4 ms·
A couple of things about sign stealing, from someone who is not an expert, but has watched a great deal of baseball: 1) The signs are usually not complex, you
by fcbrooklyn 9y ago
A couple of things about sign stealing, from someone who is not an expert, but has watched a great deal of baseball:
1) The signs are usually not complex, you can easily read them yourself when you see them on TV. One finger might mean a fastball, two fingers some kind of breaking ball, three fingers might be the pitcher's least favorite pitch. Often, the sign is accompanied by a second sign indicating where the catcher wants it. So one finger followed by a hand lifting up-up, means he wants a high fastball. The players will know what the signs mean after one batter at most.
2) The only time the batting team can actually see the signs is when there's a runner on second. In this case, frequently, the catcher will go to the mound and he and the pitcher will come up with some simple obfuscation. Normally this looks like 3-4 signs indicated in quick succession. I assume they've agreed that number 3 is the meaningful one or something.
3) The communication doesn't have to be perfect. In a lot of cases, a batter is waiting for a specific pitch. It would be enough to signal "Yeah, it's gonna be a fastball outside".
The article suggests that a specific camera crew was the original source of the signs, but it's not clear how that worked. It happened in Boston, so perhaps the camera was manned by local people who turned out to be red sox fans. If such a person was watching a continuous feed, and a specific redsox player asked to be alerted when a high fastball was coming, the apple watch would seem to be a practical solution.
- pjungwir 9y agoDo batters bat better with a runner on second? Actually the relative performance for all the different base combinations would be pretty interesting to know. Only eight possibilities!
- hkmurakami 9y agoDepends on the batter. There's a stat for batting average with runners in scoring positions (at least one runner on at least second base). It has a lot of factors though like the batter's own psychology, the pitcher having to pitch from the stretch (an abbreviated motion to defend against base stealing when there are >0 runners on base), etc. Baseball stats by the actual teams to get an edge is the most advanced in all of sports. The internal stats of the teams likely have much more sohpicticated numbers that control for a lot more variables.
- fcbrooklyn 9y agoSome batters do, yes. That's less to do with stealing signs though, and more to do with the strategic effect the runner has on the infield (and centerfield, actually). If the bases are empty, the whole defense can focus on getting the batter out. If there's a man on second, especially if there's less than two outs, it's much more important to keep the man on second from scoring.
- skizm 9y agoWhen a runner is on second the catcher will give several signs in a row and it is up to the pitcher to decode it. Sometimes the first sign indicates the "real" sign in the series, most of time time the pitcher just knows "sign N is always the real one" or something like that.
- NaOH 9y agoBaseball statisticians—sabermetricians, as they're known—consider there to be 24 possibilities depending upon runners occupying bases and the number of outs. You can see prior data here for what is called the run-expectancy matrix of these 24 base/out states: http://www.tangotiger.net/re24.html http://www.tangotiger.net/re24.html
- eddieroger 9y agoI'm not a huge baseball fan, but the thing about baseball that does intrigue me is the amount and depth of data captured, and all the neato things you can do with that. Someone with the right data set can absolutely answer your question, as well as come up with all sorts of other interesting correlations to predict games. It's really fascinating.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bob55555555555 9y agoVideo replay operators, not a camera crew. Replay operators are usually in a separate room with access to all cameras and ability to scroll and zoom. Replays now often use 8K source video and zoom to crop 720p native images from that so tons of resolution to zoom in on. Ref: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2016/11/02/five-keys-to-fox-sports-production-of-tonights-world-series-game-7/ https://www.sportsvideo.org/2016/11/02/five-keys-to-fox-spor...
- joshmn 9y agoRE: Your #1: There's usually an "activator" sign, whereas after the activator sign is given, any proceeding valid "signs" are considered to be the _actual_ sign given.
- fcbrooklyn 9y agoThat sounds about right. I've spent more time than I care to admit trying to decode baseball signs. To me it has always looked like signs from the dugout are far more complex, but catchers' signs not so much.
- aidenn0 9y agoI've also seen signs where the first sign is which sign will be the real one; e.g. 2 1 2 3 Is the #2 pitch. I've also seen a modification on that where the number of strikes/balls/whatever is added to the first one, so one example would be 2 strikes, 2 1 2 1 3 2 would be the #3 pitch. That last one is easy to mess up, so might only be used for fast baserunners (A runner might want to steal 3rd on a changeup or curveball - both pitches that are likely to end up close to the ground- , but will not want to try on a high fastball), as the simplest use of sign stealing is for taking 3rd base.
- mdoan82 9y agoI work in IT for an MLB club, each team has a video coordinator who has to basically watch the game from the stadium feed and chart each pitch etc. That was the guy texting to the Apple watch device.