An intentional walk in the eighth inning can make a manager look like a genius or a coward. On August 4, 2024, Toronto’s John Schneider faced that choice at Yankee Stadium, with Aaron Judge standing between his Blue Jays and a possible loss.
The afternoon had already included a lengthy thunderstorm delay. Now the game stood tied 3-3, with two outs and runners on second and third. Juan Soto had just ripped a 115.2 mph double off Chad Green, putting the go-ahead run 90 feet from home.
Judge waited for his turn.
The Yankees captain had entered the game with 41 home runs and an OPS above 1.150. Green could challenge him, knowing one mistake might surrender the lead. Or Schneider could order another intentional walk and force the next hitter to finish the job.
Toronto chose the free pass.
Austin Wells stepped in with the bases loaded. Green eventually got him to lift a harmless fly ball into center field, ending the inning.
The gamble worked. At least for another inning.
But that escape left a harder question unanswered. Did Schneider make the statistically correct decision, or did a favorable outcome disguise a dangerous bet?
Aaron Judge made the decision harder than the scoreboard suggested
Toronto had spent much of that weekend trying to keep Judge from swinging.
The slugger entered Sunday’s game batting .323 with a .446 on-base percentage and .705 slugging percentage. His 41 homers led the majors, and he had hit six in his previous eight games.
Those numbers explained why Schneider wanted nothing to do with him.
Judge also carried a 1.151 OPS into the afternoon. Austin Wells, the left-handed catcher hitting behind him, had a .754 OPS with eight home runs.
That was a substantial difference. Judge could change the scoreboard with one swing, while Wells presented a more manageable offensive threat on paper.
However, calling Wells an easy out would have been misleading.
The 25-year-old had produced a .941 OPS during July. David Laurila’s August 4, 2024, FanGraphs profile also credited Wells with a 116 wRC+ through 253 plate appearances. He had performed 16% better than league average after adjusting for the offensive environment.
Wells was also a left-handed hitter facing the right-handed Green. That gave the Yankees the platoon advantage, hardly the ideal matchup for Toronto.
Still, the difference between the two hitters was impossible to ignore. Schneider had to decide whether avoiding Judge’s exceptional power justified handing Wells a bases-loaded opportunity.
MLB’s August 2024 reporting confirmed that Toronto intentionally walked Judge three times that Sunday. Schneider defended the approach afterward, pointing to the Yankees captain’s historic offensive production.
The Blue Jays weren’t trying to outsmart the entire Yankees lineup. They were trying to survive one particular hitter.
The pitch that made Toronto’s gamble work
With the bases loaded, Green needed one out. He couldn’t afford a walk, a hit batter, or a mistake over the middle of the plate.
Wells had enough power to make Schneider regret his decision immediately.
The count reached 1-2 before Green delivered a 96 mph four-seam fastball. Wells lifted it toward center field, producing a routine flyout.
Statcast measured the contact at 91.1 mph with a 58-degree launch angle. The ball traveled 218 feet.
Toronto escaped with the game still tied.
Yet the result proved only that Green retired Wells. It didn’t establish whether walking Judge had offered the Blue Jays their best chance of escaping.
A slightly different swing might have sent two runners home.
That uncertainty is exactly what makes intentional walks so difficult to evaluate.
The numbers show what Toronto sacrificed
The risk Schneider accepted becomes clearer through baseball’s run expectancy matrix.
Run expectancy measures how many runs teams typically score from each combination of baserunners and outs. Every new runner changes the expected outcome, even before another pitch reaches home plate.
In May 2025, roughly nine months after Toronto’s decision, FanGraphs analyst Ben Clemens revisited the underlying numbers.
His May 29 article, The Run Expectancy Matrix, Reloaded for the 2020s, updated an established analytical tool using more recent MLB play-by-play data.
The completed 2024 matrix showed that teams with runners on second and third and two outs averaged 0.60 runs over the remainder of the inning.
Load the bases with two outs, and that figure rose to 0.82 runs.
Toronto’s intentional walk therefore added roughly 0.22 expected runs when judged against league-average situations.
Those figures offer a retrospective benchmark rather than an exact calculation Schneider had available during the game.
More importantly, the numbers describe average offensive situations. Judge was anything but average.
A run expectancy table doesn’t automatically account for a hitter producing one of the strongest offensive seasons in modern baseball.
Schneider wasn’t comparing two ordinary hitters. He was weighing Judge’s extraordinary power against Wells’s respectable but considerably less threatening production.
Giving up a free base increased the general scoring risk. Avoiding Judge could offset that increase.
The walk made sense only if the second benefit outweighed the first cost.
Why win probability changes the eighth-inning calculation
The final innings demand a different way of measuring risk.
Imagine a team leading 4-3 with two outs and a runner on second. Its opponent sends an elite slugger to the plate.
A single could tie the game. One home run could put the offense ahead.
