Gary Huckabay Needs to Chill Out/The Liriano Issue Just Isn’t That Important
Posted by ubelmann on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 12:45 am
You would think that as someone affiliated with Baseball Prospectus, he might actually care about what the numbers say about the situation, but he's apparently more interested in throwing some kind of tantrum.
I’m all in favor of front offices making decisions without excessive deference to the fan base. The truth of the matter is that most fans have other things on their minds than the inner workings of baseball.
But WTF?
As of this writing, the Twins are 3.5 games out of first in the AL Central. This despite the performances of the perpetually disappointing Mike Cuddyer, and the not disappointing but merely awful Livan Hernandez. Hernandez has posted an ERA of 5.31 for the year, and outside of the Metrodome, he’s pitched something like Jose Lima would if he were still in the bigs.
First off, this team is hardly perfect and focusing on Cuddyer and Livan looks a lot more like finding a scapegoat than some kind of rational analysis.
Second, Livan's home/road split (and I'm sure he's referring to ERA here) is completely useless information. In fact, it's worse than useless--it's anti-information. He's had 10 games on the road--10. His strikeout and walk rates are actually better on the road than they are at home. His HR rate is worse, but by something like a grand total of 2 HR. So it's a really freaking small sample size.
Here's what kills me--just slays me about stuff like this--what reason is there for Livan to be awful on the road? Is the food really that much better in Minnesota? Do the fumes from the turf give him a super-clutchness that allows him to strand more runners? Does the team charter flight kill his back so he can't pitch right? Maybe he needs his blanky and has forgotten to take it with him on the road?
But that's just it! There is no reason for Livan to have a huge home/road split. (Just like there's no reason that Craig Monroe should suddenly be great against right-handed pitchers, or there's no reason that Baker has been losing games where he's been allowing fewer runs, etc., etc., etc.) There's no reason for it, his peripherals are generally even across home/road, and it's a small sample. It's just random variation, but because someone publishes the split somewhere, Gary Huckabay is apparently going to take it way too freaking seriously.
And on top of that, it's basically irrelevant to his point. If we're going to take his road stats seriously, then Livan Hernandez is a 3.91 ERA pitcher at home, and the Twins should just juggle the rotation to keep him starting at home, because that's a better home ERA than Slowey and Perkins. But clearly Gary Huckabay does not endorse that point of view.
Meanwhile, down at AAA, Francisco Liriano, while the Twins are ostensibly in the thick of a pennant race, has posted an ERA of 0.26 over his last five starts, while demonstrating excellent velocity and command.
So, first off, ERA over five starts is worthless. (Not to mention his selectively chosen endpoints.) More anti-information. Excellent velocity and command? Maybe. I remember preseason reports that Liriano was already hitting 95+ MPH down in the Dominican Republic and he showed up at camp nowhere near that. And I doubt that Gary Huckabay has been attending the Red Wings game with his trusty radar gun in tow, or looking at some AAA PITCHf/x data. Gary Huckabay doesn't know that Liriano's velocity is back, and while his control has improved enough to limit walks in the International League, that's not the same thing as demonstrating "excellent command" as compared to major league pitchers.
He’s healthy, clearly ready to come back to the big club, and yet, he’ll be starting for Rochester tomorrow, in all probability, while the Twins hope they’re not trying to break a six game losing streak on the same day.
So Carmona vs. Baker means "in all probability" this Twins were going to lose today? That's bullshit, too. And whether or not the Twins are trying to break a losing streak is beside the point--if Liriano can help the Twins win games, he can help them win games whether they lost their last five or won their last five.
For the sake of asking your fans for patience and having them buy into some long-term goals, couldn’t you at least *pretend* to care about winning more than saving literally a few weeks off of Liriano’s service time clock?
Let me put this in big bold letters so that I'm clear on this point:
FRANCISCO LIRIANO IS NOT IN ROCHESTER BECAUSE THE TWINS ARE TRYING TO CONSERVE SERVICE TIME
Once more, for effect:
FRANCISCO LIRIANO IS NOT IN ROCHESTER BECAUSE THE TWINS ARE TRYING TO CONSERVE SERVICE TIME
Look at his clock, look at where super-two status usually falls--even if they ever cared about that (which he really has zero evidence of)--the Twins are already in the clear. Limiting Liriano's service time right now doesn't actually help the Twins.
Letting Hunter go was the right move. Fans get that.
