regression was 38.7%, meaning that, in the dataset, aces/double faults accounted for 38.7% of the variation in serve hold percentage. So I altered my idea and went with what seemed to be correct from the data – only looking at aces.

Click to enlarge.

The r-squared value for this regression was 45.0%, a significant improvement. I was relatively confident that at least some of the remaining variance in the dataset could be held because of double faults, so using the magic of Minitab, I performed a multiple regression using both Aces / Game and Double Faults / Game as predictors for service hold percentage. The r-squared value of this regression was 50.5%, meaning that using only aces and double faults, one can account for over half the variation in service game win percentage. That’s pretty incredible. The regression equation for this new regression was:

Service Hold Percentage = 77.2 + 15.0 Aces / Game – 23.2 Double Faults / Game

I’m not sure if that means anything, but I might as well pretend that it does! There were several interesting points in the data:

Tomas Berdych (world #21), Janko Tipsarevic (world #36), and Stanislas Wawrinka (world #19) all had the exact same aces/game (0.53), double faults/game (0.20) and thus aces/double faults (2.65). Their service hold percentage was, respectively, 81.4%, 78.7%, and 82.2%. I’m somewhat confident that this variation can be traced back to their relative rankings (and, from extrapolation, their relative abilities).

Fabrice Santoro (world #67), Mischa Zverev (world #78), and Rik de Voest (world #239) all had the exact same aces/game (0.38), double faults/game (0.15) and aces/double faults (2.53). Their service hold percentage was, respectively, 75.2%, 75.5%, and 77.9%. That’s pretty close and seems to fall in line with their rankings.

Another note is that the first graph maybe suggests that there’s an upper limit on this kind of regression; once one reaches a certain level, there are other factors (talent, primarily) which affect winning service games far more. Perhaps this exercise would be better done with junior-level tennis (if anyone has those statistics anywhere)?

I’d be interested to see if this data is similar for women, or if it changes depending on the tournament/era/whatnot. Nonetheless, it was a fun exercise!

UPDATE, January 30, 12:18 pm:

I added more variables and ran more regression analyses. I specifically wanted to look at the effect of the first serve, so I calculate the percentage of points won overall in the game won the first serve by each of the players in the set and added that to the regression, along with the percentage of second serve points won (unsurprisingly, those two were inversely correlated; if a player maintains a similar service hold percentage as another player and have very different percentages of points won on the first serve, logically the second player would have to make up the gap on the second serve). The r-squared value of this regression was 60.0%. Here’s the equation:

Service Hold Percentage = 12.8 + 42.3 Point Percentage Won-1st Serve + 0.867 Second Serve Win Percentage + 6.33 Aces / Game + 3.9 Double Faults / Game

One point of interest is that if one removes the double faults / game from the regression, one gets an r-squared value of 59.9% and actually a higher adjusted r-squared value (57.9% to 57.3%). I’m more inclined towards simpler equations, so here’s the equation without double faults / game:

Service Hold Percentage = 14.6 + 39.1 Point Percentage Won-1st Serve + 0.866 Second Serve Win Percentage + 6.96 Aces / Game

Somewhat surprisingly (or maybe not), the coefficients essentially remain the same. Also, as a note, the previous regression, one has a 1:2 relationship between the coefficients of aces/game to double faults/game. I wouldn’t read too much into. My gut feeling is that double faults are rare enough in the men’s game that they simply don’t influence a regression as large as this one.

I also calculated the Pearson Correlation Coefficient for every variable tested against Service Hold Percentage and surprisingly, the closest to 1/-1 was the percentage of points overall that was won on the first serve with a value of 0.615. Not a great value, but something to consider.

As a note: when going over my spreadsheet, I realized that I’d left off World #12 Gael Monfils completely by mistake. I’ve since added him, but there are no super-significant changes to the regressions.

I may attempt to do this same regression with the women just to see the differences. My gut believes that first serve percentage, aces/game, and double faults/game will play a larger role; particularly aces and double faults, the former of which is rarer in the women’s game and the latter of which is more common.

MORRIS = Jack Morris
STIEB = Dave Stieb
SABERHAGEN = Bret Saberhagen
MARTINEZ = Dennis Martinez
FLANAGAN = Mike Flanagan

From this, I think I get that Stieb and Saberhagen were far superior to Morris.
Martinez is Morris’ most similar player (B-Ref similarity scores). I get that he was a better pitcher.
Flanagan, a player no one has ever heard of, provides a very comparable case to Jack Morris in terms of his pitching profile.

In much of this period, there were better pitchers (Roger Clemens in the later half, Bert Blyleven throughout, etc).
This little table is only to illustrate:
a) Jack Morris’ win total is extremely inflated
b) Jack Morris was not the best pitcher of the 1980s

I apologize for the horrendous state of the table. I have no idea how to make actually good tables in WordPress.  It looked better in NotePad. I now realize I probably should have done it in Word with a regular table. My bad.

RS/GS is run support in games started. This is the number of runs scored by the pitcher’s team.
RS/GS is NOT under the control of the pitcher. It is an effect of the strength of the team’s offense.
It includes runs scored AFTER the pitcher left.
ERA is earned run average.
W-L is win-loss record.
Neutralized W-L record is according to Baseball Reference. Their methodology can be found on their website.

All statistics from baseball-reference.com.