Walking the slugger places another runner aboard, but it also removes his immediate chance to damage the scoreboard.
The defensive team must still escape the inning.
That’s where win probability becomes more useful than raw run expectancy.
Run expectancy estimates how many runs might score. Win probability asks how likely each team is to win from the current situation.
The difference matters late in a close game. A two-run homer that flips the lead can be more damaging than several other offensive outcomes.
A 0.6 percentage-point advantage isn’t a guarantee
Earlier that same May, Clemens had examined the intentional walk specifically against Judge.
His May 13 FanGraphs analysis, When Should You Intentionally Walk Aaron Judge?, modeled the slugger’s offensive production from 2022 through May 11, 2025.
One hypothetical scenario placed the Yankees ahead by one run in the bottom of the eighth, with a runner on second and two outs.
The model found that walking Judge reduced New York’s win probability by approximately 0.6 percentage points, helping the visiting team.
That’s a small edge, not a mathematical commandment.
A shift of 0.6 percentage points means moving from a 50% chance of winning to 50.6%, for example. It doesn’t mean the defense suddenly becomes six percentage points more likely to win.
Clemens treated differences within roughly two percentage points as close enough for managers to consider the next matchup.
Those narrow margins deserve respect without false precision. Player projections carry uncertainty, and a different pitcher or next hitter could erase the advantage.
The hypothetical situation also differed from Toronto’s actual predicament. Schneider faced Judge in a tie game with runners on second and third, not while defending against a team already ahead.
Still, the broader lesson applied to both situations.
Walking a superstar isn’t just dugout panic. Sometimes, it’s a cold, hard math problem.
And by the time the following postseason arrived, managers across baseball were facing versions of Schneider’s dilemma.
The 2025 postseason put the intentional walk back under scrutiny
Schneider’s August 2024 decision offered a vivid example of the problem. The following spring, Clemens supplied a clearer mathematical framework for evaluating it.
Then October 2025 provided a wider test.
Across the playoffs, managers repeatedly confronted dangerous hitters with runners aboard and few outs remaining. The same choice kept resurfacing: challenge the best bat or surrender first base and trust the next matchup.
By October 16, teams had issued 24 intentional walks that postseason, according to an MLB.com analysis titled We’re seeing more postseason intentional walks — but do they actually help?
For comparison, the entire 2024 postseason had featured 21 intentional walks. The 2023 playoffs had seen 13.
The increase was notable because the deliberate free pass had become relatively uncommon during the regular season.
Managers weren’t suddenly abandoning analytics. Many were using matchup information to identify circumstances where the extra runner might be worth the cost.
The platoon advantage often matters more than reputation
The clearest pattern involved handedness.
Of those 24 intentional walks, 22 went to hitters who held the platoon advantage. Among the 23 ensuing matchups examined, only four left the offense with that advantage.
Managers weren’t simply avoiding recognizable stars. They were frequently changing the hitter-pitcher matchup.
Consider a left-handed reliever facing a dangerous right-handed slugger with two outs.
A left-handed batter waits on deck.
Walking the first hitter could let the reliever attack someone whose swing better suits his pitching strengths.
The three-batter minimum also played a role. Relievers generally had to face at least three hitters before leaving, unless the inning ended.
A manager unable to make a pitching change could still manipulate the next matchup by issuing a walk.
That brings the argument back to Green and Wells.
Toronto avoided Judge, but Green still faced a left-handed batter with the platoon advantage. Schneider wasn’t gaining a favorable handedness matchup.
He was betting that the enormous difference between Judge’s offensive ability and Wells’s would justify putting another runner aboard.
The 2025 postseason showed how often managers pursued a similar advantage, sometimes through handedness rather than overall hitting ability.
It also exposed how quickly those plans could unravel.
The double-play argument rarely tells the whole story
One of baseball’s oldest defenses of the intentional walk involves setting up an inning-ending double play.
With a runner on second and one out, walking a dangerous hitter puts a force play at second base. A ground ball could produce two outs and end the threat.
The logic sounds attractive.
But the defense must weigh that possibility against the additional runner and the hitter coming up next.
The October 2025 MLB.com analysis found that only one of the first 24 postseason intentional walks had produced the intended double play.
That doesn’t mean the other decisions were mistakes. Several served different purposes, including eliminating unfavorable platoon matchups.
Still, it challenges the belief that adding a runner automatically improves the defense’s position.
The argument becomes especially weak with two outs.
Toronto had no double-play opportunity to gain when it walked Judge in August 2024. The Blue Jays needed Green to retire Wells, period.
If Wells had reached base safely, the defensive advantage of a force play might have offered little consolation.
A late-game free pass should solve a specific problem. Creating the theoretical possibility of two outs on one ball isn’t enough.
The pitcher can make or break the calculation
Even a favorable batter comparison can fall apart when the pitcher loses command.
A manager might prefer his reliever against a weaker hitter, only to discover that the free pass changes how the next plate appearance unfolds.