Again, this has nothing to do with anything here. I also think that a lot of fans didn't get that letting Hunter go was the right move, but they've moved on by now because the Twins have been winning. I'm sure that if the Twins had been struggling this year, we would have heard about how much the Twins miss his leadership in the clubhouse and other such bullshit.
Letting a potential postseason appearance slip away on the vagaries of a few bucks and lots of fan loyalty is just outright ludicrous.
Is that just a poorly constructed sentence? I'm not even sure where fan loyalty comes into his point. He is fairly clearly implying that the Twins are significantly diminishing their chances of a postseason spot by leaving Liriano in Rochester, but if you do the math, that's just not the case.
Let's suppose that the Twins had incredible foresight and supernatural scouting abilities, and after back-to-back questionable starts on June 20th and 25th, the Twins decided that Liriano had really turned the corner and was ready to pitch for them again. How well could he reasonably be expected to pitch? Well, PECOTA had him forecasted for a 3.33 ERA this season. I would take the over on Liriano putting up a 3.33 ERA for the rest of the season, but I'll give Huckabay the benefit of the doubt here. PECOTA had Livan at a 5.78 ERA, which is pretty close to what he's done so far, though his actual ERA is lower and other projection systems had him a little lower. Again, I'll give Huckabay the benefit of the doubt here.
Give Liriano and Livan 6 innings per start. Had the Twins perfectly projected when Liriano would turn the corner (if he's even truly turned the corner), he would have been able to replace five starts, or about 30 innings pitched. So even if you go with Liriano at a 3.33 ERA and Livan at a 5.78 ERA, that's basically an 8-run difference. You can't even say with confidence that that's even going to get you an extra win.
I think it's probably more accurate to put them at about 4.00 and 5.50, which puts the difference down to a run per start. And yeah, that could make a difference, but it's small enough that "shit happens" will be a bigger factor in the Twins' postseason chances than the difference between Liriano and Livan over 5-8 starts. (And at this point, I think the Twins could only reasonably have snuck in an extra 2-3 Liriano starts.)
If Liriano really has turned a corner, he'll probably be up here in 1-3 starts or something, and then we'll re-realize that he's human, we'll win some of his starts and lose some of his starts. At the end of the season, maybe the Twins will come up a game or two short, and maybe we can point to this as a decision that made a 1-2 win difference, but we'll also be able to point to dozens of other things that made a 1-2 win difference. The Twins are erring on the side of caution here, and at this point, I'd lean towards judging them as being too cautious, but they are absolutely 100% not throwing away the season on this one decision. And as a Twins fan, I have as much hope for the playoffs today as I did on June 25th, Liriano or not.
Grow a pair.
Grow up.
Loading ...
sorry ubes... yes Huckabay was a bit over-dramatic in his writing... I agree.
But really? Do you really think the Twins are being smart and not stubborn on this whole deal? Liriano should be up by now. Continuing to pitch Livan is ridiculous no matter how you look at the data. You ridicule Huckaby about not using "numbers" to assess the situation. Ok.... use the "numbers" to justify keeping Hernandez in the mix and holding back on Liriano. How does this possibly make sense??
I can maybe... maybe... see riding the situation out until the All Star break... but this is silly. I agree that the Twins are not being cheap... but they are being either extremely dense or stubborn.
Also.... your "shit happens" comment is so un-ubelmann like that it makes me wonder if you have been abducted by aliens. Still love your writing and appreciate your work, but really... pause... think... react....
If you're advocating replacing Livan in the lineup with Liriano, then you're basically saying you'd give Livan his walking papers. I think THAT would be dense. You've got guys like Blackburn nearing his season-high in innings pitched, and I believe some serious wearing-down is on the horizon for our young staff. If anything, if you have to have Lirano in the bigs, it's to suppliment the existing rotation.
Ok... so... you are advocating this nonsense of continuing to give the ball to Hernandez, because one of the 5 guys out performing him might get hurt? I don't know... perhaps we need to take our chances on Bass being picked up once we try to send him down and put Livan in the garbage inning role? I just think it is past time for Liriano to make his return. He should be up here by now.
Rhu_Ru, are you advocating shutting Blackburn down for the season? 'cuz if he gets sent down, he's gonna pitch.
Otherwise, you are talking about putting him in the bullpen along side Boof (perhaps surplanting Bass). That might be ok.
But I'd still rather see Liriano up and the Twins cut bait on/move Livan. No, it's not an issue of intergalactic importance.
