Have I been calculating earned runs wrong all this time?

Our league, the Illowa APBA League, communicates largely by group text. Topics range greatly but tend to stick to sports, and mostly baseball. This year, it has been a good source of breaking news on who’s injured, traded or DFAed.

This weekend, Chuck texted an interesting rules question that prompted an interesting discussion and at least I learned something from it.

CHUCK:

Scoring question that I can never recall. I’m playing ’64 and the starter, Milt Pappas gives up a walk and there are two errors, he leaves and Dick Hall gets an out and then gives up three hits scoring two runs of his own. I know Milt’s are unearned but does Hall get the benefit of the error too and his runs are unearned?

Now, most of our league has been playing APBA together for decades and have been fans of the game since childhood. It’s safe to say that we know the game of baseball pretty well.

So without thinking about it much, I chimed in.

TOM:

I would say unearned. Depends on the type of errors. 

Now, Dennis gave his feedback. Dennis is a smart man so I never question his judgment. I say with a bit of jest but seriously, when Dennis presents evidence, I pay attention.

I hope Dennis copy and pasted this into his text. Otherwise, it probably took him a while to write this.

DENNIS:

I just looked it up and I do not realize could have unearned run for team but earned for reliever.

Found this:

Play: Pitcher 1 is pitching. Batter A reaches first on an error. Batter B doubles, scoring A. C reaches on a bunt single, with B advancing to third. Pitcher 2 relieves 2 (ed note: I believe that should read ‘Pitcher 2 relieves 1’). D grounds into a fielder’s choice, with B scoring and C out at second. E triples, scoring D. F grounds out, with E scoring. G strikes out. Four runs score.
In this case, the run by A is unearned because he reached base on an error. The run by B is earned and charged to 1. The run by D is also earned. Because D replaced C on a fielder’s choice and C was originally allowed on base by 1, his run is charged to 1. The run by E is considered unearned for the team because the groundout by F should have ended the inning, but it’s considered earned for Pitcher 2 because he doesn’t get the benefit of the error committed while 1 was pitching.

Wrong all this time

Realizing, I may have been calculating earned runs incorrectly in these situations, I had to do a deep dive on this. I believe I found the source of Dennis’ research. You can read the whole write-up on the Earned Run at the Baseball Reference’s Bullpen.

In short, relievers do not get the benefit of an error under a previous pitcher for earned runs for individual stat purposes. However, the team does.

Officially, this is covered under MLB rule 9.16(i) which governs earned and unearned runs.

In all my league play and all my replays I have done, I did not know of the intricacies of this rule. How many of y’all were aware of this tweak of the earned run rule?