With the bases loaded, a pitcher cannot casually work around the next batter. Every missed location carries a little more weight.
He also needs to account for his own arsenal.
A pitcher with a sharp slider and excellent command can attack the outside edge without repeatedly falling behind. Someone struggling to locate his fastball might turn a favorable matchup into a bases-loaded walk.
A strikeout specialist such as Edwin Díaz presents a different profile from a pitcher who depends heavily on ground balls. One might escape by missing bats, while the other could benefit more directly from creating force plays.
Neither approach eliminates the danger of putting another runner aboard.
Strikeout rate, walk rate, pitch movement, and the next hitter’s tendencies belong in the same calculation.
The bullpen complicates matters further.
If a manager has a fresh reliever available, he may be able to gain a better matchup without sacrificing first base. But substitution restrictions, workload, and recent performance can limit that option.
The decision also changes depending on which runner matters.
Loading the bases in a tie game creates a different risk from putting the potential winning run aboard while protecting a lead.
Toronto’s August 2024 situation captured that tension. Judge could punish Green with one swing, but Wells had enough power to make the intentional walk costly.
Schneider couldn’t eliminate the danger. He could only choose which hitter had the chance to exploit it.
Baseball still judges the result more harshly than the decision
Managers know what happens when an intentional walk fails.
The cameras find the dugout. A replay shows the free pass, followed by the hit that changed the game. Questions about strategy arrive before the losing pitcher reaches his locker.
A successful gamble usually receives less scrutiny.
That’s a poor way to judge a decision built on probabilities.
The proper comparison involves two possible paths before the first pitch. A manager can challenge the dangerous hitter and live with the result. Or he can add a runner and take his chances with the next batter.
Neither option guarantees an out.
Even the stronger statistical choice can fail because a hitter spoils a good pitch or drives a mistake into the gap.
The challenge is separating decision quality from outcome quality.
Against Judge, that distinction becomes especially difficult. His power makes the consequences of pitching to him unusually visible.
A manager who allows a home run might hear that he should have issued the walk. Someone who loads the bases and loses faces the opposite criticism.
Schneider understood that pressure in August 2024.
His strategy kept Judge from facing Toronto’s bullpen with a bat in his hands. Yet the Blue Jays still lost 4-3 when DJ LeMahieu delivered a 10th-inning single through a five-man infield.
The intentional walk worked in the eighth. It didn’t win Toronto the game.
A year later, the 2025 postseason analysis reinforced that distinction. Managers could make defensible matchup decisions and still watch the next hitter drive in runs.
The scoreboard records what happened. It doesn’t explain whether the manager chose the better risk.
The next eighth-inning intentional walk will face the same difficult test
Baseball’s best analytical models have made the intentional walk easier to evaluate, but they haven’t removed the judgment from it.
A manager can study run expectancy, examine platoon splits, and estimate the next hitter’s chances of reaching base. Statcast also provides information about how batters perform against particular pitch shapes and velocities.
Even with those tools, the answer can come down to a tiny difference in winning probability.
That shouldn’t discourage managers from pursuing the advantage.
Over a long season, small gains matter. But a fraction of a percentage point also leaves room for scouting judgment, uncertainty, and a pitcher’s condition that afternoon.
The key is recognizing when an eighth-inning intentional walk solves a real matchup problem rather than merely offering emotional relief.
Walking a superstar because he scares the dugout isn’t enough. Putting him aboard becomes defensible when the next matchup gives the defense a better chance of escaping than challenging him would.
The score must support the gamble. So must the baserunners, outs, and pitcher.
No formula can make the final pitch harmless.
At Yankee Stadium on August 4, 2024, Schneider chose Wells over Judge. Chad Green threw his 96 mph fastball, Wells lifted it toward center, and Toronto reached the ninth with the game tied.
For one inning, the calculation held.
A different swing could have made Schneider the villain instead of the strategist who escaped the inning. But the decision had to make sense before Green threw the pitch, not after Wells hit it.
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FAQs
When does an intentional walk make sense in baseball?
It makes sense when facing the next hitter gives the defense a better chance of winning, even after putting another runner on base.
Why did the Blue Jays intentionally walk Aaron Judge three times?
Toronto wanted to avoid Judge’s extraordinary power. Manager John Schneider preferred challenging other Yankees hitters rather than risking another big swing from Judge.
Does an intentional walk always increase run expectancy?
It generally raises run expectancy because another runner reaches base without an out. But avoiding an elite hitter can sometimes improve the defense’s winning chances.
What is the difference between run expectancy and win probability?
Run expectancy estimates how many runs a team might score. Win probability measures how likely a team is to win from the current game situation.
Did Toronto’s intentional walk against Judge work in August 2024?
Yes, in the eighth inning. Chad Green retired Austin Wells with the bases loaded, but the Yankees eventually won 4-3 in the 10th.