But 10 starts really is not that small a sample, at least in the scientific world. It's all a question of variance. If the "true" variance is small, then you can often see real differences when comparing small, independent samples.
so, what is the variance in Liriano's case?
Here are his last 10 starts:
June 05: 6 innings, 3 earned runs
June 10: 6 innings, 1 run
June 15: 7.3, 2
June 20: 5, 5
June 25: 5.3, 5
June 30: 7, 0
July 05: 6, 0
July 10: 7, 0
July 17: 8, 1
July 22: 7, 0
over the 10, he has averaged 1.7 earned runs allowed per start with a std dev of 2.0.
For what it's worth, the variance is really, really low over the last 5 games. Flukey? Sure. Conveniently chosen endpoints? Of course. Significant? Very plausibly.
FWIW I think the variance in baseball is much, much higher than most people think. It doesn't have the huge variance of poker, but it's not chess either. It's like when people talk about how a reliever has one bad outing, it can take him the entire year to basically work his ERA back to respectability. If you're looking at a truly significant sample size, you should be able to pick *any* outing to throw away and not have it make a significant difference in the overall stats. If you can't, your sample size isn't significant IMO.
I was the Red Wings Squeeze Play on FSN of the Liriano start the other day where he pitched 7 scoreless innings. He missed a lot of bats (good) and his velocity was in the low-mid 90s (also good), but when he didn't miss bats, he was getting hit really hard (bad). Plus, this is still only AAA ball (also bad). The only reason he didn't give up any runs was because Durham did a good job of scattering their hits over the course of the entire game and hitting some balls hard right at the fielders. It seemed to me like this was a start where with some worse luck, Liriano could have easily given up 4 or 5 runs and gotten yanked early.
FWIW I think the variance in baseball is much, much higher than most people think.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
If Liriano is missing a lot of bats but gets hit hard when they do hit it, it sounds a lot like Johan. The only way the batters hit the ball is they either a) guess right on pitch selection or b) it's a mistake-pitch. The extra-base hits are probably at least a little of both. Basically, the batters realize they can't just try to react to his pitches or they won't be able to hit any of them, the combination is just too deadly. When Liriano was healthy, I thought his changeup (his third pitch) was better than Johan's slider (his third pitch).
But 10 starts really is not that small a sample, at least in the scientific world.
Welcome to the baseball world where systematic biases are frequently unadjusted for and statistical variance is often the least of our concerns. You are always complaining about the "Jeremies" that "dominate" the Twins, but bad pitchers have good starts a lot more often than most people are willing to admit, which is to say that variance from start-to-start is a lot more than most people want to admit.
over the 10, he has averaged 1.7 earned runs allowed per start with a std dev of 2.0.
And what kind of distribution does earned runs allowed per start follow? Given that average and standard deviation, there's no way we can say with any certainty that it's Poisson. And it would be equally silly to claim it's a normal distribution, since there would be something like a 17+% chance that Liriano is a negative-ERA pitcher.
I mean, if we want to hold everything to scientific-level precision, pythagorean records are bullshit and no prediction systems are correct. I guarantee that if we randomly select a series of 10 consecutive starts for all major league pitchers that you can't use any and all information from those 10 starts to adequately explain the variance in those pitchers' ER/start over their next 10 starts. So in a real sense, the simple standard deviation of ER/start is not the correct way to characterize the variance of the data.
Significant? Very plausibly.
Significant to what hypothesis? That Liriano is a 1.70 ERA pitcher in AAA? That he's a 3.33 ERA pitcher in MLB? That he's better than a 4.00 ERA pitcher in the majors?
Given that average and standard deviation, there's no way we can say with any certainty that it's Poisson.
Run distribution in baseball is definitely not Poisson. Poisson can only be applied to models where successes come one at a time. In baseball, runs tend to be bunched together. So the chances that you score a second run given that you score at least one run are much higher than your chances of scoring at least 1 run to begin with. For instance, The Sharks run distribution is almost exactly Poisson (although I didn't calculate it that way). Most baseball teams have run scoring distributions more similar to the Piranha distribution.
When a pitcher goes long stretches with numbers like Liriano, it's because they have managed to avoid getting a bunch of hits bunched together against them. This is likely due to some combination of good pitching and good luck. Even the best pitchers in baseball will eventually have teams put together huge innings against them.
Nor did I ever say that run distribution is Poisson.
