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.

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