I've never been one to complain about the intentional walk. Sure, it's boring to watch and usually ill-advised, but it's never really bothered me as part of the game. I've always just viewed it as a tool that managers use sometimes.
I know there are plenty of smart, baseball-loving writers out there who hate the move. Rob Neyer, Joe Posnanski, and Tom Tango, for example, have all written about their hate of the intentional walk many times; they are certainly not alone. It's not a popular part of baseball, but, other than it being boring, I was never convinced that it needed to be fixed (the word "unsportsmanlike" is used a lot, and, frankly, that's not convincing). In fact, a couple of years ago I wrote an article called "The Intentional Walk Has to Stay." My main argument had two points: one, we harp so much on the value of getting on-base these days that a manager's willingness to give a team that positive outcome cannot be viewed as removing the offense's weapons and, two, that we shouldn't be removing something that's been around since the game's inception without good reason (and "I don't like it!" isn't a good reason).
I still believe in those points, but I've been re-thinking my intentional walk position recently. Then Tony LaRussa brought in Lance Lynn in Game 5 of the World Series to intentionally walk a batter for the sole purpose of giving his better pitcher an extra chance to warm-up – now I can't help but rethink that position.
Intentional walks, while a clear positive for the batting team, can be too easily used for reasons that aren't on the field. An "intentional stall tactic" is only the worst of these reasons. There should be a penalty issued to the pitching team – above and beyond the extra man on base – if they choose to intentionally walk someone. In that way, any ulterior motives for issuing a free pass will be pushed aside and the game can get back to where it belongs.
How can we do this? It's not as hard as it may seem. The rule I would like to see in place is this: for any four-pitch walk, the defensive team is issued a "pitched-ball balk". All balk rules apply (baserunners advance, if present). This change would flow seamlessly into the game (we all know what a balk is) and it wouldn't even go against the spirit of existing rules (balks are issued for pitching mistakes). In fact, I don't even think this would be all that different from current rules. We all know that a player can't bunt a ball foul with two strikes without a special penalty. How would it be so different to have a penalty for a pitcher throwing a ball on 3-0?
I'm not one to react strongly to a single moment and demand change. Usually those reactions are proven to be over the top and wrong-headed in the light of day. I've been thinking about this "pitched-ball balk" idea for two years now, though, and it just gets better and better in my head. The LaRussa/Lynn shenanigans from tonight's game just gave me another reason to favor it. It'll never happen, of course. Bud Selig and his pals are too busy changing divisional alignments, interleague play, and the Wild Card set-up to ever consider rule changes at this level, but I honestly think it could work. How am I wrong?
Thank you for reading
This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.
Subscribe now
And your aversion to the intentional walk is how most people who dislike it view it. I agree - just never thought that was enough reason to change the rule.
In football, it's angle kicking or punting out of bounds to prevent the Devin Hester's from running it back on you for the TD.
I hate the IBB as much as the next guy that hates it. It's almost always a bad idea, but if a team wants to make a mistake, let them.
Problem #1 with the idea of any 4-pitch walk falling under this rule: There are plenty of times where a pitcher just is wild and walks a guy on 4 straight because ball 4 was bad enough to not even get the courtesy/pity strike call.
Heck, there are plenty of times when a guy is so out of it he throws 8+ straight balls and walks 2 guys. That'd be 1st and 3rd on the 2nd walk with this setup.
Worse still, the batter KNOWS that he's almost certainly getting a BP fastball down the chute on any 3-0 count with runners on, just to avoid the balk.
If I were to argue for this (and I'm not, I don't like it), I'd suggest that only the IBB where the catcher is not in the crouch would count. Pitching around someone still leaves the chance for missing over the plate or throwing a wild pitch and paying for it.
Better yet, if you want to IBB a guy, don't require any pitches to be thrown. Just have the manager/pitcher signal the Ump that you want the batter on 1st base and move the game along. You can no longer 4-pitch/catcter standing up half out of his box IBB. Prevents this as a stalling tactic, speeds up the game, and makes it look even stupider as a management call.
