Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 295: Analyzing September Starter Usage/Reexamining the Astros Experiment

Episode Date: September 26, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss whether contenders use their starters optimally in September, then talk about the Astros’ approach to team-building.

Good morning and welcome to episode 295 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseballus.com i'm sam miller with ben lindbergh i am currently scrolling through jeff luna's follows on twitter and it is uh an interesting group it is almost all astros fans or or astros bloggers or actual astros and and then randomly a Jerry DePoto parody account. Maybe he thinks it's real DePoto? It's called Not Jerry DePoto. Oh, okay. And the bio is I am not Jerry DePoto. And it's not a particularly well-followed account.

But he also follows Richard Hidalgo, who is the next person. Ex-Astro, yes. And I feel like I should be following Richard Hidalgo. Ben, how are you? Not so great. As sad as I was when Matt Harvey got hurt, plus how sad I was when Manny Machado got hurt, I'm that sad.

Because I just watched the Dexter season series finale. He follows Paul Sporer. Really? He does. That's nice. Good for him. Good for Paul. Yeah.

You're sad because... I don't... Who cares? I won't say anything about it, but those of you who listen and watch Dexter will know why I'm sad. I would rather watch the sad parts of the last few Breaking Bad episodes on repeat over and over than watch that again. I've just started watching The Shield. Yeah, I've considered starting that one.

I haven't gotten there yet. I considered starting that one. I haven't gotten there yet. It's scary because it seems my impression of it was always that it was like a standard procedural, but then I kept hearing good things from good people. Yeah, it turns out to be really good. I always put it off. I put that off in Battlestar Galactica, even though everybody says they're great just because they're genre of their genre shows. And I figured, you know, I could get to them someday. And today or yesterday, I got to the shield. It turns out to be great. Anyway. All right. So what do you want to talk

about? Well, first, we should probably mention the Carlos Gomez thing, right? Because we got like 20 tweets and emails and people posting in the facebook group about that yeah talk about it so i mean all of you have probably seen carlos gomez hit a home run watch the home run for quite a while uh he had been hit by paul mahalam who allowed the home run earlier in the season and so there was some bad blood there and people Braves yelled at him as he rounded the bases and told him to run. And he yelled back. And then when he got to home plate, Brian McCann was blocking the way. And so they yelled for a while, benches cleared and Gomez never actually touched home plate. And then he was ejected from the game.

So does this exactly meet meet our our criteria because he was ejected and he did never touch the plate but the run counts because there's a a rule that says if you're if the runner is obstructed then he's awarded at least one base beyond the base that he had legally touched so he's awarded home because mccann was in his way. So does that mean that he was ejected mid-play? Maybe it's kind of a semantic thing. I don't know. Yeah, well, I'm counting it, and I think, oh, he follows You Can't Predict Baseball. Oh. Which I support.

Yeah, to me it feels like the ruling – it was a – I don't know. It was a – to me the ruling was used as a convenient out for the situation. I mean it is a technically sound ruling. You do – if you're obstructed on your way to a base, you do get that base. And so – but to me it sort of feels like this is exactly what we were talking about, which is like sort of winging it. Right. They scrambled to find an explanation for what they wanted to do. And so to me, even though there is they had a loophole, the situation did not actually necessarily present itself in a way that forced them to grapple with it. present itself in a way that forced them to grapple with it. To me, this is precedent. This suggests that this is what they would do at any point. And also, well, yeah, I guess, I mean, the rule says that you get at least one base. So I was going to say if Freeman had obstructed him, they could have still made you know, made the same ruling, even if he'd been, even if he hadn't touched first. Um, but if Freeman hadn't, if he'd just been ejected,

um, somewhere along the way, then would he get it? I think this suggests strongly that he would have. I mean, it's not like McCann really obstructed him. I mean, they didn't, McCann stood in his way and they started yelling at each other, you know this is this is not classic obstruction where uh you know he got in the way and he didn't really disrupt carlos gomez progress he started a fight with him yeah interesting that he somehow stayed in that game i mean if carlos gomez had like had his head down and had run right into him without seeing him yeah that might have been obstruction obstruction-esque but I don't know I just feel like it was a situation that needed a ruling and they made one but yeah okay I think it counts it counts yeah well interesting

