蠻有趣的文章，試翻一下 有的地方不太好翻，歡迎指正 http://www.nysun.com/article/54545?page_no=1 The New York Sun The Shrewd Craft of Building Depth 打造球隊深度的精明手腕 By WILL CARROLL May 16, 2007 They play a game in the Boston Red Sox front office each off-season. A giant magnetic whiteboard is arranged with hundreds of small tiles. Each tile has the name of a player on it, and each tile's slot on the board gives that player's position and his location in the organization - Boston, Pawtucket, or Fort Myers. It is more than a depth chart, it is a list of assets as real as the balance sheet or the Green Monster outside. 每次球季結束後，他們都在波士頓紅襪隊的辦公室玩一場遊戲。一個巨大的白板上磁吸著 上百個小磚。每個小磚上面寫了一名球員的名字。小磚在白板上的位置代表該球員在組織 中的的地位與方位--在Boston, Pawtucket, 還是Fort Myers。這不只是一個球員配置圖， 這是和資產負債表或辦公室外頭的綠色怪物一樣真實的財產清單。 In this game, one of the team's operations staff turns away from the board for a moment, and another surreptitiously takes a tile or two off the board. The first staffer then turns around and adjusts the chart to fill in for missing tiles. If Manny Ramirez pulls a hamstring, they've played the game enough times to know that Wily Mo Pena takes over in left, that Kevin Youkilis gets slotted in as the emergency left fielder, and that prospect David Murphy is only a phone call away and posting an OBP over .400 down on the farm. If it's Curt Schilling bleeding from the ankle, the Red Sox quickly shift Devern Hansack up from Pawtucket, or later in the season, they know they will have Jon Lester available. 在這場遊戲中，一名紅襪職員轉身背向白板一會兒，另一名偷偷把一兩個小磚從白板上拿 走。第一名職員轉回身來，調整圖表，以補上缺少的小磚。如果Manny Ramirez腿部拉傷 ，則他們因為玩過太多次遊戲，就知道要用Wily Mo Pena補上、用Kevin Youkilis當應急 的左外野手，而且David Murphy在小聯盟中打出上壘率高於.400的成績，只要一通電話就 可以叫來。如果Curt Schilling腳踝流血，紅襪就會很快將Devern Hansack從Pawtucket 升上來，不然也可以等晚一點，他們知道Jon Lester就要復出了。 I was told this story of the whiteboard at the 2005 Winter Meetings by a Red Sox staffer with a sly grin. I'm still not sure if they actually play this game, but every team has its version of the whiteboard, and every team at least considers what happens when - not if - injuries hit. The reason that it's believable with Boston is that they never seem to be caught unprepared. At any position on the diamond, in the rotation or the bullpen, the Sox have not just one option, but a range of possibilities that cascade out - shifting a player here, another player there, or start the web of phone calls from the front office to other teams when a trade is needed. 我得知這個白板的故事，是在2005冬季會議，一名紅襪職員帶著狡詐的微笑告訴我的。我 還是不確定他們有沒有真的這樣做，不過每個球隊都有各自版本的白板遊戲。至少，每個 球隊都會在傷兵問題真的（而非假如）出現時苦思解決之道。說紅襪隊會玩沙盤推演是可 信的，因為他們從不讓人覺得他們對意外措手不及。不管是場上的哪一個位置，不論先發 輪值或牛棚，紅襪不會只有一個選項，而是一連串的可能方案--將球員這樣調換、那樣調 換，或由經理群展開電話網絡，與他隊洽談必要的交易事宜。 In contrast, Brian Cashman and the Yankees have a whiteboard or something similar somewhere in their offices, but when Cashman looks at it, he must only see more problems. The fish-eyed stare that he often gives to a particularly obtuse question must return to his face when he looks at his organization's depth chart. When they had an injury in the outfield, an organizational filler like Kevin Thompson was their best option. Before turning to Phil Hughes, the Yankees turned to a Double-A starter and then a lesser prospect first; $200 million buys many things, but it doesn't always buy you depth. In fact, money doesn't even seem relevant to the process. Brian Cashman與洋基隊也有白板或類似的東西在辦公室中；不過相反地，當Cashman看著 那玩意，他一定只看得到更多問題。當他看著球隊的球員配置圖，他那種常常用來對付笨 問題的魚眼瞪人的表情一定又回到他臉上。當他們外野出現一名傷兵，如Kevin Thompson 一般濫竽充數的傢伙已經是最好的選擇。在找上Phil Hughes之前，洋基找的是2A先發投 手。兩億美金或許可以買到很多東西，但不總是買得到深度。事實上，錢似乎與這無關。 Instead, it's a matter both of planning and understanding a couple of simple concepts that seem to get most teams into this bind. While the Yankees have been stocking up on superstar-level talent, they've struggled to fill out a roster - no one wants to be stuck behind a superstar. The ragtag bunch of players that are known as journeymen or "Quad A" players usually don't come to the Yankees as minor league free agents, both because the team has neglected their value and because when you've got Derek Jeter, how much hope can a guy like Andy Cannizaro have when he's 28 and still stuck in Triple-A? Minor league veterans tend to notice that sort of thing. 相反地，這關乎瞭解幾個簡單概念，並照此去規劃。當洋基投資在全明星等級的好手身上 時，他們會很難擁有深度；因為沒人想跟超級明星卡位。那些棒球浪人在成為小聯盟自由 球員時通常不會來到洋基；一方面因為洋基忽略了他們的價值，一方面因為當你有Derek Jeter時，像Andy Cannizaro這樣已經28歲還卡在3A的人有什麼盼望？小聯盟老將比較會 注意這類事情。 