So, let's take this in the case of Lucchesi yesterday. 1. Is my pitcher still effective? YES 2. Do I find myself in an offensive situation where it's more valuable to pinch-hit for him than to leave him in the game? NO 3. Is this next hitter a good matchup for him in a tough spot? He'd already handled the upcoming hitters 4. Has he hit his pitch count? 43? Unlikely. 5. Has he hit his innings count? 4? With a bullpen coming off a stressful game? 6. Has he reached a certain number of times through the order? Had only faced the minimum 12 batters. 7. Have we reached the game/score situation that we have groomed a particular reliever for? Teams don't have 5th inning relievers. At least they shouldn't PLAN it that way. 8. Has my starter been “stretched” enough? He'd already thrown 60 pitches in a previous start, so yes. 9. Has he reached a poiont my coach and I arbitrarily came up with before the game, and inexplicably made a hard rule out of? This is possible, but then they're idiots and are not managing to the game situation. 10. Has he been pitching more innings than he had at this point last year? Yes, but this is a guy who had 30 starts in 2019. He's not a kid out of short-season A ball. So even by the new 'rules' he shouldn't have been pulled. At least pitch him 5 innings to make him eligible for the win. This one really annoys me.