That is a way, but it’s not obvious why it is a preferred method.

Agreed it is not obvious based on my posts here.  I’ve described it in a more deliberate manner on my blog a few times.  The net/net is that it works out as I’ve summarized it here.

Mariano has more influence to how many wins the Yanks will actually win, if he’s pitching mostly in close games than in blowouts.

I get that part. He is not entirely responsible for the WP of the game state nor for being put in the situation. A better starter and corps of relievers preceding his appearance can affect the WP. Closers may be a bit more valuable than inferior relievers, I have acknowledged that many times. It’s the “how much” that is the difficult question. Now, you basically have to max out WPA to justify these contracts, and that is giving way too much credit to closers, in my opinion.

Ozzie Smith will have more influence in how many runs he saves at SS than at 1B. The former takes the same number of opps as other relievers, but makes the most of it (like buying stocks on margin). The latter is given more opps.

SS have many more fielding opportunities than 1B, which makes SS relatively more valuable than 1B. I don’t get the stock-buying analogy.

In either case, their talent level is tied in to how much impact their skills have: they are being leveraged.

Value is tied to the opportunity cost of pitcher skill. Scott Linebrink should have received a contract similar to Francisco Cordero, even though Linebrink doesn’t normally pitch in high-leverage situations. He is similarly talented.

As noted in the other thread, the best/easiest way to handle the reliever is to give each reliever a leverage value that is half-way between 1.0 and whatever leverage index his talent level dictates he would find himself in.

That is a way, but it’s not obvious why it is a preferred method.

I agree out there it’s different.  But I don’t think it’s different to the point that it would raise a solid middle reliever’s ERA (or whatever metric people use these days…) too significantly.  The point is, if you’re a quality pitcher, why be afraid of the 9th inning?  All of these guys are mentally tough beyond belief.  Everyone said Brad Lidge couldn’t handle the closing spot because Albert Pujols hit a home run off of him…ALBERT PUJOLS!  Now he’s been described as the best closer in the game.  There are other guys like this out there.  Because of such a short pitching sample…these guys get labeled as washed up prematurely.  God forbid they give up a hit to one of the best players ever.  The significance of the 9th inning is greatly overstated…though it does exist to a point.

Alejandro Pena said the ninth inning is no different than any other inning.  Other closers have stated otherwise. I agree with Pena.

But I agree that JC’s analysis seems to drastically underrate the leverage factor.  Here’s what I’ve been doing for KRod, although my replacement-level is a bit high:

RAR = (4.75 – 3.25) / 9 * 72 * 1.8 = about 21 RAR or 2 WAR, which is going for $10MM on the FA market these days.