Look, all three of us (at least) understand that the DGP underlying runs per start (and yes, I used italics on that in the original post purposefully, to emphasize that I knew I was simplifying things radically; cut me some slack people, I didn't get my Ph.D. by mail order) is a fairly complex beast.
each pitch is a discrete event and the probability distribution for the per-pitch outcomes is a beast, since there are undoubtedly a bunch of covariates there. I'm not equipped or sufficiently interested to spend the effort to model pitching performance as a Markov process.
but who gives a rat's ass in this context? We are trying to draw reasonable inferences from observed outcomes to future outcomes. Humans are really, really f-ing good at drawing reasonable inferences from limited data, at least on "local" phenomena. That is the marking feature of the species, after all.
But whatever. As I've said repeatedly in this thread, Ubelmann's basic argument is right (Liriano vs Livan probably has a small marginal effect on the Twins' success the rest of the way). I think it is reasonable to prefer Liriano.
You are always complaining about the "Jeremies" that "dominate" the Twins
You are in full "get off my lawn" mode, ubes. I most certainly am NOT "always complaining" about the "Jeremies" who "dominate" the Twins. I make an occasional joak, along with several others. Take a pill.
Are you going to argue that Livan is better than Liriano? If not, then either (a) they are insignificantly different or (b) Liriano is better. My money is on (b).
Do I agree with your substantive critique? Yes. Bringing Liriano up wouldn't have the impact of, say, the U.S. entering WWII on the Allies' chances of winning. Would it have a positive effect on their performance? Probably. /rumsfeld
I make an occasional joak, along with several others. Take a pill.
It might not always be you, but those "joaks" in the game logs really kill me sometimes. We could be on a 20-game winning streak, struggle a bit against a below-average pitcher, still win the game, and just from reading all of the complaining about how we "can't" hit bad pitchers, you'd think we lost. I mean, Ponson has a 4.02 ERA this year, has decent peripherals to back it up, and is praised by his opponents, yet reading the reaction to his last start against the Twins, you might think that a 10-year-old girl had just pitched a perfect game against the Twins.
Maybe I am in full "get off my lawn" mode, but dammit, I've been trying to keep my mouth shut about that stuff, because I know people live in the moment more than I do, but sometimes the overreaction to things just bothers the crap out of me.
Are you going to argue that Livan is better than Liriano? If not, then either (a) they are insignificantly different or (b) Liriano is better. My money is on (b).
You don't even have to ask that question. I explicitly stated that I feel the difference between Liriano and Livan at this point is probably about 1 run/game. My only argument here is that people need to chill out. It's not a big deal. It looks like a mistake, but for crying out loud---Huckabay was writing about how the Twins are destroying our "hope and faith." Trading one run every five days for like 3-4 starts for being able to keep Livan around as insurance in case someone else goes down is not even remotely a huge mistake. That's like the difference between Morneau and Kubel happening to hit two 3-run HR instead of two solo HR over a twenty-day span. It's tiny.
Yet if you take a look around the blogs or at other various analysts, you'd think that the Twins are forfeiting one out per inning or playing with a dead ball instead of a live ball. Or you look at the reaction to hitting Gomez first in the order. The difference between Gomez/Span 1st/9th and 9th/1st is tiny. Really tiny. Over two months, you are probably not going to see any meaningful difference in those two arrangements. (Even saberfriendly teams like the Red Sox get this.) But Gomez has a bad OBP, so let's find the tar and feathers to string up Gardy for killing the team--nevermind that all of the evidence points to it not making a big difference.
I used to be about as bad as anyone about getting too worked up over lineup ordering and tiny little roster decisions, but eventually I've realized that it's all small, tiny little differences that are not worth worrying about, especially since most other teams handle their rosters the exact same way.
Liriano will be here soon enough. We don't need to freak out about it, because it's not costing the Twins scads and scads of wins.
It might not always be you, but those "joaks" in the game logs really kill me sometimes.
It's fun to gripe. Especially online. Most sites go crazy with it, but this site is really reasonable with the griping. I typically don't take the griping here that seriously because a) it's seems mostly to be said in the spirit of fun and b) there is more serious discussion of issues/statistics that goes on on the site that convinces me that mostly folks here are taking the day-to-day pitch-by-pitch ups-and-downs with a grain-of-salt (just needed a few more hyphens there). If there was all griping about Jeremy "Jeremy" Sowers and no sober analysis, then I would worry about everybody's stress levels.
