Called

Each round shows two real pitches from two real games. Both batters let the pitch go by, and exactly one of them was called a strike. You get the date, the inning, the outs, the runners, the batter, the pitcher and — the part that matters — the count. Pick the strike.

After each pick the game shows the league-wide called-strike rate for both counts, so the table below is something you learn by playing rather than something you have to study.

The game this was meant to be asked ball or strike about a single pitch, from the location. Retrosheet has no location — it records what the umpire decided, not where the ball was — so the question had to be re-asked in a form the data can settle. The first attempt kept the original shape exactly: one taken pitch, with its count, ball or strike.

Measuring it killed it. Across 10,511,792 taken pitches the count moves the called-strike rate enormously, from 1.4% on 0-2 to 53.4% on 3-0. But it crosses fifty per cent in exactly one count, so every other count is still more likely to be a ball — and “say ball, always” would score about 72 out of 100 while knowing nothing. Somebody who knew the whole table would beat them by about half a point.

A comparison has no such escape. Set an 0–2 take beside a 3–0 take and the odds say the 3–0 pitch is the strike about ninety-nine times in a hundred, while somebody guessing scores fifty. The knowledge is worth what it should be worth.

Two counts are drawn first, far enough apart in rate to make a real question. Which of them is the strike is then decided by the true odds between those two counts, and only then is a real pitch pulled from each side.

That order is deliberate. Taking the strike from whichever count has the higher rate would make the answer always the higher count, and the game a single rule. As it is, a 1–1 take beats an 0–1 take about a third of the time — so a player who over-trusts the table gets caught by it, which is what a real umpire does to a real hitter.

Measured over every taken pitch from 1988 to 2024.

• 3-0 — 53.4% (295,245 taken)
• 2-0 — 42.4% (558,103 taken)
• 0-0 — 38.5% (2,811,365 taken)
• 1-0 — 37.6% (1,226,996 taken)
• 3-1 — 35.8% (249,233 taken)
• 2-1 — 27.7% (539,386 taken)
• 1-1 — 23.9% (1,157,628 taken)
• 0-1 — 18.1% (1,179,989 taken)
• 3-2 — 17.7% (300,006 taken)
• 2-2 — 14.0% (633,951 taken)
• 1-2 — 10.6% (899,180 taken)
• 0-2 — 1.4% (660,710 taken)

Your score is how many of the 8 you got right. Beside it the game shows what somebody who knew the count table perfectly would have averaged on those exact eight pairs, which is the comparison worth making: a five out of eight on hard pairs is a better afternoon than a six on easy ones.

Eight pairs a day, the same for everybody. Unlimited deals another eight whenever you want more.