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.