coincidence that that happened just after we had been talking about that and thanks to everyone who alerted us. So my topic is September pitcher usage, starting pitcher usage. And mine is the Astros experiment. Okay. So why don't you start? Okay. Hey, we just got another tweet about it just now. Okay, so September pitcher uses. So I was thinking about this because just kind of looking at scores

and looking at box scores, it doesn't seem like there's a noticeable or my impression was that there wasn't a noticeable difference in how starters were being used or allowed to pitch deep into games. And this seemed curious to me. It was partially inspired by the Ned Yost decision from a week, 10 days ago, when he left Jeremy Guthrie in the eighth inning of a game that the Royals were, I guess, up by one run. And he gave up a couple solo homers and the Royals lost, which was pretty terrible considering that the Royals were, I guess, up by one run, and he gave up a couple solo homers, and the Royals lost, which was pretty terrible, considering that the Royals have a great bullpen, and it's September, so it's expanded rosters. So, I mean, you could go, I don't know, how many deep on that roster

and find people who probably should have been pitching that inning instead of Jeremy Guthrie. That's Ned Yost, of course, and Ned Yost does perplexing things sometimes, but it doesn't seem like there were a whole lot of people being pulled early, so I asked our stat guys to look at this, just to look at the batter's face per start and pitches per start for each month of the season, combining March and April and September and October over the last five years, and then also splitting it into playoff teams and non-playoff teams to see if there was a difference there. Why did you choose March and April? It seems to me that March and April is a bad month to compare to. I got every month uh but okay just combined march and april until okay good thing um good and september and october and uh so first i guess i'll i'll ask you to guess

what you think the the difference is in batter's face per start so um so the average from the average from from march to august is uh i don't know roughly like 25.4 or so batters face per start um and something like 96.2 pitches so what would you guess the average is in each of those things or either of those things for September? Well, it's interesting because even apart from the central question, you have September call-ups. So you would have some starters who are making starts who aren't good. And so you would expect them to lower it. But on the other hand, the quality of lineup overall is also lower. So I don't know if that would be a perfect wash or not.

So I'll just put that aside. So 25.6 or something like that and 96.2. 5.4 or 96.2. I will guess that they are, I'll say 25.4 and 96.2. There is a difference. It's not a huge difference, but it's a significant difference. It's like one batter faced, basically. About one batter faced and fewer than four pitches,

somewhere between three and four pitches. So, yeah, it's like 92.8 pitches, 24.5 batters faced. So I'm wondering whether this is optimal. And I guess it's kind of a complicated question. I mean, so you guess there would be no difference. Do you think there should be no difference? Or I guess I should ask you one more question. Do you think there's a difference between playoff teams and non-playoff teams in the right september decline that's my second second quiz for you yeah because i mean the

the instances where it would be significant would they'd be pretty rare right i mean you're talking about uh you know three or four pitchers on on 10 teams who in some circumstances might pitch an inning or two fewer like if it was a blowout or something like that like i saw there was some there was some controversy over this with the rangers controversy that so overstates it there were people on twitter talking about this with derrick holland pitching in a blowout against the estrus a couple days ago uh and it was like 12 nothing so that's why it it comes up I don't I don't know that it would have come up if it had been two to nothing um so it's a it's it's rare that I would think that that that you would

really grapple with this question um but I guess I think that there's probably, I mean, you know, you're talking about 30 pitches maybe or 50 pitches for a guy or a couple of innings. I mean, I like the idea of giving breaks to pitchers in September when you can. But I just have a hard time believing that it's going to make any significant difference. hard time believing that it's going to make any significant difference. And, you know, I'm sure that that probably managers are thinking they want to, you know, keep guys on some sort of regular routine where they're, you know, they know what, you know, they know what's expected of them. They're sort of maybe gearing up for the playoffs where, you know, you want them thinking that they're a horse and that they're an ace and they're going to pitch deep into the game. they're a horse and that they're an ace and they're going to pitch deep into the game um so it doesn't seem to me like a real big opportunity unless you're talking about i i was thinking about talking

today about uh rookie pitchers because there's a there's a few playoff teams that are dependent on on pitchers who would you know otherwise maybe be reaching the their innings limits this year, specifically Cole and Waka and Shelby Miller. And Miller hasn't looked the same for the last month or two. He's been good, but he has not looked dominant. And so I was wondering whether teams that are reliant on rookie pitchers do worse in the postseason for you know for that reason um but i mean if i had shelby miller i i might try to like i might try to limit him to like four innings no matter what or something like that and you know just make it clear that's uh it's an

endurance thing and nothing else that it's a long season and they're realistic about that. I don't know. I mean, I might go to a seven-man rotation or something like that. But I feel like the inning that you're talking about, the extra inning that he's pitching or not pitching, is just completely probably irrelevant. I don't know. So there is a small difference between playoff teams and non-playoff teams in the amount they decrease the starters workload in September.

