Optimizing Manager Decision-Making in Starting Pitcher Changes

With Theoretical Rule-Change Applications
Published

February 3, 2026

This project comes from the final round of the inaugural Rice × Syracuse Analytics Competition. Our team was tasked with creating our own modeling framework to determine the optimal time to pull a starting pitcher in a game. I had the opportunity to serve as team captain. I’m grateful to my teammates, Jacob Andreini and Ethan Larimore, for their collaboration and insight.