Should intentional walks be illegal?

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AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Not in favor of putting a limit on the amount of pitchouts.

Regardless, what about catchers standing only 3/4 squatted and giving a target up around the shoulders? What about catchers setting up outside and giving a target outside?

You can see where I'm going with this. You can mandate that the catcher is fully squatted and between the batters boxes. But, that would impact more than just preventing IBBs and I'm not much of a fan of that.

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mikechamp
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by mikechamp »

I say No.

If I've got a runner on 2nd, and a dangerous hitter strolling up to the plate with 1 out, but a weak hitter in the on-deck circle, I'll intentionally walk the dangerous hitter to set up an inning-ending, double play possibility with the weaker hitter at the plate.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

ghostrunner wrote:
March 22 23, 10:08 am

But this is completely legal now. They can do it anytime.

- assuming you mean the intentional unintentional thing
Yes, but they have to have a batter eye in those cases. Those are usually paint the corner type PAs to get the batter to swing at junk. A walk there is still earned and OBP should reflected properly. Wink Wink BB in your "IBB is banned" world is what I was referring to.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

Baseball is a zero-sum sport. Anything you give to one team is taken away from another. So banning it doesn't make much sense. The pitching aspect is because Manfred and Theo Epstein's Mission to Remove Boring Plays initiative. Nothing more.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Big Amoco Sign wrote:
March 22 23, 11:02 am
Baseball is a zero-sum sport. Anything you give to one team is taken away from another. So banning it doesn't make much sense. The pitching aspect is because Manfred and Theo Epstein's Mission to Remove Boring Plays initiative. Nothing more.
My proposal of only allowing it when it creates potential force plays for runner(s) in scoring position would address this. It would not allow the obvious advantage to the defense when IBB'ing a good hitter with nobody on / runner at third to get to a worse hitter and open the opportunity for an inning ending DP. It would only allow it in a situation where the offense gets an offsetting advantage of an additional runner in scoring position.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Or another, simpler way to implement an IBB without giving the defense a clear advantage: Any IBB MUST put an additional runner in scoring position. IE: If the IBB is with the bases empty or runner at 3rd, the batter is placed at 2B.

That way, you get offsetting advantages, the defense can still choose NOT to pitch the batter (which speeds up the game) and the net result is a situation with more potential / tension than before the IBB.

I'd go for that.

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Radbird
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by Radbird »

Taking the bat out of a better hitter’s hand to pitch to a lesser hitter is just taking advantage of an opponent’s weakness. It’s on the opponent to fix that and get some protection for the slugger.

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AdmiralKird
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by AdmiralKird »

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:
March 22 23, 12:36 pm
Or another, simpler way to implement an IBB without giving the defense a clear advantage: Any IBB MUST put an additional runner in scoring position. IE: If the IBB is with the bases empty or runner at 3rd, the batter is placed at 2B.

That way, you get offsetting advantages, the defense can still choose NOT to pitch the batter (which speeds up the game) and the net result is a situation with more potential / tension than before the IBB.

I'd go for that.
In theory this sounds great, in practice though it would just mean pitchers would toss four softies outside of the zone so the batter would just take a single base. All it would do is slow the game down.

The problem with getting rid of the IBB is pitchers are just gonna walk batters if they want to walk them, or attack them if they attack them. I imagine the whole reason the IBB was added to the game as its own thing was to speed this process up and make it more trackable.

So the only way to tackle the IBB is to tackle walks in general.

Now if all walks acted as a ground rule double and the batter automatically goes to second... that would be doable. But would it be desirable?

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Should intentional walks be illegal?

Post by CardsofSTL »

Everything should be legal. Baseball anarchy [expletive]!!!

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