This is true, but when the Cubs are in San Francisco and it’s the top of the 7th at 11:00pm CST I’ll take all the shortcuts I can get. I get tired man. 
And even so, intentional walks are not common and don’t take that long.
Drat! Well, we’ll just have to resort to a pinch hitter with freakishly long arms, I suppose.
Cluricaun:
I think that, however rare, it would be unfair to the batting team to not make the fielding team make their pitches and risk a pitching/catching mistake that would allow the runners a chance to advance or score.
I agree. Plus if you’re going to bitch out and walk a guy, why on earth would we want to make it easier for you to do so?
The best statistics I could find was that Intentional walks were issued 0.7% of the time during 2000-2004. The particular study didn’t count all intentional walks – just around 80% of them), so that the number of all intentional walks is close to 1.0% of the time.
The average duration of a baseball game in 2004 was about 2 hours, 47 minutes. Make that 167 minutes. One percent of that is about one minute, forty seconds. (Actually, pitching an intentional walk is quicker than throwing four pitches to the batter, since the pitcher and catcher have to decide on the signs, etc. There’s a good chance an intentional walk is only about a minute.)
A single pitch or a strategic way (i.e., the manager says, “walk him”) to give the runner first base is going to take some time. Say ten seconds for a signal to walk, and 20 seconds for a pitch. So let’s say each intentional walk saves a minute and a half.
Not exactly a big difference.