But playoff teams are also, a lot of those playoff teams are playing for something where nobody else is playing for something. So that would cancel that out. Well, okay. So the September average for both playoff and non-playoff teams is almost exactly the same, like 92.8, 92.9. But playoff teams have starters who go deeper into games, so their pitches per start throughout the rest of the season is like two pitches more or so. So there's a slightly greater decline in the amount of drop-off in September in their starts. So I don't know. I feel like there should be a difference, and I don't know whether it should be greater than it is or not, but I feel like there should be a difference because there are

two types of playoff teams, right? There's the playoff team that has everything sewn up and isn't really playing for everything. I mean, I guess most playoff teams are playing for something right up until the end, even if it's home field advantage and getting the best record in their league. There's usually some incentive, but there's the teams who have giant leads and don't really have much at stake so they can afford to rest pitchers if they think that that would be beneficial. And and I agree that you wouldn't want to dramatically change their usage.

I mean, you wouldn't want to have guys going four innings or something because they're used to doing what they do and you want to keep keep them on their routine and have them not deviate from that but uh i feel like it couldn't hurt to save them an inning here and there um even if it's just like just the the remote chance that they'll hurt themselves in that extra inning right right? Even if it's not the fatigue, even if the fatigue isn't that significant, they could get hit by a comebacker or something or pull a hamstring covering first or, you know, whatever it is. There's some slight chance that that could happen and knock them out of the playoffs.

So if there's no real reason for them to be in the game, then why not take them out and put in some guy you called up for September? You have a giant bullpen in September. And then there's the other type of playoff team, which is the one that is fighting up to the last second for a playoff spot. And I feel like even that team should probably have shorter starts because it's like the playoffs. The playoffs are starting early for that team and in the playoffs you probably should should go to your bullpen earlier i would think right i mean the there are studies that show that after a starter has been through the lineup a few times

it's it's usually a good idea to go to a reliever even if it's you know your ace or your horse or whatever and even if he looks like he's pitching well and he's been successful in that start the outcome is still still probably more positive for the the reliever who comes in fresh than the guy who's who's going through the lineup for the third time so if you're one of those teams that's right on the bubble and needs to win every game and treat every game as a must win, then I feel like you should also be going to your bullpen earlier on the whole, especially because you have a deeper bullpen, although the bottom of the bullpen guys that you called up for September probably wouldn't be pitching in those high leverage spots anyway. But between those two factors, I feel like there should be a drop-off, and my intuition, my sense is that maybe it should be even bigger than it is.

That would be hard to show, but that's my suspicion. Yeah, I just think that the drop-off – to me, I would be all in favor of a drop-off that was very visible. I would be all in favor of a drop-off that was very visible. The sort of the very subtle drop-off wouldn't really do much for me. But, you know, a drop-off that was significant, I think, would make a lot of sense. But then there doesn't seem to be much appetite for that in baseball. Like there's, I mean, you don't see, I mean, all the things that you said about, you know, maybe a comeback roll, hit him on the knee or whatever.

That would be true of every, you know, of every player on the team, of all the starters in the lineup. You know, it would be true of the catcher in the first baseman and all that. And you just don't really see teams take two weeks off at the end of September in a way that you might expect. And so my guess is that this just falls under, you know, the unwritten rules mandate or something. Like, you don't, like or something like you don't like they they you don't want it to be visible i can see yeah i i'm not even really talking about um giving up any like i'm not talking about conceding a game and just skipping a start and putting some scrub in and i can see why you wouldn't maybe want to give position players a bunch of days off because you know maybe it disrupts their timing or something or they're

