I’m Barry Bonds. I’m up with an out and a runner on second. My opponents decide to intentionally walk me. After the third ball, why don’t I swing? The team obviously doesn’t want to pitch to me. Why not raise the pitch count by two extra pitches and make the pitcher stand out there in the heat for just a little bit longer?
P.S. If GQ is the wrong place to ask, I applogize.
Because at 3-2 there’s a chance he’d get one by you and there’d be two outs.
I guess little harm could come of this but there doesn’t seem to be much point to it. He’s just going to try to walk you again with the fifth pitch and Bonds (or anyone else) would have to be stupid to swing at that one, because even Barry Bonds with two strikes on him is a much less effective hitter.
The decision to walk Bonds is predicated on the assumption that he has three strike to work with; with three strikes to go he’s deadly. (Or used to be.) On a 3-1 count, he’s still deadly. But 3-2 he’s tremendously vulnerable; all batters hit poorly with two strikes on them. So he’d be nuts to swing at ball 4 twice. So why bother swinging at it once?
Nice to meet you, Mr. Bonds. There;s also a chance you might hit the ball on one of your swings and, since it’s a bad pitch, it might just dribble down to the second baseman or something.
The only possible advantage to swinging wildly at one bad pitch is that you’d cause the pitcher’s total pitch count to go up by one, but he’s not really putting anything stressful on these pitches anyway, so it’s a dubious advantage ,anyway.
Intentional walk balls are batting practice fastballs and put very little strain on a pitcher’s arm. Most keepers of pitch counts don’t even count them.
Personally, if a batter is hot, I don’t think a team will want to pitch to him on an 0-2 count, but the advantage here, regardless of how small it is, is to bother the pitcher, and make him stand out there on that hot field for five or so extra seconds.
Which is insignificant when compared with the chance of making the second out either by striking out, flying out or grounding out. Cf. the other thread about "Why batters only hit 30% of the time.
Yeah, but the batter is also standing out there on that hot field, waving at soft tosses three feet out of the strike zone.
If I were the pitcher, I might just throw the next ball inside, hit the batter in the ass and put him on first base that way. Better for both teams to just go through the Kabuki theater ritual of the intentional walk and go on from there.
The batter has been standing there for all of 19 seconds. The pitcher has been stranding there for 3 mins and 48 secs.
At which point the umpire would throw you out of the game.
There was a little league game shown on ESPN last week where the pitcher was intentionally walking the batter, but the kid swung anyway and got a base hit.
Didn’t matter in the long run, but it was funny as hell. 
Saw this on ESPN about a month ago, it ended the inning. Can’t remember which teams, but it was pretty entertaining.
There is a scene in Mr. Baseball, where Jack is being constantly walked intentionally. He turns the bat upside down, but they still continue to walk him.
From Wiki
Bass was able to hit one of the intentional balls that came too close to the strike zone, so pitchers responded by thowing that much futher out. Reportedly, they were fined for any stikes they threw him.
Hell, it happened earlier this season with Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins to win a game. The date was June 22; you can go to MLB.com to view the video.
You’ll need a subscription to watch this. Go to YouTube.com and watch it for free. It’s worth it. Just search for Miguel Cabrera.
Actually, you don’t (I don’t have one).
Go to the Orioles page, click on the link for the current video (the little camera) . Once the window pops up, click on “Other Orioles Games.” Look for the games of June 22 and click on “Cabrera’s unusual single.” It’ll probably be a better image than YouTube.
I don’t think swinging at one of the pitches is a bad idea at all. Suppose the pitcher gets a little concerned about getting one within Bonds’ reach. He might decide to toss the next one even more outside. In doing so, he might throw a wild pitch allowing a runner to advance.
Bear in mind, however, that it’s also true that at the professional level, if you start pulling this sort of stunt, the pitcher is quite likely to express his displeasure with you by putting the next pitch into side of your head.
Wasn’t it Don Drysdale who’s manager called for him to intentionally walk the batter and instead he plunked him? When asked why he did it, he said “Why should I waste three more pitches?”
In a game in the 1960s Henry Aaron was so upset with the Cardinals’ decision to walk him intentionally that he stepped across the plate and hit one of the tosses for a home run.
Unfortunately, by stepping across the plate he stepped out of the batters’ box and was called out by the umpire. Hilarious argument ensued.
If I were the pitcher, I’d take my chances with the batter who stands in the box backwards rather than walk him.