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Stealing Signs

What's on your mind?

by Safebyahare » Mon Mar 02, 2015 3:23 pm

PDad wrote:
Safebyahare wrote:I think I need to correct something.
Coach Caldrean did not just pick off signs. He new pitching, and would call out pitches based on the pitchers grip. This really screwed with the pitchers head more assisting his batters.
He and the team did make it to the WCWS, but did not win.

Sounds like last year with Duck U's HC, Mike White...

A mind is a terrible thing.,,,,,My memory has betrayed me.
Thank you PDad, you are correct. (dang that was last year)
I see further, because I stand on the shoulders of giants
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by fastpitchdad05 » Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:00 pm

Safebyahare wrote:
PDad wrote:
Safebyahare wrote:I think I need to correct something.
Coach Caldrean did not just pick off signs. He new pitching, and would call out pitches based on the pitchers grip. This really screwed with the pitchers head more assisting his batters.
He and the team did make it to the WCWS, but did not win.

Sounds like last year with Duck U's HC, Mike White...

A mind is a terrible thing.,,,,,My memory has betrayed me.
Thank you PDad, you are correct. (dang that was last year)


I believe former ASU head coach and now Auburn head coach Clint Myers gained a reputation as someone who would call out pitches to the batter just before the pitch.
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by AlwaysImprove » Tue Mar 03, 2015 8:15 pm

Candrea used to do it as well. I think it would be more of a distraction than a help, but another way to think of it is additional information for the hitter. If they get it consistent enough they should be able to integrate this information with all the other bits of information. Then it would be helpful.

Claiming that Candrea "gets pitching" is easily debated. Since he fired Evans he has gone almost 10 years without even achieving the level of acceptable pitching.
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by Mark H » Tue Mar 03, 2015 9:46 pm

I believe the context of "he gets pitching" was in relation to being able to pick pitches from seeing the grip.
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by CheckWriter » Tue Mar 03, 2015 10:18 pm

DD had a TB coach the would just yell "CHANGE UP" every pitch when his own pitcher was pitching if the opposing coach started with the "stay back" for change up, "turn on it"for inside pitch and "go with it" for the outside pitch. He had good vocal cords and we never played a team whose coach he couldn't drown out. Worked pretty well.
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by Sam » Wed Mar 04, 2015 6:50 am

CheckWriter wrote:DD had a TB coach the would just yell "CHANGE UP" every pitch when his own pitcher was pitching if the opposing coach started with the "stay back" for change up, "turn on it"for inside pitch and "go with it" for the outside pitch. He had good vocal cords and we never played a team whose coach he couldn't drown out. Worked pretty well.


.....until those kids don't play for him and have to actually recognize pitches and react. Like a card cheat having to play with an unmarked deck.
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by rbi » Wed Mar 04, 2015 8:04 am

Difference between baseball and softball at higher levels when it comes to stealing signs and picking pitchs, i guess is IQ. In softball signs and pitchs are babbled out like nobodys business from the dugout to the coaching box. In baseball you will never know what the hell is going on, as its all coded. Before you know it you just got robbed blind, while in softball its more of "look at me" feeling. When you've seen both its pretty comical.
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by Sam » Wed Mar 04, 2015 10:17 am

Spazsdad wrote:
Sam wrote:
CheckWriter wrote:DD had a TB coach the would just yell "CHANGE UP" every pitch when his own pitcher was pitching if the opposing coach started with the "stay back" for change up, "turn on it"for inside pitch and "go with it" for the outside pitch. He had good vocal cords and we never played a team whose coach he couldn't drown out. Worked pretty well.


.....until those kids don't play for him and have to actually recognize pitches and react. Like a card cheat having to play with an unmarked deck.

Hey Sam, try rereading what CW wrote. Sometimes you are blinded by your own fervor.


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by Turn&burn » Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:30 pm

Picking off signs is part of the game, hence why coaches and players try to establish a system that’s difficult for opponents to understand. However; stealing signs is a double edge sword and can work against you if your opponent is onto you. As mentioned, they can discreetly change signs (counter measure) that represent the opposite of the original signs. Also, it does no good tipping pitches if the pitcher can’t hit her spots. The challenge is not letting your opponent know you can read their signs and than properly communicate it to your players in a code. This is difficult against a seasonal coach. That’s why flagging pitches by base runners isn’t really effective as you’re also communicating to the other team your tipping pitches allowing them to adjust.

Hitting a runner for stealing signs or tipping pitch locations is more of baseball response then softball. In baseball, there’s unwritten rule that caught to stop immediately. If the opposing team persists after a fastball has been thrown behind batter or aggressively thrown inside (brushback) with catcher communicating the reason. A player; usually one of their better ones, will get hit with a 90+ mph fastball. There’s also unwritten rule on how you can throw at a batter, nothing that causes a career ending injury. A pitch thrown at batter’s head usually clears benches, especially if they know it was done purposely. Obviously, the better approach is to just flip flop your signs.

If a runner is tipping pitch locations, usually they're reading the catcher and not stealing signs. Have your catcher delay setting up.
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by DDG » Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:39 pm

Going back to the OP. If the coach really does instruct the pitcher to throw at the base runner, that's crap! Coach needs to grow up and do a better job of coaching the catcher on not giving away pitch locations/calls. Don't take it out on the other team because he is a poor coach.

Stealing signs happens all the time. As others have posted, just be good at it so you don't get caught. There is no rule against it.

I can't believe how blatant runners are at signaling where they think the pitch is going to be (even at the D1 level). Even if they are getting the location right, I would think all the arm flapping and such would be a distraction to the batter. I saw this on ESPN 3 this weekend at DD's game. There was a nice wide field shot just as the pitcher was starting her delivery. The runner on second was swinging her arms around. Everyone in the place had to know what she was doing. I think it would have been less of a distraction just to yell out "inside. Inside".

It's easy enough to deal with this by changing the signals to the pitcher. I would love to have the batter getting bad information in the middle of an at bat.
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