not used to getting days off and they I don't know they want to stay in their routine or whatever it is maybe for a position player it's not worth giving them an entire day off I think you probably see more substitutions I didn't I didn't look but, but I would guess that you see fewer guys playing complete games in September. But with a starter, if he's staying on his schedule and he's making his start the day that he usually would, and he's getting his work in, and it's just saving him a little bit of work and a little bit of injury risk and not necessarily even giving up any win probability because if it's one of those close games, you're putting in a reliever who could maybe make you

even more likely to win the game. And if you're taking out a guy with a big lead, then that probably isn't going to change things much either. So I don't know. To me, it doesn't seem like the— there does seem to be a sense that you have to try to win every game if only for the good of the teams that still are competing. But to me, it seems like you could go easier on some starters in September

without running afoul of that unwritten rule, and that maybe it would be a good idea. He follows an account called RepubLeadCircle, which describes itself as a discussion group for moderate Republicans, which is – he also follows Drudge, and so that seems to fit. But what's weird is that this Republic Circle Twitter account only has 13 followers. He's one of 13 followers of this group, which is kind of odd, right? He was the third follower. Maybe he knows the person who does it or something. Let's see if they follow him back. Maybe he is part of this group. They do not follow him back.

Huh. Huh. 41 tweets from this. The last one was January 2011. Unusual Bachman rebuttal could scramble GOP message on Obama address. Remember that? Do you remember that day? The Michelle Bachman rebuttal to the State of the Union where she was like looking off at like a weird angle.

And so people – for like 20 minutes, everybody in the world made a big deal about the State of the Union rebuttal. And then we all moved on. The State of the Union rebuttals are always a big deal. There's the Rubio one. That was a big deal. Yeah, with the water. It's like you can't not have you can't not do something awkward during that it seems like so i feel like we probably talked about the astros uh uh sort of

uh you know approach i guess to winning and not winning before the season started yeah uh and i don't know we might have written about it i can't't remember. And I don't remember what we thought about it. So I guess we can talk about it again. But specifically, I figured we've now seen it in action. I think if I recall, I was in favor of it. I thought that it was kind of it was kind of nice to see someone basically go all the way with this thing that, you know, sabermetrics had kind of long advised to see what a team actually for the very first time go all the way with it and and and get past half measures and go full measure and and i was interested in it and i thought it was a good idea um but we've now seen it in action for for a year for a full year in a way that last year was not i mean last year was basically a punt season but but not unprecedented. This Astros

team was essentially unprecedented in their punting, I would say, with the payroll, what it was, and just sort of the openness about what they were doing. And so we've seen it in action. The year is wrapping up. They're going to lose probably like 110 games. And it's going to be their third year in a row with 106 or more losses. And Ryan Lynn just told me, told us, told you and I, told me before we came on that that is just the second team in history to lose 105 three years in a row. The expansion Mets were the only other team that's done so. So I just want to know, because this kind of got brought up again in discussions today on the Internet, did this season leave any sort of bad taste in your mouth

about how the Astros have done it? And also, do, well, no, I'll just ask you that question. Yeah, I think so. I still can't argue with their decision to do it. It seems like it's still probably a smart strategy, although I do wonder about the impact on the fan base. Just, I mean, remember when we talked last year about how we were outdrawing the Astros TV broadcast? Yeah. And I assume you saw the more recent numbers about the Astros. Oh, they had a zero Nielsen rating on Sunday.

0.0. Not a single one of the Nielsen families in Houston was watching the Astros that day. It was during a Texans game, so that probably explains it. But no one was watching. And the Astros still have that weird TV situation where not everyone can get their games and everything. But the point is that no one is watching the Astros. And yet they're outdrawing the Rays just in their defense.

They are drawing fans. Well, they should draw fans. There are a lot of people there. But yeah, I guess it's surprising that anyone is going considering the players they're putting on the field. But yeah, it does sort of leave a sour taste. I wish this weren't a smart thing to do. I still can't argue with the way they're doing it and I still sort of enjoy the way they've committed to doing it.

