Awarding wins to relief pitchers when starter doesn't go five
 

From the MLB rulebook: "If the pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, is a starting pitcher who has not completed five innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense, then the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the relief pitcher, if there is only one relief pitcher, or the relief pitcher who, in the official scorer's judgment was the most effective, if there is more than one relief pitcher."


https://i.imgur.com/KIdi2SY.jpg


This from a game today. Oakland scored four in the first and led the rest of the way. Jefferies threw 2 2/3 then got hurt, which put the above rule into effect. I think most would consider either Wendelken or maybe Lawrence as the "most effective relief pitcher" but the win was given to Holmes?


In this instance, could there be some sort of simple calculation made to determine the most effective relief pitcher rather than giving it to Holmes solely because (I'm assuming) he was the first pitcher to follow Jefferies?


Could the calculation be as simple as using the same Game Score calculation that is listed for each game's starting pitcher? I don't know exactly what that calculation is so I can't test it for this particular game to see who the win would be awarded to.

Yeah, we can probably be at least a little bit smarter about assigning it. In real life they usually just give it to the first non-bad reliever, so in your case, likely Acevedo.

I've found that they're usually pretty good about picking out the best reliever rather than just the first non-bad one.


Best example in recent weeks I could find was this game - https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...01807130.shtml - I'd say that there were two non-bad relievers before Hildenberger, and the scorer chose Hildenberger (1 IP, 0 R) over Duke (1 IP, 0 R) because he struck out the side and didn't allow a runner.


Other examples...
https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...01807080.shtml - Rucinsky followed the starter and got an out, but win given to reliever #2, Conley, because he went 2 IP without allowing a run.



https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...01807060.shtml - This is an interesting one. At first glance you'd think the win could have gone to Davis (most IP in relief) or Hunter (1 IP, 0 R before the game got out of hand). But they gave it to Ramos, which is a bit of an odd choice until you dig into the PBP a bit. He came on with a runner on 3rd and one out, but got the runner out on the next play thanks to a FC and then induced a fly out to end the inning. I think they are judging Ramos as the most effective reliever because of the magnitude of the two outs he got while the game was still extremely close.



Love the game, by the way. Sorry my first post was a complaint :D

Nah, we're always trying to make things better. I guess given their usage this year, Rays game logs certainly would yield an abundance of sample size :)

But yeah, it's not always the first non-terrible reliever, but generally speaking, the first guy who pitches at least an inning or so who didn't get bombed. The last case I probably would have given it to Davis having pitched the 1.2 innings with only 1 run, but yeah that's where a human scorer might evaluate the situations more.

What about when the RP doesn't even make it on the field?
 

This is from a game I just completed:

https://imgur.com/e92YeTb