Perrotto: Some Intentional Talk About Pirates’ Intentional Walks (+)

The baseball analytics crowd thinks the intentional walk is a bad managerial move.

Working in an organization that employs a seeming endless well of statistical analysts, Pittsburgh Pirates Derek Shelton certainly understands the sentiment.

“It is a dying thing because if you talk to analysts, they don’t like it because you’re putting a guy on base,” Shelton said.

Shelton seemed to be agreeable with the number crunchers in his first season with the Pirates in 2020. He issued just three intentional walks during the pandemic-shortened 60-game season, which ranked 24^th among the 30 major-league teams.