Monday, April 15, 2024

Should Intentional Walks Be Earned Runs?

I can see both sides of the issue: on the one hand, if a pitcher gets himself into a pinch and needs to walk someone, wouldn't that be on him? On the other hand, the batter didn't really "earn" the walk - it was freely given to him (almost certainly by the manager, not the pitcher himself). Additionally, if you need to pull the pitcher right before the due batter is up who you want to walk, who would you want to walk him? Certainly each pitcher would not want to be the one to hand out the free pass for fear of it hurting his statistics. 
    What do you think? Should intentional walks be earned runs? 

1 comment:

  1. I think intentional walks should be earned runs. The batter wasn't put on base by an error but by a deliberate calculation. If the calculation fails - well, that was just a risk of the calculation.

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