Are Intentional Walks Ruining Baseball?

Shohei Ohtani was intentionally walked nine times over the course of the 2025 MLB postseason, including a record-setting four times in World Series game 3 alone, which upset a lot of offense-loving fans. Are too many of the MLB’s star players being given a “free pass” too often? And are intentional walks ruining baseball?

0:00 Introduction
2:22 Intentional Walks: History & Numbers
5:28 Does the Strategy Work?
8:42 Did it Work in the Playoffs?
9:02 How to Best Counter It

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Statistics, data, and results gathered from MLB (https://www.mlb.com/), Baseball Savant (https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/), The Baseball Cube (https://www.thebaseballcube.com/conte..., Baseball Reference, (https://www.baseball-reference.com/) and Fangraphs (https://www.fangraphs.com/)

Articles Referenced (In Order of Appearance):

Intentional Walk Definition: https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard...

Baseball Reference – Intentional Walk: https://www.baseball-reference.com/bu...

MLB Viewership: https://www.mlb.com/news/world-series...

Sportico Article: https://www.sportico.com/leagues/base...

The Fordham Ram Article: https://thefordhamram.com/sports/over...

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