MORRIS   STIEB   SABERHAGEN   MARTINEZ   FLANAGAN   Av(MLB)
1979 (RS/GS)   5.3      4.6     n/a          4.0        4.9        4.5
1979 (ERA)     3.28     4.31    n/a          3.66       3.08       4.00
1979 W-L       17-7     8-8     n/a          15-16      23-9
1979 W-L(neut) 12-9     6-7     n/a          15-16      16-12

1980 (RS/GS)   4.5      3.8     n/a          4.4        4.5        4.3
1980 (ERA)     4.18     3.71    n/a          3.97       4.12       3.84
1980 W-L       16-15    12-15   n/a          6-4        16-13
1980 W-L(neut) 12-14    13-12   n/a          4-6        11-15

1981 (RS/GS)   5.4      2.8     n/a          4.4        4.3        4.0
1981 (ERA)     3.05     3.19    n/a          3.32       4.19       3.58
1981 W-L       14-7     11-10   n/a          14-5       9-6
1981 W-L(neut) 16-14    16-13   n/a          13-14      6-12

1982 (RS/GS)   4.2      3.9     n/a          4.8        4.8        4.3
1982 (ERA)     4.06     3.25    n/a          4.21       3.97       3.86
1982 W-L       17-16    17-14   n/a          16-12      15-11
1982 W-L(neut) 12-15    19-12   n/a          11-15      11-13

1983 (RS/GS)   4.8      4.4     n/a          4.3        5.3        4.3
1983 (ERA)     3.34     3.04    n/a          5.53       3.30       3.87
1983 W-L       20-13    17-12   n/a          7-16       12-4
1983 W-L(neut) 16-15    19-11   n/a          4-11       7-6

1984 (RS/GS)   5.1      4.2     3.5          3.9        4.4        4.3
1984 (ERA)     3.60     2.83    3.48         5.02       3.53       3.81
1984 W-L       19-11    16-8    10-11        6-9        13-13
1984 W-L(neut) 12-13    18-10   8-8          4-10       11-12

1985 (RS/GS)   4.6      4.5     4.5          6.3        4.0        4.4
1985 (ERA)     3.33     2.48    2.87         5.14       5.13       3.89
1985 W-L       16-11    14-13   20-6         3-11       4-5
1985 W-L(neut) 15-12    20-8    15-10        6-12       3-6

1986 (RS/GS)   5.5      4.8     3.3          3.0        4.1        4.4
1986 (ERA)     3.27     4.74    3.36         4.73       4.24       3.97
1986 W-L       21-8     7-12    7-12         3-6        7-11
1986 W-L(neut) 16-12    8-13    7-9          4-7        8-10

1987 (RS/GS)   5.3      6.1     5.4          5.0        4.7        4.8
1987 (ERA)     3.38     4.09    3.36         3.30       4.06       4.29
1987 W-L       18-11    13-9    18-10        11-4       6-8
1987 W-L(neut) 16-12    9-10    16-11        9-6        7-8

1988 (RS/GS)   4.4      4.8     3.9          4.4        5.0        4.2
1988 (ERA)     3.94     3.04    3.80         2.72       4.18       3.73
1988 W-L       15-13    16-8    14-16        15-13      13-13
1988 W-L(neut) 10-14    12-9    13-14        15-10      9-13

1989 (RS/GS)   3.5      5.3     4.8          4.5        4.3        4.2
1989 (ERA)     4.86     3.35    2.16         3.18       3.93       3.17
1989 W-L       6-14     17-8    23-6         16-7       8-10
1989 W-L(neut) 6-11     10-11   19-8         13-11      7-10

1990 (RS/GS)   4.9      4.7     4.6          4.3        6.9        4.3
1990 (ERA)     4.51     2.93    3.27         2.95       5.31       3.86
1990 W-L       15-18    18-6    5-9          10-11      2-2
1990 W-L(neut) 10-16    13-9    7-6          14-10      1-1

1991 (RS/GS)   5.0      3.7     4.6          3.5        3.0        4.3
1991 (ERA)     3.43     3.17    3.07         2.39       2.38       3.91
1991 W-L       18-12    4-3     13-8         14-11      2-7
1991 W-L(neut) 14-12    4-2     12-8         16-7       7-3

1992 (RS/GS)   5.6      3.4     3.0          3.9        n/a        4.1
1992 (ERA)     4.04     5.04    3.50         2.47       n/a        3.75
1992 W-L       21-6     4-6     3-5          16-11      n/a
1992 W-L(neut) 11-14    3-6     5-5          15-8       n/a

1993 (RS/GS)   4.3      4.6     4.5          4.5           n/a        4.6
1993 (ERA)     6.19     6.04    3.29         3.85          n/a        4.19
1993 W-L       7-12     1-3     7-7          15-9       n/a
1993 W-L(neut) 4-12     1-1     9-6          13-11      n/a

1994 (RS/GS)   6.5      n/a     5.1          5.3        n/a        5.0
1994 (ERA)     5.60     n/a     2.74         3.52       n/a        4.51
1994 W-L       10-6     n/a     14-4         11-6       n/a
1994 W-L(neut) 7-14     n/a     18-8         16-11      n/a

RS/GS(career)  4.9      4.5     4.6          4.6        4.6
ERA(career)    3.90     3.44    3.34         3.70       3.90

W(career)      254      176     167          245        167
L(career)      186      137     117          193        143

W(BRefNeut)    195      173     160          216        127
L(BRefNeut)    218      137     117          215        161

One can see that the neutralized records given by baseballreference are therefore accurate, since Morris was given extraordinary run support.