Sarcasm aside, sources have told ESPN’s Howard Bryant that the Major League Baseball Players’ Association and Major League Baseball have agreed to no longer require a pitcher throw four pitches outside of the strike zone to intentionally walk a batter. The new rule would only ask the pitcher’s dugout to signal that an intentional pass will be given, and then the batter would simply take his base.
According to baseball insiders, this rule change would save a whole minute of dead time per intentional walk. In baseball last season, there were only 932 intentional walks (about one every 2.