Yankees’ News: The Intentional Walk

By Tyler Angelo | Feb 6, 2015

A walk is great for the batting team and bad for the fielding team, right? That is common knowledge and brings back memories of learning the game. Even a kid in Tee-Ball could tell you that a walk is as good as a hit. So then why would an intentional walk be any different?

An intentional walk puts a curveball (baseball pun) on the views of a walk. It is still good for the batting team because the batter gets on base and sees his OBP go up. It also means that he was put on base because he is doing something right, which brings us to the next point; it is also good for the fielding team. The pitcher uses a “pass” if you will and skips one batter to face another in a more favorable match up.

The league began viewing intentional walks as a stat in 1955 and from then to the live ball era, there has been a significant dip in intentional walks. It is no secret that the game has taken a substantial shift from the long ball to pitching. A lot of the change could be contributed to the cut down on PED’s, but I personally believe it could be chalked up to the pitching. The modern pitchers throw much heavier and electrifying stuff. The 2014 season was the seventh consecutive season that the record for K’s in a season was broken.

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I will use Roger Clemens to dive deeper into my analysis on pitching. He was given his nickname “The Rocket” for his powerful fastball which he threw in the mid 90’s. According to Fangraphs.com there were 49 pitchers, who threw for at least 10 innings, that averaged a 95.0 MPH or higher fastball. There would be way too many nicknames in 2014 if we tried to label every fastball pitcher. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between win probability and better stuff.

If you compare a successful pitcher’s best pitch to his win probability then you will see it is highest when his pitch is the most effective. Clemens’ fastball obviously lost speed over time and in his final year of 2007 with the New York Yankees his average velocity was 90.3 MPH. In that final season his win probability was only 1.09. Now if you look earlier in his career when his fastball was averaging 95 MPH in a year like 1990, he posted a 6.94 win probability.

The argument could be made for many more pitchers in 2014 then it could have been made for in the past. Managers trust their pitchers much more these days and don’t feel the need to pass up on a premier batter to get to a more favorable match up. In Ryan Hatch’s article for NJ.com he uses Joe Girardi‘s quote to defend his argument. Girardi said, “It’s not something we do a lot of. We have belief in our pitchers.”

However, the same could be said for teams facing the New York Yankees. The mediocre lineup was only issued 16 intentional walks in 2014. That is near the record for the lowest held by the Kansas City A’s in 1961 with 10. I believe the shift is a direct result of confidence and low production. The new era of ego combined with the inability to put good wood on the ball for the Yankees left them working for walks.

The Yankees’ leader in home runs was Brian McCann with 23 so you can’t exactly blame pitchers for feeling extra confident. However as a fan, the optimistic view on this stat is that the Yankees receive more opportunities than other teams to produce…they just didn’t in 2014. Hopefully the Yanks draw more walks in 2015…or don’t…which ever way you see it.

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