Major League Baseball is about to make a major rule change, altering how intentional walks are handed out. Instead of a pitcher throwing four pitches out of the strike zone, the walk will be awarded by a signal from the dugout, ESPN reported Tuesday night.
The network said the league and its union have agreed to the change, which will take effect this season. MLB has been trying to make its games shorter. However, The Wall Street Journal said last week that the change would save an average of 14 seconds per game.
Fans are not happy about the change, with many pointing out that botched intentional walks have led to game-changing moments.
Wikipedia: Intentional base on balls.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @09:36PM
It is mostly used in a situation where you have a runner on second base, or runners on second and third, with one or two outs and a decent batter coming to bat, and a lesser batter behind him. It sets up a scenario where you force all the runners to run on a hit ball, where if there was no one on first base, the other runners would not be forced to run. This allows the fielding team to get the out at any of the bases, instead of waiting to see if any of the other runners decide to advance.
It is certainly a calculated risk to purposefully put more runners on base and when it works you look like a genius (and it looks awfully stupid when it doesn't work).