Early this the season, the Tigers walked A.J. Pierzynski in the top of the sixth with runners on second and third, one out, Detroit losing 3-1, and Carlos Quentin on deck for the White Sox. Justin Verlander was on the mound for the Tigers.

Issuing an intentional walk in that situation is particularly annoying to me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows that pitching to a batter with the bases juiced is not easy. In fact, in the AL from 1998 to 2007 with the bases loaded and one out, batters had a .359 wOBA (weighted on-base average), as compared to an overall average wOBA of .343. Compare that to the average wOBA with runners on second and third, and one out: .348

But, whether you think that a particular strategy is annoying or not, or even whether you think it is correct, does not make it so, one way or the other. If that were the case, most of the commentators we see and hear on the radio and TV, as well as many baseball insiders, would be anointed as geniuses, and we, the analysts and sabermetricians, would indeed be just geeks living in our mothers’ basements.

In other words, the only way to figure out whether that intentional walk was "correct" is to do the math. Opinions, experience and annoyances don’t matter. Some things in baseball are obvious. Many things, such as the typical intentional walk, are not.