好像翻得不大好，但還是試試看...
※ 引述《searoar (暗坑大豆)》之銘言：
: 上一篇是健康 這一篇是表現
: The Scurrilous Lie About the WBC - Ben Lindbergh
: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19425
: Baseball players are often described—or describe themselves—as creatures of
: habit. And at no time is their adherence to routine more evident than during
: their methodical preparation for the season, when they shake off a winter’s
: worth of rust and ramp up for the coming campaign. Pitchers, especially, are
: dependent on spring training to build up arm strength, incorporate new
: offerings into their arsenals, and learn to work with their batterymates. But
: every three (or, starting in 2009, four) springs, including this coming one,
: an event takes place that threatens to disrupt that routine: the World
: Baseball Classic. The timing of the tournament has caused concerns that
: pitchers who choose to participate in it could be adversely affected, which
: likely explains why the United States squad that was announced on Thursday,
: while stocked with star position players, is relatively short on impact
: pitching talent.
選手在各方面來講，都是忠於"習慣"的動物。
他們更堅持做完成自己的例行公事勝過於在冬天努力擺脫壞習慣，
或者準備一項即將到來的賽事。
特別是投手，非常的依賴春訓來建立他們手臂的強度，學習新的武器，
和學習和他們的捕手配合。(我不大確定batterymate是不是指捕手)
但是每三年(從2009年開始每四年)，多了一個WBC來破壞選手們的常規。
這項賽事引起了關注：參賽選手可能有不利影響，
這可以解釋美國上週四宣稱選擇優秀的球員，對於他們的投球天賦會有比較小的影響。
: There’s some basis for this fear. In May of 2006, not long after the first
: World Baseball Classic concluded, Nate Silver observed that the pitchers
: (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5054)
: who’d taken part in the tournament had performed far worse to that point in
: the regular season than PECOTA had predicted, prior to Opening Day, that they
: would. The pitchers had posted a collective 5.08 ERA in over 1,000 innings
: compared to a projected mark of 4.10. Some of the difference was attributable
: to a higher-octane league-wide offensive environment than PECOTA had
: anticipated, but even after accounting for that discrepancy, the WBC pitchers
: ’ performance still stood out as particularly poor. Starting pitchers with
: WBC experience began the regular season with especially disappointing results
這恐懼來自有因。2006年的五月，在第一次WBC的不久之後，Nate Silver觀察到：
參加WBC的選手的表現比起他們在PECOTA預測在常規時間準備開季的時候爛得多。
這些選手加起來丟了1000局，平均的ERA是5.08，比起預期的4.10還差。
有一些差異可以歸咎在大聯盟的攻擊更強，但是經過數據調整後，
參加WBC的投手表現還是比較不理想的。
有參加WBC的先發投手，情況更是慘。
: No pitcher threw more than 17 innings in the 2006 tournament—in 2009, the
: high was 20—and pitch counts were strictly regulated. (In the 2013
: tournament, pitch counts will reportedly return to their 2006 maximums of 65
: pitches per game in the first round, 80 in the second round, and 95 in the
: semifinals and finals, after rising five pitches per round in the 2009
: event.) Given those light workloads, it seemed like a stretch to say that the
: WBC pitchers’ lousy start to the season as a group could be blamed entirely
: on overuse. Instead, Silver proposed an alternative explanation:
沒有一個投手丟超過17局在2006年的WBC賽事，2009年最高20局，投球局數受嚴格限制。
(WBC投球限制的改變不翻)
這些少少的工作量，顯示投手在WBC是在超量使用是根本不可能的。
所以Silver提出了另外一個可能解釋：
: I think the problem is that the pitchers had been taken out of their
: routines. They didn't get to see their trainer, pitching coach, or manager
: for a couple of weeks, they weren't able to relax in the low-pressure
: environment of the Grapefruit or Cactus Leagues, and so forth. The pitcher
: may have been throwing in a relief role for his national club, when he hadn't
: done that in the major leagues in years. If a certain pitching coach doesn't
: like his pitcher to throw breaking stuff early in camp, or his manager wanted
: to pull him out after a high-effort inning, there wasn't the opportunity to
: play it safe. This is why I think that the starting pitchers have been
: disproportionately affected as compared to the relievers—starting pitchers
: are creatures of habit and routine.
問題可能出在投手從離開了他們習慣的時間行程。
他們有兩周不能看見他們的訓練員、教練、總教練，也不能在低強度的賽事裡面放鬆。
投手有可能做一些不是在他們大聯盟所習慣的事情：
例如要他們一開始就丟變化球，或者讓他們馬上丟長局數，這些都有可能不安全。
這也是為什麼我認為SP比起RP有不成比例的影響，因為SP是習慣的動物。
: As worrisome as that article was, its findings were based on a fairly limited
: sample of performance—roughly one sixth of a season for 58 pitchers. Now we
: have much more data to go on: not just the rest of the 2006 season, but the
: entire 2009 season, too. So has the pattern of WBC pitchers struggling in the
: regular season persisted over time, or were the initial concerns overblown?
這件事情很令人擔心，只是一開始樣本有點小。
但是現在我們有了2006年跟2009年的數據，那我的推論應該不算有點誇張吧？
: To find out, we can generate “retro” projections for each pitcher who
: appeared in one of the World Baseball Classics and went on to pitch in the
: majors in the same season. Such a projection for, say, Felix Hernandez, who
: pitched in two games for Venezuela in the 2009 tournament, would tell us what
: his 2009 regular-season stats would have been projected by PECOTA to be,
: based on his pre-2009 performance and scaled to the 2009 major-league run
: environment. By comparing each pitcher’s pre-season projection with his
: actual performance, we can assess whether the group as a whole underperformed
: expectations.
為了找到答案，我們給每個參加WBC，也同時想要在當年度丟MLB的投手一個"過去"預測。
Felix Hernandez在2009年代表委內瑞拉丟了兩場，
可是當年在MLB的表現跟預測起來的其實差不多。
但比較其他的投手的預測跟他們的實際表現，我們可以說他們的表現是低於本來預測的。