But it has kind of made me consider whether something should be done to prevent this being a good idea. a good idea. You know, I, I hear a lot of, you know, I hear a lot of sort of half defenses of the Astros saying, oh, well, it's not their fault. It's the incentives that baseball puts in place for them as though, you know, like sort of like, oh, well, this isn't something that we're in favor of, but we're not blaming the Astros for it. And, and I know that there are some incentives in place that, you know, some, you know, like the revenue sharing, you know, kind of takes away some of the disincentive and, you know, the way that the, you know, international bonuses work is a small sort of thing. But and the fact that the number one pick is is there's such a big gap between the value

expected value of the number one pick as opposed to the number two pick or that the gap between one and two is bigger than the gap between any other two spots and and carlos radon is is is looking like the best number one pick that there's been since i don't know harper strasburg so yeah so those are those are factors but to me this even me, even if those things were not factors, I mean it would still make sense to a large degree to do this. I mean it's kind of just a basic part of any system. You can very often invest more at a better kind of rate in the future than you can in the present. I mean like – so for instance, I don't pay for cable. You know, I don't.

So like other than right now because I'm paying $2 an episode to see Breaking Bad, I watch Breaking Bad a year later and I get to watch it for basically for free. And if you time shift like that in your life, you can get almost everything for free. It's like kind of an incredible thing. Like you can live almost your whole life for free, as long as you don't mind getting everything two weeks late or six months late or four years late. And this is sort of just a strategy I've made in my life that I'm not going to care that much about the present. I'll get it all four years later and it'll be fine. And, you know, I'll be like, you know,

Harry and dumb and dumb are seeing the newspaper and being like, you know, it's, it's the same thrill of seeing that a man was on the moon, you know, it just, because you find out about it 35 years late, it's still a thrill. You know, this podcast is the exception to that. You can get it free the day it comes out. You can. And yet many people that we know are four or five months behind for some reason. Uh, so I've made a decision that, that it is more efficient for me to time shift, basically. And this is like an analogy. It's not a – I guess it's a metaphor more than it's an analogy, I should say. But in sort of the same way, it will always make sense for teams to make a choice

of whether they're going to kind to put their resources into the future at certain points. And so I think even if the draft picks and the international bonuses and the revenue sharing weren't a factor, the Astros were still going to be garbage this year. It was still going to make sense for them to not invest resources in the product on the field. And so to me, this is not really about baseball's incentives. This is just a simple matter of like, you're going to be around for more than this year.

Like that's, they're going to be around for a hundred years. So if the goal is to win as many games over the course of a hundred years or to win as many world series is over the course of a hundred years, instead of just treating this year, like it's the last year that we're ever on earth, you're always going to have those incentives. They're inherent in competition. It would show up in all sorts of ways. So I don't actually think that baseball is to blame for this. And I also don't think the Astros are necessarily as much to blame as, I mean, I just quoted their three years in a row that they had these ridiculous, you know, ridiculously bad seasons. But it's not as though they were doing this for three years or four years or five years.

They were a horrible team in a horrible situation. The current front office inherited a really bad team that had just lost 106 games and had the worst farm system in baseball. I mean, it's really hard to do that. It's really hard to be both the worst team in baseball and have the worst farm system in baseball. I mean, it's really hard to do that. It's really hard to be both the worst team in baseball and have the worst farm system in baseball. But they actually had that. Like, that's an incredible thing that they had to turn around. It's the Bizarro Cardinals.

It is the Bizarro Cardinals. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, to some degree, probably I'm exaggerating this a little bit, but when I did that thing about what, how long it takes to sort of recover from having the worst farm system in baseball, you could see like the effects of the 2004 farm system, even in 2010 horrible Astros season. And so, I mean, this was just sort of a fact that they were going to have to cope with one way or another. I don't think that there was any realistic way that they were going to not lose

94 games this year or 90 games this year. They didn't make a choice between being respectable and being horrible. They were going to be horrible. Like, I mean, we're like, I guess what I'm saying is we're not even talking about a team that chose not to win 80. They weren't going to win 80. They couldn't win 80. It's that win 80. They were further away from 90 in being competitive, but they weren't even going to win 80. They got handed an awful team with an awful organization. And so to me, it really was kind of necessary and they were going to be kind of a shameful farce of a team regardless. And in my mind, they kind of made it entertaining and they embraced it in a way that I think made it less depressing than it would have been otherwise. Yeah, it would be

different. I mean, to me, the twins, the twins have been more depressing the last three or four years than the Astros have been to me. It would be different if it had been the same regime in charge of all three of these terrible seasons. That would be different, I think, because you, they, they could have done something to get less terrible if it had been a three-year thing, but they came in in the middle of that and were handed, handed the lousy deal from the last organization. And so that kind of makes, that makes a difference to me. And so do you think that if there were a draft lottery and they weren't assured of the number one pick, they would have lost exactly as many games this year as they will? Yeah, I would guess that the draft had almost nothing to do with their decision.

