Clutch 07-2016: Loopholes

In one of Mr. Clutch’s favorite movies “The Firm”, Avery Tolar, played by the great Gene Hackman talks to a young Mitch McDeere, one of Tom Cruise’s breakout roles, about the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.  Long story short, the answer is that the difference is breaking the law versus bending it. In the game of baseball, the difference is outright cheating versus a loophole, or legal move.

Let’s quickly hit upon the cheating part, since it’s not the focus of this discussion. Player cheating is things like pine tar on a bat, spit on a ball, and of most recent notoriety the use of performance enhancing drugs. And of course there is some more off the field corporate espionage things like hacking into a competing teams computer,  videotaping their practice, or like in that infamous Brady Bunch episode – stealing the playbook.

The items above are clear cases of industry standard cheating. Then there is the grey area, where it’s questionable if an action is breaking the rule or bending it. For example, picking up on another teams signs from the dugout or third base coach is just being observant.  To quote the late great Master John Kuhl, Mr. Clutch’s sensei and one of the toughest guys to walk earth, “Steal with your eyes”. Of course he meant is as one entered battle and you can pick up body language signals from your opponent.  Stealing signs in baseball is grey area probably leaning towards cheating, but not fully.

One of the specific “Loopholes” that is disliked by Clutch camp is the simple “Intentional Walk”. It seems more like a strategy than a loophole, but when you really look at it – it changes the game in various ways. It is certainly tax avoidance and not evasion relating it back to legal accounting and would approved by the office of Bendini, Lambert & Locke.

Now, this is not to be confused with pitching “Around” a hitter or the “Non-intentional intentional walk, with definitely should be viewed as 100% strategy moves. Trying to get a hitter to chase balls not in his wheelhouse is part of the game. Not giving a hitter anything to hit, and forcing him to accept a walk or chase balls out of the strike zone is also strategy. It’s the blatant refusing to face a hitter where the waters get muddled. 

Let these stats soak in for a moment before we continue. The year was 2004 and the player is Barry Bonds. The fact that he himself was a cheat is ironic and not the point.  Barry was intentionally walked 120 times that season.  That’s one in every five plate appearances. That’s 20% less chances to hit a home run.  He was often intentionally walked with nobody on base! That’s crazy-town. In one game Barry was intentionally walked four times. He was effectively taken out of the game.

Bonds hit 45 home runs and knocked in 101 that year in basically a half of season. Editor’s note: Bonds walked a total of 232 times that year. 112 of them were not intentional, at least as far as we know.  The Clutch stat gurus have figured out that removing the intentional walk and assuming that a percentage of the non-intentional walks actually were, that Bonds would have had 18 more dingers and around 40 more RBI.  Why is this important you ask?

Let’s see – where do we start? That year the Giants (Bonds’ team) finished two games out of first behind the Dodgers and a measly one game behind the wildcard Astros. Yup, the Giants just missed making the playoffs both ways.  The Giants played the Dodgers 19 times that season, going 9-10. If they instead go 10-9, that puts Holly wood and San Fran in a dead heat tie. Similarly, The Giants went 4-2 versus the Astros that year. Reverse just one of those results – and guess what? The Giants are the wildcard.  As you may have guessed, Bonds was IBB’d in each of the losses versus the Astros.  He was also intentionally walked in just about every Dodger win over the Giants that year, including four (4) times in a 5-4 Dodger win back in April.

I think you catch the drift. The intentional walk very likely affected the 2004 MLB playoffs. It’s probably all for the better as there was the year that Red Sox came from three games down to defeat the Yankees, and then made mincemeat of the Cardinals with a four game sweep. History could have been different if the game was just played straight up.

From a personal statistic and records perspective – guess what would have been in 2004 without the intentional walk? That’s right, the first “Triple Crown” winner since Yaz back in 1967. With the probable added stats, Bonds would have finished 15 HRs ahead of Adrian Beltre instead of three behind. He also would have ended up 10 RBI ahead of Rockies Vinny Castilla. Bonds led the league in hitting that year at .362, 15 points ahead of Todd Helton and the Colorado air.

It’s known that the intentional walk is strategy used to win games. Of course all Met fans remember how that backfired in the playoffs back in 1999.  Afraid to face Chipper “Larry” Jones, the Mets manager called for an intentional walks to load the bases. Keep in mind this was after issuing the same directive to the previous batter Brian Jordan. Fry Chicken man and Gambler Kenny Rogers (Actually no relation to either) then proceeded to accidentally walk the next guy, which ended the game and the Mets World Series hopes.

The intentional walk is legal. It’s allowed and it’s never really been frowned upon as a move. One could say that it has its place in the game, and maybe it’s the deep minority that thinks otherwise.  Personally, Mr. Clutch disagrees and believes the IBB puts shade over the pureness of the game. You want to win? Face your fears.  Don’t believe me? Ask Bobby Valentine.