How Would The Real Strike Rule Change A Game?

By David Evans

July 29th, 2020

Opening Day, Chris Paddack of the Padres pitched 6 scoreless innings against the DBacks. Below is a comparison spreadsheet showing each pitch including whether it was in the strike zone or not. It shows how the Real Strike Rule would have lowered the pitch total by 17 pitches. He probably would have thrown an even higher percentage in the zone if he knew that pitches out of the zone would always be balls. It looked like Paddack threw 52 of his 81 pitches in the strike zone.

To my knowledge, Major League Baseball has not officially defined what an electronic system would call a strike; is it one point on the ball touches the edge, the mid point, or the entire ball? I went with umpire calls unless it was really obvious.

The game stats said he threw 64 strikes and 17 balls. The difference is batters swinging at pitches out of the zone along with some missed calls by the umpire.

Present Rules Real Strike Rule

81 Pitches 64

3 Strikeouts 6

4 Hits 1

1 Walks 2

15 Ball-In-Play Outs 12

	Present Rules						Real Strike Rule

Pitch	Total	B/S	Call/	In/Out	At Bat		Total	Ball	AB
No.	Pitches	F/IP	Swing	Of Zone	Result	No.	Pitches	Strk	Rslt
K Marte			1st Inning
1		S	C	I		1		S
2		S	C	I		2		S
3		F		I		3	3	S	K
4		B		O
5	5	IP		I	Single
Peralta
1	6	IP		I	Dbl Play	1	4		Gr Out
S Marte
1		S	S	I		1		S
2		B		O		2		B
3		S	S	I		3		S
4		B		O		4		B
5		F		O		5	9	S	K
6		B		O
7	13	IP		I	Pop Up
Escobar			2nd Inning
1		B		O		1		B
2		S	?	I		2		S
3		F		I		3		F
4		B		O		4		B
5		F		I		5	14	S	K
6	19	S	?	O	K
Walker
1		F		I		1		S
2		S	?	O		2		B
3	22	IP		I	Single	3	17	IP	Single
Calhoun
1		S	S	I		1		S
2		S	S	I		2		S
3		F		I		3	20	S	K
4		F		I
5		F		I
6		F		I
7		F		I
8	30	IP		I	Single
C Kelly
1		S	C	I		1		S
2		F		I		2		S
3		B		O		3		B
4	34	IP		I	Dbl Play	4	24	IP	Gr Out
Lamb			3rd Inning
1		S	C	O		1		B
2		S	C	O		2		B
3		F		O		3	27	B	Walk
4	38	IP		I	Double
Ahmed
1		S	S	I		1		S
2		S	S	I		2		S
3	41	S	S	I	K	3	30	S	K
K Marte
1		S	C	I		1
2		S	C	I		2		S
3		F		O		3	33	S
4		B		O				B
5	46	IP		I	Gr Out			B	Gr Out
Peralta
1		B		O		1		B
2		B		O		2		B
3	49	IP		I	Gr Out	3	36	IP	Gr Out
S Marte			4th Inning
1		S	C	I		1		S
2		S	C	I		2		S
3		B		O		3		B
4	53	S	S	O	K	4	40	S	K
Escobar
1	54	IP		I	Line Out	1	41	IP	Line Out
Walker
1		B		O		1		B
2		S	C	I		2		S
3	57	IP		I	Fly Out	3	44	IP	Fly Out
Calhoun			5th Inning
1		S	S	I		1		S
2	59	IP		I	Gr Out	2	46	IP	Gr Out
Kelly
1		S	?	I		1		S
2	61	IP		I	Gr Out	2	48	IP	Gr Out
Lamb
1		B		O		1		B
2		B		O		2		B
3		S	C	I		3		S
4		S	C	I		4		S
5		B		O		5	53	B	Walk
6		F		I
7		F		O
8		F		I
9	70	B		O	Walk
Ahmed
1		B		O		1		B
2		F		O		2		B
3		S	?	I ?		3		S
4	74	IP		O	Fly Out	4	57	IP	Fly Out
K Marte			6th Inning
1	75	IP		I	Fly Out	1	58	IP	Fly Out
Peralta
1		S	C	I ?		1		S
2		S	C	I		2		S
3	78	IP		I	Gr Out	3	61	IP	Gr Out
S Marte
1		S	C	I		1		S
2		S	S	O		2		B
3	81	IP		I	Gr Out	3	64	IP	Gr Out

				Present			Real Strike
			Inn	Rules			Rule
			1	Single			K
				Double Play			Ground Out
				Pop Up			K
			2	K			K
				Single			Single
				Single			K
				Double Play			Ground Out
			3	Double			Walk
				K			K
				Ground Out			Ground Out
				Ground Out			Ground Out
			4	K			K
				Line Out			Line Out
				Fly Out			Fly Out
			5	Ground Out			Ground Out
				Ground Out			Ground Out
				Walk			Walk
				Fly Out			Fly Out
			6	Fly Out			Fly Out
				Ground Out			Ground Out
				Ground Out			Ground Out

				Present			Real Strike
				Rules			Rule
				3 K			6 K
				2 Double Plays			1 Single
				3 Singles			2 Walks
				1 Double			12 In-Play-Outs
				1 Walk
				15 In Play Outs
				81 Pitches			64 Pitches