There's a level of enjoying sports that is figuring out what decisions/strategy actually matters, and there's a level of following the micro stuff that makes any given game interesting. I think they complement each other well on this site, and I have faith that somebody who makes a "Jeremy" joke here is not seriously arguing that there is a statistically valid phenomenon wherein the Twins literally cannot hit otherwise mediocre pitchers. It's just funny - I mean, today we were shut down by an otherwise mediocre pitcher whose name actually is Jeremy.
For the record, I enjoyed reading your reaction to this Huckabay guy and thought it was right on. That guy really overreacted. I bet brianS agreed with you as well.
You make very good points. Sometimes I think I have trouble guaging when people are joking about things and when they are really complaining, and that is more my problem than anyone else's problem.
Writing the game intros, sometimes I feel like I could tell everyone that the Twins are facing the love-child of Walter Johnson and Pedro Martinez, and he could throw a darting 98 mph fastball with a hard 87 mph change-up and a Randy Johnson-like slider, but if no one had actually heard his name before, I would see complaints about the Twins' offense rather than praise of the opposing pitcher. That probably just means that I haven't made a convincing enough argument about how good some of the opposing pitchers are.
Just assume that the Nation is populated by folks that are smarter than the average strib commenter and you'll be all right.
Do you really think the Twins are being smart and not stubborn on this whole deal?
Where did I say the Twins were being smart? I'm merely calling for perspective on this issue. I think a lot of people (hello, Bill Bavasi!) want to believe that ace-level pitchers are the key to success, are a huge part of the picture, and that they make a huge difference. But they're just one part of a much bigger puzzle.
When you sit down and look at it, this decision simply is not a big deal. It's part of a much larger puzzle.
Also.... your "shit happens" comment is so un-ubelmann like that it makes me wonder if you have been abducted by aliens.
But it does! There are things beyond are control, and luck is a huge factor in the outcome of the season. Even over 162 games, variance exists. No one can predict how the season will turn out and only so much of the outcome of each season is in the hands of the general manager. (And in general, people give GMs too much credit when things go right and too much blame when things go wrong.)
from the Rochester newspaper
hmmm, that link did not work
lets try this
Liriano article
Markov process!!!!1!11!!!1
I have no idea what that is.
However, I did follow parts of the Rochester game today. 9 strikeouts in 6 innings is pretty impressive. Control was good through 5 innings, but a walk and a HBP in the sixth inning set up Scranton Wilkes Barre to score three on a home run. Similar to the report above, Liriano was fairly hittable and a lot of those hits were for extra bases.
He would certainly be better than Livan. Even if it's not dramatically better, I'd like to see him in the rotation sometime soon. If that means basically DFAing Hernandez or trading him for almost nothing, I think that's OK. We do still have Boof in the bullpen who could step back into a starting role if one of the other young guys starts wearing out. Or, as mentioned, move Hernandez to the pen and risk losing Bass - he hasn't been any better than adequate this year and has no sterling minor league track record.
FWIW, I am not advocating sending down Blackburn, or moving him to the bullpen. He's a darn good starter, and he should be starting. What I'm saying is that Gardy has worried that his innings total is nearing his max for the season, and I wouldn't be surprised if he does something like spreading his starts out a bit more, and lighten his load. As well as the other young guns in the rotation. PLUS, it means fewer Livan starts. Not a bad idea, if you have the roster to handle it.
Sure, Liriano versus Livan might only be a win or two difference. The same with batting Gomez first instead of span. But doesn't everyone think a playoff spot will come down to just a 2-3 game difference in the end? Isn't it a manager's job to make the correct decisions in all these "little" things so he maximizes the team's chances of winning each game?
I haven't been one that's been too excited about Liriano. Although his numbers were decent at AAA, he really hadn't been striking many guys out until the past few weeks. And I think Livan has gotten a bad rap. He's not great but his bad outings have been so bad that it makes all his numbers look bad. He's had 11 quality starts out of 22. Blackburn has 13 QS out of 20. Slowey has 6 QS out of 15.
I know quality starts is basically a junk statistic but a starting pitcher's job is to help a team win a game by limiting the number of runs scored over the maximum number of innings he can pitch. I don't care if a starter gives up 6 runs in five innings or 9 runs in five innings. Either way, your chances of winning are pretty low. Livan has given the team a decent chance to win about half his games.
Sure, Liriano versus Livan might only be a win or two difference. The same with batting Gomez first instead of span.
