Strategy
The purpose of an intentional walk is to bypass the current hitter in order to face the following batter whom the defensive team expects a better chance of getting out, to set up a double play ball by putting a runner on first base, or to set up a force play at any base in situations where the batter's run cannot affect the outcome of the game (ex: bottom of the 9th, runner on second and third, visiting team ahead by 1). In situations other than these, issuing intentional walks is typically seen as bad strategy, as the danger of them is that an extra runner is now on base for the following hitter. Practically any runner has a better chance of scoring a run from first base (as on a double or triple or two singles, among other following events) through the actions of later batters than the batter has of hitting a home run.
Read more about this topic: Intentional Base On Balls
Famous quotes containing the word strategy:
“That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“To a first approximation, the intentional strategy consists of treating the object whose behavior you want to predict as a rational agent with beliefs and desires and other mental states exhibiting what Brentano and others call intentionality.”
—Daniel Clement Dennett (b. 1942)
“The best strategy in life is diligence.”
—Chinese proverb.