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Maybe it's time we stop underrating pitchers from Asian Countries
According to Baseball-Reference’s Place of Birth Report, there are 13 major
league players currently active who were born in either Japan, South Korea,
or Taiwan. Of those 13, only four are position players — Ichiro Suzuki,
Norichika Aoki, Munenori Kawasaki, and Shin-Soo Choo. Major League Baseball
has historically been more willing to bringing pitchers across the Pacific,
and that remains true today. However, the performance of the nine active
pitchers currently working in the big leagues suggests that perhaps the
discount rate being applied to pitchers from those regions might still be too
high.
Here’s how those nine pitchers have done in the first five weeks of the 2013
season.
現役MLB有13位亞洲選手，有9位是投手!!
雖然大聯盟招攬亞洲球員已行之有年，但看看這些現役投手的表現，實在太便宜了!!
Name IP BB/9 K/9 HR/9 BABIP ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Yu Darvish 45.2 3.0 14.2 0.6 0.282 2.56 1.90 1.97 1.9
Hyun-Jin Ryu 43.2 2.5 9.9 0.8 0.322 3.71 2.83 3.17 1.0
Hisashi Iwakuma 44.2 1.6 8.5 1.0 0.191 1.61 3.19 3.36 1.0
Hiroki Kuroda 36.0 2.8 7.5 0.5 0.248 2.25 3.15 3.72 0.9
Wei-Yin Chen 36.0 3.0 5.5 0.8 0.264 3.50 3.96 5.22 0.7
Junichi Tazawa 14.1 1.9 11.3 1.3 0.281 2.51 2.95 2.75 0.3
Koji Uehara 13.2 1.3 11.2 2.0 0.250 2.63 3.82 3.09 0.2
Kyuji Fujikawa 4.1 2.1 8.3 - 0.471 12.46 2.55 3.89 0.1
Hisanori Takahashi 3.0 6.0 9.0 3.0 0.250 6.00 7.35 4.95 (0.1)
看看2013前五周這幾位投手的表現，
加起來可以和去年V壯年表現不相上下
Name IP BB/9 K/9 HR/9 BABIP ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Group Total 241.1 2.5 9.6 0.9 0.267 2.91 3.05 3.37 6.0
Justin Verlander 239.1 2.4 9.3 0.7 0.288 2.48 2.83 3.20 7.2
All told, the 2013 active pitchers from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have
put up the near equivalent of one Justin Verlander season. Darvish is
obviously driving the numbers up with his ridiculous start to the season, but
Iwakuma, Kuroda, and Ryu have also been excellent in their own right, while
Chen is succeeding by keeping the ball in the ballpark, at least for now.
And then there’s the Red Sox duo of relievers, Tazawa and Uehara, who have
combined to strike out 35 batters while issuing three unintentional walks.
These crazy high strikeout-to-walk ratios are nothing new for Uehara, who
already owns the best K/BB in the history of Major League Baseball. Tazawa,
meanwhile, has been absolutely spectacular for the Red Sox after returning
from Tommy John surgery last year, running a 63/8 K/BB ratio of his own since
the start of the 2012 season.
達比修有當然是鬼神數據，岩隈久志、黑田博樹、柳賢振表現很好
而陳偉殷成功壓低被全壘打數
田澤純一、上原浩治則為紅襪牛棚做出貢獻
上原有超誇張的K/BB比，田澤則在動完TJ後表現出色
And yet, besides Darvish, the rest of the gang pretty much still flies under
the radar. Kuroda has quietly been one of the best pitchers in baseball since
arriving in the U.S., and even after shifting to the American League East at
the age of 37, he’s shown no signs of slowing down. Iwakuma signed with the
Mariners for a few million dollars last year and got buried in long relief
until mid-season, when the team finally put him in the rotation and let him
show what he could do; since then, opponents have hit just .222/.277/.355
against him. The Dodgers were criticized for overspending on Ryu over the
winter, since there was concern about whether he could succeed in the big
leagues with an average fastball and a mediocre breaking ball. As Bradley
noted yesterday, he’s destroyed National League hitters with ease so far.
