Pitching and Pitchers Discussion Stealing pitch signals

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I don't really understand putting the effort into stealing pitch signs. ? The return can't be that great. ? As kelly said even if the batter knows what is coming they still have to hit it. ? During my dd school season a coach from the other team thought she had picked up the signs and kept yelling out the pitch. ? She was wrong every time and really seemed to distract her own hitters. ? The girls got a big laugh out of her antics though. ? It is a part of the game but the teams that you can do it against you probably shouldn't admit that you needed to.

 

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I have never had a problem with stealing signs in and of itself, and have a hard time understanding why people get "worked up" over it. If the pitcher is trying to trick or fool the batter with selection, speed, location, and it using "secret signals" designed by rocket scientists at NASA to do so, what is so bad about trying to figure that out and do someting about it within the "game" ??

That said, I still don't think it is worth it, either. Better to be simply aggressive at the plate, and limit the thinking to a few swing thoughts or keys, than to be on your heels thinking "too" much. Hard to imagine how breaking focus & concentration with additional last minute "data" will help. Knowing that a killer change-up is coming may be the exception, since you can sit on that, but still seems like scrambling the brains of your hitter right before delivery would be more counter productive in the long run, except maybe for certain exceptional individuals or circumstances.