The Intentional Walk In Baseball Will No Longer Be Four Thrown balls
As part of its initiative to improve pace-of-game play, Major League Baseball has approved a change to the intentional walk rule, going from the traditional four-pitch walk to a dugout signal, team and union sources told ESPN's Howard Bryant.
MLB has studied various ways to quicken games.
ESPN's Jayson Stark reported earlier this month that MLB had made formal proposals to the players' union to usher in both raising the strike zone and scrapping the practice of lobbing four balls toward home plate to issue an intentional walk.
Getting rid of the old-fashioned intentional walk would eliminate about a minute of dead time per walk. In an age in which intentional walks actually have been declining -- there were just 932 all last season (or one every 2.6 games) -- that time savings would be minimal. But MLB saw the practice of lobbing four meaningless pitches as antiquated.
Stark reported at the time that for the intentional walk rule to go into effect this season, an agreement between the league and union would have to be reached "sooner rather than later," since spring training games are close to beginning.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday he didn't want to share specifics of his priorities for alterations.
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