黑田來到美國後逐漸成為聯盟中的最佳投手之一
雖然已經37歲而且在美聯東區，但一點也沒有老化的跡象
去年岩隈在牛棚被埋沒，球隊最後讓他進入輪值
他也繳出.222/.277/.355的成績
而道奇在冬天被批評買柳賢振太貴，因為他被評價為直球平均變化球普普的投手
不過他目前已經可以輕鬆面對國聯打者
The lingering memory of failures like Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kei Igawa, Hideki
Irabu, and Kenshin Kawakami still loom in everyone’s memories, but this
current crop of pitchers from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are dominating
Major League Baseball right now. It could be that Major League scouts are
just getting better at identifying which pitchers will succeed in the U.S.,
or perhaps these pitchers are just more ready to succeed in the highest
levels than the pitchers who came before them.
雖然像松坂大輔、井川慶、伊良部秀輝、川上憲伸等失敗例子的陰影揮之不去
但這些現役亞裔投手正在主宰MLB
有可能是球探們越來越會判斷哪些球員可以適應MLB
或這些選手已經準備好挑戰更高的聯盟
Regardless, it’s time to recognize the great success that teams have had in
plucking pitchers out of Pacific Rim countries. While they still get
classified as prospects because of the lack of track records they have
against Major League hitters, the performance of pitchers from these
countries far outstrips anything we see from pitching prospects getting
promoted through the minor leagues here in America. Of the nine active
pitchers on the list, you could make a legitimate All-Star case for six of
them right now. The success rate of this crop is absurdly high.
Now, we can’t simply say that because Darvish, Iwakuma, Kuroda, and the rest
are all pitching extraordinarily well in MLB that every pitcher in a
professional league in Asia is ready to make the jump any more than we can
say that the success of Shelby Miller means that every pitcher in Triple-A is
ready for the show. However, I do think it is fair to ask whether MLB teams
are applying an inappropriately high discount rate to pitchers from these
leagues. The emphasis on velocity and breaking balls in international
scouting may very well be causing teams to underestimate the success that
pitchers with average fastballs but great splitter/change-ups will have on
this side of the ocean.
無論如何，我們現在必須承認這些從環太平洋國家榨取人才的球團的成功
雖然這些球員在登入MLB時被當成新秀
但這些"新秀"的表現早就超越農場系統拔上來的大物
這九位投手中，你已經可以合理的選出六位明星級球員，成功率很高
我們雖不能說因為這些亞洲投手的成功
就代表其他亞洲職業聯盟的投手就比3A的農作物更接近MLB，例如Shelby Miller
但我認為MLB球團對亞洲球員的評價方式是有待商榷的
國際球探對直球速度和變化球的犀利度過份強調
往往會忽略那些直球普通但變速/指叉相當強悍的投手
Darvish and Tazawa are the only two pitchers on this list that don’t feature
a split or a change-up as their best off-speed offering, but these pitches
are often the most effective at neutralizing opposite-handed hitters. By also
commanding an average fastball and taking advantage of natural platoon
advantages against same-handed hitters, the combination of skills has proven
to be quite successful. 88-92 with a plus change-up/splitter might not
profile as a top-end pitcher as well as throwing 95 with a knockout slider,
but there’s no question that this skillset works in Major League Baseball,
especially if you have top shelf command.
達比修和田澤是這份名單中唯二不用變速/指叉做武器球的投手
但這些變速系的投手在解決反手打者時是非常有效率的
而面對同手打者時，藉著天生優勢，會變得更有效率
88~92MPH的速球搭配變速/指叉雖然可能沒像95M速球和銳利滑球來的印象深刻
但這種技能在MLB生存是毫無疑問的，尤其你還有良好的控球時
I think it is certainly possible that the types of pitchers that are
successful in Pacific Rim countries are also the types of pitchers that are
underrated in Major League Baseball. You could point to guys like James
Shields, Doug Fister, and Tommy Milone as American versions of this same
skillset, and none of them were considered top prospects coming up through
the minors either. I don’t think this is so much a race issue as it is a
skill valuation issue. But, at some point, we have to reevaluate what kinds
of skills we’re placing an emphasis on, if pitchers with a different type of
skillset are regularly outperforming our expectations.
Given their complete dominance of Major League Baseball right now, it’s
probably time to recalibrate our expectations for pitchers from that region
of the world.
我相信環太平洋來的這些成功的投手的型態
和在MLB被低估的投手是一樣的
例如James Shields, Doug Fister, Tommy Milone
這些人在小聯盟時從來不被認為是頂級新秀
我不認為這是種族問題而是一個如何估計投手能力的問題
我們必須更新我們估計投手能力的方式
如果這些投手持續有讓我們意料之外的好表現
因為這些亞洲投手的發光發熱
也許是時候我們該對這些地方的投手有新的認知