Introduction, CA | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | LF | CF | RF | SP | RP

So I feel like I've been really busy over the past few days of projections, and I'm always starting these posts with some type of message explaining this. Today I'm leaving again, so I'll postpone defensive projections until tomorrow when I can be around to contribute to the discussion. We'll deal with reliever leverage today.

Hopefully most of you are familiar with the concept. The average situation's leverage is 1. A situation with a leverage of 2 is twice as important as average, and a situation with a leverage of .5 is half as important as average. Good closers usually amass a leverage around 1.8-2, setup men around 1.3, and mop-up/long men around .5-.6.

I made a simple, editable Google docs spreadsheet for you to play around with, but there is a problem: I don't know if I can let you all edit it individually. The last person's numbers will still probably be in there when you load it, and I'm not sure what happens if two people edit it at the same time. The point is, the leverages need to average out to exactly 1, and the spreadsheet will average out the leverages for you. Mess around with it a little bit if you can. You'll notice that the last few pitchers aren't important-- I doubt DeFilice, Dillard, or any other callup has a large variation in leverage. This isn't perfectly precise because we'd need to factor in innings, but it will work well enough for our purposes.

If the spreadsheet is occupied, you can average it out manually, or just wait a minute or two. I think a person with a Google account can save the spreadsheet and work on it by themselves, if that's an option, go for it. If you do manage to work out an average leverage projection, post it in the comments by copying the player's names and leverages out of the spreadsheet.

And if anyone knows a better way to publish this to Google docs, let me know, please. Hopefully a few of you are willing to give this a shot. Thanks for your participation, we'll do defense tomorrow. There are some hints in the spreadsheet to help you out, as well.