I know JC has written about lineup protection before, but I wonder if if JC’s conclusion about protection being essentially nonexistent applies to IBB or only when pitchers are trying to record outs.

By the way, Buck Showalter gets my vote for greatest IBB ever! Walking Bonds with the bases loaded drove the purists mad, but when you look at most of those Giant teams (Bonds, 7 clowns and a pitcher) its amazing Bonds ever got a pitch at which to swing.

The rest of Neyer’s points make sense but, by now, he annoys me so much that I tend to oppose anything he says on principle.

Yeah, I’m about a foot shorter.

Four balls = first base

Eight balls = second base

Twelve balls = third base

etc.

I’ll even be kind to you intentional rule-breakers and not reset the strikes. So if you walk a guy on a full count, and the hitter declines it, the count reverts to 0-2.

Haven’t we had this conversation before?

What happens when the batter declines his base and the pitcher continues to throw balls?

You’re supposed to pitch the danged ball into the strike zone. If you’re not capable of doing so, the base-on-balls is supposed to be the penalty.

At no point in any game or sport should a team benefit from intentionally penalizing itself. It’s just wrong.

Football has it right. If the penalty would be beneficial for the offending team, the other team has the right to refuse it.

Batters should have the same option. I’m not sure exactly how the mechanics would work, but batters should be allowed to decline any walk, intentional or not.

Otherwise I think all of Neyer’s other suggestions are fair game and I’d throw in one more. Nothing against umpires, but I think we are at a point in time where instant replay is ok in certain situations most notably in calling a HR which we have seen a lot of need for in the last two weeks. I’d leave bang bang plays and balls and strikes in the judgement call of the umpires, because we still love to see Bobby Cox thrown out of a game every now and then. Both a ball down the line that might have been foul or fair or a HR or ground rule double you just hate to see one of those missed.

Speeding up games and bringing back Double Headers, and no I don’t mean day/night DH’s to makeup for a rain delay are definitely in the best interest of the game.

You still have to pitch four balls out of the strike zone: in fact, far enough out that, unless you’re Benching someone, the batter cannot hit it without stepping out of the batter’s box.

The catcher still has to catch it.

The pitch has to be fast enough that a baserunner on second or third doesn’t decide to steal.

The catcher has to throw it back–or decide that the baserunner at second or third is getting a little lazy, and try to make a play.

They’re four of the most interesting pitches in the game, especially if the reason is more than runner-on-second-and-the-#8-hitter-up-in-a-Major-League-game.

Of course, I’ve said before that baseball doesn’t need to be faster; it needs better announcers who actually explain what is happening.