To IBB or To IBB Less

I almost always go with Conservative or Extra Conservative IBB options, but with my 1st team--2013 set--I was in a pitchers park and set the IBB to aggressive--and it worked like a charm the first half of the season--always pitching around a 6R good hitter with a RH pitcher and a base open--or vice versa for LH.

The second half was less successful as the subsequent HR caught up with me a few times--the team slumped. The league was a dominant pitching park league and that team was pitching heavy. Most of my pitchers were low OB allowed types. The team made the playoffs but got swept.

I have a tendency to look at the gb(A) on a pitcher's card. Exists be aggressive with IBB. Does not be conservative.
My thinking is part of reason for IBB is because first base is open and sets up the double play.

My strategy is to set Intentional Walk to Conservative for every team I have ever managed. Also, if I have a pitcher who walks a lot of hitters, I usually check his IBB less box.

I don't care about any other factors.

This is what I do as well. Exactly this.

[My strategy is to set Intentional Walk to Conservative for every team I have ever managed. Also, if I have a pitcher who walks a lot of hitters, I usually check his IBB less box.

This is what I do as well. Exactly this.

I usually do pretty much the same, although I will sometimes set Intentional Walk on normal if a team only has a few excellent hitters.

By the way, GBrookes, are you still our moderator? If not, who replaced you?

the correct answer according to modern baseball - which is informed by sabremetrics, is to almost never issue an IBB. Here is a recent article on this question that was inspired by Tony LaRussa's bad decision to issue an IBB to a batter on a 1-2 count (after a wild pitch advanced the runner to 2nd):
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/340 ... ry-ranking

I play almost exclusively the Mystery set which is from the era of the IBB, so I guess it is reasonable to have IBBs programmed in since that is what teams did. Although, the article does mention that in 1974 Walter Alston's Dodgers only issued 9 IBB on the season (similar to present day baseball). Looking through my teams it looks like they tend to issue too many IBB for my taste (I'd prefer like 5 a year - tied or trailing late in games with one out and first open with runner on 2nd or 3rd and a weak on deck hitter). I almost always end every season set to extra conservative on IBB but I may not be paying close attention at the beginning and accumulate IBBs early on. I've never paid close attention to it, so I'm not sure if "extra conservative" is reliably effective in keeping IBBs in the single digits for a season.