I mean, it is nice to get the number one pick and and all that I'm sure that they're very glad that baseball has this this in place yeah um but I don't know to to me you don't you don't you don't build a season around getting the first pick instead of the second pick um it's you know to some degree it's risky I mean, the Marlins could have very easily won it anyway. Um, but no, I don't think the draft is a, is an issue here. I, I think the fact that they were going to make a lot of money on revenue sharing. And so from business perspective, it wasn't a crippling decision, probably, probably enabled it. Um, but no, I, I think it was just a simple realistic approach to building a winner. And they probably would have done it regardless.

Okay, so what does their improvement curve, I guess, have to look like for you to continue feeling positive about their strategy and their progress? How many games do they have to win next year and the year after for you to not change your tune about the approach that they've taken? Oh, yeah, I probably don't have patience for another year like this. I think you only get one year where it's farcical. Yeah, and they barely avoided farcical fart. They barely avoided farce in 2012. They were just, they were horrible in 2012, but it wasn't quite so obvious what they were, what they were doing. Um, so I, I think that, yeah, my, my patience is probably just about out and I would like to see, I don't know what I'd like to see next year. I guess I'd like to see a, out and i would like to see i don't know what i'd like to see next year i guess i'd like to see a i'd like to see them do what the cubs did this year next year and uh you know put a put a put

a bunch of credible major leaguers in this in in there but you know while not sacrificing long term and then and then i'd like to see probably you know them think of themselves like the Royals thought of themselves at least. Cubs have only gotten like five or six games better maybe since last year. They have 65 wins right now. They had 61 last year.

So I mean they definitely made an effort. That's what I mean. I just mean making an effort. And not even – I mean, the Cubs didn't make any sort of effort to win. They just sort of – they made an effort, I guess, to have – you know, you could have squinted and imagined a situation where the Cubs could have been the Orioles. Yeah, I didn't – yeah, I thought they would be better than this. could have been the Orioles.

Yeah, I thought they would be better than this. And they've underplayed their Pythag record by like six games or something. You just need to be able to say everything could break right. It won't, but everything could break right. I mean, as we've talked about, at this point in Major League Baseball, 26 or 27 or 28 teams

are theoretically in contention from day one you know that with the second wild card and with the way that um you know we've seen teams surprise over the last few years if everything breaks right most teams can win but the astros could not possibly have won and the marlins could not possibly have won this year and they just need to i would say they need to make some effort so that that's not true again next year. Okay. But you know what? It's conceivable that they could do this again

and they could do it so convincingly that I would continue to think it's a good idea. My guess is that I probably wouldn't, though. It's fun to look at their farm system. It's sort of fun. I mean, it's fun to watch the shield. I'll take your word for it. I'll find out for myself someday. Okay.

So we'll be back tomorrow with the last show of the week. And in the meantime, you can email us, podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Ben, are you still recording? Yep. Okay, because sometimes I do this and Ben tells me that he has already stopped in that brief little moment of silence that you heard before I started talking. Ben sometimes – anyway. Our headings are often ambiguous.

Podcasts at baseballprospectus.com. Thank you. I think beat writers wear one outfit. Like all of them wear the one or each one has one? Each one has one. Uh-huh. I certainly did for a while. I wasn't a beat writer, but I basically wore the exact same thing for the first four years that I,

the first three years that I went to games. But now I don't. Now I dress well. Well, I didn't go every, every day, you know, but yeah, every time I went, I wore the same thing. Yeah. What is that? A pair of jeans. And I wore a, uh, a, a, like sort of a polo shirt that I once saw Bill James wearing coincidentally. And I wore a dark hoodie, which is basically, I mean, I, I pretty much wear jeans and a hoodie everywhere i go even through the summer so um you know it was just a polo shirt was to give it a little class

but then i saw tom verducci oh well and i realized yeah changed your waist i it did change my ways i realized that i should dress like a grown-up and you stand out and if you show up in a tie you look like you are a bigger deal helps if you look like for duchi too i do don't i yeah totally