That's if you go just strictly by the numbers. Though it seems impossible to quantify some things like keeping the players happy and knowing when it is best for a prospect to be promoted, I can believe that it exists and exists on the 1-2 win level. And I also believe that the Twins' staff has a better handle on that stuff than I do.
Team chemistry and keeping everyone happy is mostly just BS when you're talking about the difference between a really good team and a really bad team--usually the main thing is the difference in talent between the teams--but when we start talking about small differences like this, maybe sometimes it makes sense for the Twins to get these least 4-5 extra weeks out of Livan in case Perkins, Baker, or Slowey (all recently injured) were to re-injure themselves. Sure, Boof is still an option to move to the rotation, but I think most people would rather have Livan around to take those starts than Boof. (I could go either way.)
Isn't it a manager's job to make the correct decisions in all these "little" things so he maximizes the team's chances of winning each game?
There is a point to which you can start to overoptimize things. While I think that, in general, it doesn't really matter if a guy moves around in the lineup every day, I'm willing to believe that if I used a statistical algorithm to find the lineup ordering that optimized our run production every day, I would probably frustrate a lot of players by how much they got yanked around the order. (Partially because I wouldn't have the people skills to smooth everything over and keep them producing.) Now, obviously you aren't suggesting 162 different lineups--just something like moving Gomez down in the order--but I think to a certain degree as people who look at the game analytically (and I've been guilty of this many hundreds of times in the past) we get a little too wrapped up in the small stuff that is easier to quantify while dismissing the small stuff that is hard to quantify--even if they are on the same level of importance. Maybe it's because we've been told over and over that it's the little things that matter--I don't know.
But I think we would all be equally as frustrated with aspects of the management of essentially every other team. (For instance, I look at what Billy Beane is doing in Oakland, and I really don't think all of his recent moves have been that great. Decent, but not what I would do.)
So I kind of wonder if when I get too wrapped up with Gardy's decision-making or BS's decision-making if I'm making the same mistake as the folks complaining about Mauer not hitting for power--focusing on the things that they don't do well rather than on the things that they get right. Because if we were to swap out Gardy/BS for someone who agreed with us on lineup ordering or was willing to pull the plug on Livan, they would probably be making different mistakes that Gardy/BS wouldn't make.
But I think we would all be equally as frustrated with aspects of the management of essentially every other team.
I suspect that is correct. There are only two pennant winners each year and only one W.S. champ. Everyone else ends on a downbeat.
You are a passionate, yet pretty thoughtful critic. I look forward to and enjoy reading your stuff, even on those (rather rare) occasions where I disagree with your conclusions.
I don't think there are a lot of GMs or managers who would be willing to go into the stretch of a pennant race with a rotation as inexperienced as the Twins' rotation would be if they switched Hernandez for Liriano. That doesn't make Smith or Gardenhire right, of course, but I think it makes their reluctance to make the switch somewhat understandable.
Also, I agree with Algonad that Hernandez hasn't been quite as bad as he might seem. That's not to say that he's been good, but the really awful starts he's had do tend to skew the numers a little bit. If he'd been totally awful, or if one of the other starters had faltered, we'd probably have seen Liriano by now.
Basically, what I'm saying is that I think the Twins look at it that they have four young starters who are doing well, that it's good to have at least one veteran in the rotation, and that the veteran they have has not been terrible. That's not necessarily the right position to take, but I think it's a defensible one.
Yes, I would say that Hernandez has been better than Ortiz, probably because he mixes up his poor starts with good starts. (While Ortiz put all his good starts at the open of the season and then followed up with all his bad starts.)
And then sometimes, you get a game like Friday, which is a bad start (5 ER in 2IP) and a good start (CG, 0R in final 6IP) all rolled into one.
Just assume that the Nation is populated by folks that are smarter than the average strib commenter and you'll be all right.
I think that's a great approach..as one of my business/marketing mentors wrote, "The customer is not an idiot, she is your wife. " (David Ogilvy.) if you consistently avoid the lowest common denominator approach to your readership, I think you'll create a better product.
Just assume that the Nation is populated by folks that are smarter than the average strib commenter...
Talk about damning with faint praise.
Clearly, E-6 has neither wife nor teenage child. He doesn't understand how precious even faint praise can be.
Hey! I've had teenagers and wives. Just none of my own...
Mark Twain once said he could live two weeks on a good compliment. I never fully understood what that meant until I was a self-employed artist.
There's having and then there's having.