These so-called replacement level players are freely available and wind up a resource that gets overlooked by an organization like the Yankees. A recent spate of injuries to the starting outfielders in Oakland didn't force A's General Manager Billy Beane to make repeated calls to his affiliate in Sacramento. Instead, he looked for help on other people's rosters, like San Diego and Atlanta, combing for the unwanted toys they might have lying around. The Braves had no idea that Ryan Langerhans would only have a short stay in Oakland, being flipped quickly for a fragile slugger ( Chris Snelling) from a NL East division rival, Washington. 這些所謂的取代層級球員是完全可用的資源，卻被洋基這類的組織忽略了。最近運動家隊 突如其來的先發外野傷兵問題並沒有讓總經理Billy Beane不斷從3A Sacramento叫人上來 。相反地，他在別人的球員名冊中求助，如教士隊、勇士隊，搜出那些別人不要的舊愛成 為自己的新歡。勇士隊沒有想到Ryan Langerhans會只在運動家停留一陣子，就很快被換 到國聯東區的對手國民隊交換玻璃強打Chris Snelling。 More tellingly, the Padres - a team with six former general managers on staff - had no idea that Jack Cust would go from Triple-A journeyman to MLB Player of the Week after they sold him to Oakland. Cust's home run binge is unsustainable, but his value has already well exceeded his cost. In today's game, studies done by Baseball Prospectus have shown that a win is worth about no less than $800,000 and can be worth up to almost $5 million to an individual team. Last year, teams paid on average just more than two million dollars for the equivalent of one win from a player. Using the sabermetric law that 10 runs equals a win, with his six homers in seven games Cust has already provided almost a win's worth of runs, and Cust isn't making much more than the minimum of $380,000. That's an arbitrage spread any trader would be happy to use as pocket lining. 更顯著的例子：職員中有六名前總經理的教士隊。他們想不到Jack Cust會在被賣到運動 家後從3A浪人變成MLB單週最佳球員。Cust的全壘打大爆發不會持續下去，但他的效益已 經超過成本了。現今Baseball Prospectus的研究中顯示，一勝對單一球隊的價值大約是 80萬美金到500萬美金。去年，各球隊平均付給一名球員約兩百萬美金來獲得一勝。利用 棒球統計學的法則-10分等於一勝，Cust在七場球賽中轟的六發全壘打已經提供幾乎等於 一勝價值的分數了，而他的薪水只比最低薪38萬美元多不了多少。這是任何一名交易者都 樂於利用的價差套利。 Like any number of minor leaguers that don't make prospect lists, the Jack Custs of the world are available at a relatively insignificant price. Any team could have made the same trade for someone like Cust, and even had he not had his prolific power streak, playing up to his value would be easy. The same could be said for phenom Josh Hamilton, coming back from personal travails and now outperforming the much higher-paid players in the Reds' outfield, Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. The game has reached a point where its inability to maximize available resources and fanatical avoidance of risk is in and of itself a risky drain of resources. Creative solutions like Cust or Hamilton are easier, cheaper, and less risky because of the low cost it takes to add them, an expense the team can absorb a lot more easily than a big-money bust from the free agent market. 就像任何不會出現在期待新人名單上的小聯盟球員一樣，許多Jack Cust們只要相較之下 毫不起眼的花費就可以為球隊效勞。任何一隊都可以交易來Cust這樣的人；即使他沒有如 Cust一樣多產長打，打出這樣的價值也相當容易。這套在表現出色的Josh Hamilton身上 也適用。他走出了個人的掙扎，現在表現得比身價不斐的外野手Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr. 更好。棒球這項運動已經走到這一步，若你沒有能力最大化可用資源並規劃 好風險迴避措施，這就會成為一項資源流失的風險。如Cust或Hamilton這樣創造性的解決 方案是更簡單、更便宜、更低風險的，因為得到他們的成本很低。比起在自由球員市場 上灑錢撈大魚，球隊可以更輕省地吸收這種花費。 Around the league, roster problems abound and cost their teams wins. The Twins go eight deep in major league-caliber starting pitchers but wind up using a hitter like Jason Tyner at DH despite his oh-fer-career homerless streak. The Cubs can't find a slot for their prodigy center fielder, Felix Pie, but also can't find serviceable middle relief help. The White Sox have four hurlers that could close for many teams but are left using someone like Darin Erstad in the outfield, providing terrible production. Even the Mets, a team who has both one of the smartest collections of talent in the front office and the checkbook to buy almost anything, are still struggling to find a couple guys for the back end of their rotation. You don't have to break the bank to find options, as long as you invest the time up front to accumulate them. 在大聯盟中，球員深度問題相當常見，這會讓苦主球隊少贏許多場球。雙城隊擁有八名大 聯盟等級的先發投手，卻用了Jason Tyner這種球員來打DH，而他還在延長自己的生涯最 長連續無全壘打記錄。小熊隊有個天才外野手Felix Pie被卡在板凳上，卻也找不到堪用 的中繼投手。白襪隊有四名投手可以在其他隊當終結者，卻用了Darin Erstad這種貢獻度 悽慘的外野手。甚至大都會隊，這可是一支同時擁有最聰明領導團隊與最凱口袋的隊伍， 卻還在為先發輪值後段要用誰而傷腦筋。可見你不必傾家蕩產來購買選項，只要你投 資並靜待時間來積聚選項。 There's certainly more than one way to fill a roster. Whether it is the whiteboard theory in Boston or exploiting the free talent pool like Oakland, the best way to win is to have a plan. 要打造深度不只一個方法。不論是紅襪隊的白板理論或運動家隊的市場開拓，贏球最 好的方式就是規劃。 Mr. Carroll is a writer for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art commentary, visit baseballprospectus.com. --

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