Of course, the jerk-move in this would be to just bean the guy you'd otherwise IBB to avoid this.
To me that's the way to go - you want to put a man on base, go ahead and do it but don't dawdle, just get on with it.
Then again, plenty of batters waste the current advantage that they enjoy on 3-0, choosing to watch meatballs slide across the plate because (apparently) it's a cardinal sin to willlingly give up on a near-walk situation. If there is one thing that drives me more nuts than IBB's, it's pitchers who toss BP fastballs on 3-0, and even moreso the hitters that watch those pitches pass by.
So I guess that's my long-winded, circular way of saying that you might be on to something...
I actually think that the biggest affect of this is that umpires would now be even more lenient on that 3-0 strike than ever before. The obvious balls would still be called balls, but the edge of the plate might expand by 1/4 of an inch or something. This might also mean that batters swing less at the 2-0 pitch, giving pitchers at least a little bit of leeway.
Bunters sometimes try that two-strike bunt knowing the consequences; I think pitchers would sometimes take the risk too.
Batters used to be able to bunt to their heart's content, possibly racking up 6 or 7 balls bunted foul until he could force the pitcher to throw a ball he wanted - ie, he controlled the pitcher until he got something favorable to him. Everyone decided that, while this was a normal, allowable part of the game, it changed the flow of the game (for lack of a better term) too much, and the "foul-bunt strikeout" was created. The "pitched-ball balk" would be something similar implemented for similar reasons...
Has it really been around since the game's inception? I'll admit I don't really know the history of this particular thing, but it's hard to imagine Tommy Bond (who walked 8 in 497 innings in 1874) figuring a way to intentionally pass Long Levi Meyerle despite the necessity of 9+ balls, not exactly defined as today, to do it.
Although there are references to Abner Dalrymple being intentionally walked with the bases loaded in 1881...
One scenario that seems particularly questionable is this: Men on second and third, with first base open. The batter is intentionally walked "to set up a force at any base." And then, often, the pitcher walks the next batter, forcing in a run. How often does the defensive team even avail itself of the "force at any base"?
The intentional walk is an obviously good move in one instance - man on second, tie game, bottom 9, none or one out, and you're walking a hitter who presents danger not significantly less than the couple guys that follow him. In that case, you add forces to the mix, you remove the incentive for a hitter to hit a groundball to second base (which now likely trades 2 outs for a base instead of one), and other decent stuff.
Contrary to the rest of you it seems, I think it's a worthwhile part of the game, allowing the defense manager to take a risk (as generally ill-advised as it may be) in exchange for a choice of batters to face or the setup of a force. Whatever you do you're still going to have "unintentional/intentionals" and the proposed change would just introduce the whole host of problems y'all have pointed out when you've got a pitcher who just happens to be wild.
btw, I've seen the load-the-bases for the force work many times. And I'm a Giants fan who suffered through all those Bonds IBBs, which didn't actually work to the other team's advantage for most situations anyway.
I say let managers display their ignorance. That really has always been part of the game!
Phillies 6, Mets 0. top 5th, Phillies coming to bat. in the forecast, bearing down on Flushing Meadows is a tremendous storm that is almost certain to suspend play for good. why not continually issue intentional walks, then constantly make pickoff throws, etc. to stall?
this of course requires the literal perfect storm of events.
I have never seen this called in a major-league game, and suspect that it would be called only in really extreme cases. However, what you're talking about probably qualifies. That introduces the question: did what TLR do also qualify? Interesting question, but I don't think so, at least no more than taking a long, slow walk to the mound to change pitchers does, rather than trotting briskly out and signaling to the bullpen while en route. Furthermore, in this case, he paid a severe tactical price for buying time.
I'd be very interested to know exactly, in detail, what happened in this weird situation. We probably never will.