February 22, 2017

IBB Unintended Consequences

MLB and the MLBPA agreed on eliminating four pitches for an intentional walk.

My question to Baseball Musings readers is this: What will be the unintended consequences of this rule? The rule removes the small risk associated with an IBB, that the pitcher or catcher causes a ball to go by, allowing a runner or runners to score. It also eliminates the chance of the pitcher leaving a ball over the plate for the batter to smash. Less risk associated with the IBB says to me that intentional walks should be more frequent this season.

Note that putting runners on base should lengthen games, as it takes a little longer to get the 27 outs to end the contest. I’ll also note that intentional walks keep coming down. The last five seasons saw the five lowest IBB totals of the 30-team era, and the decline has been steady:

Season Intentional Walks
2012 1055
2013 1018
2014 985
2015 951
2016 932

The IBB is a poor defensive play, and with more sabermetric minded people taking control of the game, the strategy is fading quickly. We will see if that tend wins out, or if the smaller risk associated with the play causes the number of IBBs to rise this year. It really seems to me, however, that this was a problem that was fixing itself.

The record for most IBB in a season was 1452 in 2002. That was the season Barry Bonds drew 68 IBB, the second highest total of his career. He would draw 120 IBB in 2004, a year that saw 1379 IBB in total.

3 thoughts on “IBB Unintended Consequences

  1. rbj

    Pitch clock and innings clock have worked out well at AAA and AA. The more players who have gotten used to playing with them the easier it will be to put them in MLB.

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  2. Ptodd

    Yeah, I said as much myself somewhere else There will be more IBB. The biggest problem managers had with it was messing up a pitchers rhythm or release point. Fans will see fewer AB from the best hitters, especially those hitting w/o protection

    Perhaps the stupidest rule change of all time simply because it adds nothing even at best. Change for change sake. Might see a IBB 2-3 times a week for any given team. Save 45 seconds every other game. Manfreds Follies

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  3. James

    Hang on — surely this rule change will *shorten* games. Even if we see a few more IBB because of it, each IBB will take pretty close to zero time. The extra time it takes to throw the four pitches will be eliminated.

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