Why Is No One Intentionally Walking Shohei Ohtani?
One of the most irritating plays in all of sports is Major League Baseball's intentional walk. Nothing is more frustrating as a fan than seeing the opponent's catcher stand up, hold his glove out and catch four straight balls as everyone boos.
Fans don't get the excitement of booing these days with new MLB rules bypassing the pitches, but the precedent still remains.
But where-oh-where has the intentional walk gone, and why the heck aren't teams using it against players like Shohei Ohtani as he continues to be an absolute behemoth in baseball? He currently has 35 home runs already and is leading the league in slugging percentage.
THE NUMBERS ARE STRIKING
According to the baseball stats website TeamRankings.com, intentional walks are once again down this year. Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Rodriguez leads all with 12, while Ohtani is tied for third with just 7 on the year.
I'm sorry, but how is Ohtani only being intentionally walked 7 times when the dude is absolutely crushing it? Last year, Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs, finished the season with a .311 batting average, and 131 RBI. He was intentionally walked ... wait for it ... NINETEEN times all season. By comparison, Barry Bonds was intentionally walked ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TIMES in 2004 out of his 232 total walks on the season! Bonds also leads all of the Majors with 688 intentional walks throughout his career.
So what changed?
On Monday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone gave insight into how managers are game planning against Ohtani and unfortunately it revolves around the one word that fans everywhere hate the most, analytics.
ANALYTICS HANDICAP MANAGERS FROM DOING WHAT THEY SHOULD
Boone chose to pitch to Ohtani despite him being on an absolute tear lately, rather than intentionally walk him to put a man on first and second with the Yankees having a 2-run lead. He argued that it was better to pitch to a red-hot Ohtani than Angels outfielder Mickey Moniak who is hitting .336. (Although Moniak only has 11 homers compared to Ohtani's 35.) How'd that work out? Ohtani hit a game-tying 2-run home run before the Angels ultimately won. Ohtani continued his hot hitting last night by ripping a triple for an RBI and scoring a run in the Angels' 5-1 win.
And that my friends illustrates the problem with analytics these days.
You have a manager and his General Manager listening to some nerds in the back spewing numbers at them on why they need to go with this pitcher or have this person sit on this day. Unfortunately, these number-crunching geeks don't have the slightest idea about momentum and being on a hot streak. I don't care what the percentages say - sometimes a player knows when they are ON. In basketball, if you have a small forward who just hit two 3-pointers in a few minutes, you keep dishing him the ball. Sometimes people are just on a tear and no computer model can predict that.
Is the intentional walk pretty? Of course not. Is it annoying? You're damn right. But rules are rules and if players are going to use anything and everything for the slightest advantage, then why not also use the intentional walk rule instead of becoming just another Ohtani home run casualty?