18 Seconds

One of the earlier casualties on MLBs war on interesting baseball was ending the intentional walk as we know it.  This ended beginning with the 2017 season.  This was the first salvo in MLB’s decision to speed up the game, rules be damned!  That rule change eliminated having the pitcher toss four intentional balls, replaced by the new rule that all the manager has to do is to signal the umpire and the batter simply walks down to first base.

Before reviewing the ramifications of that change, let’s first look at the time savings that was realized from this rule’s change.

Who would ever think that this move was going to be a great time saver, since how many intentional walks actually occur in any given game?  The answer is not many.  With the emphasis on analytics (which we are not against), the game has seen a decline in intentional walks, since 2017, which has nothing to do with the rule’s change.  Instead, the analytic take is that it is simply not a good move strategically to allow a batter to get on base without making him earn it.

Let’s take a look at recent years to determine how much time was saved by trashing the traditional intentional walk.  As you can see not much.  In 2022 on average, and on a per game basis, there would be a savings of 18 seconds per game throughout the season.

For that time savings MLB decided that it would be more exciting to have the manager signal the umpire to give a free pass.  True, that an intentional pass would likely result in the pitcher throwing four unhittable balls ending with the batter walking to first base, but on some occasions the unusual could occur, such as the pitcher throwing a wild pitch, the batter hitting the ball if it is too close to the plate or the pitcher and catcher scheming to sneak a strike in.

Again, the likelihood is that a more mundane outcome was likely, but there was always the possibility that one of the above scenarios could occur.  Now any uncertainty was eliminated by instituting the automatic walk.  All for the sake of 18 seconds.

For some interesting highlights from the past of intentional walks, check out this YouTube compilation.