Cheating or not?

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Cannonball

Ex "Expert"
Feb 25, 2009
4,854
113
I'll add one more thing. IMO, it signaling does a disservice to the hitter. In the long run, that game is about teaching a player how to trust what they have done in practice, be able to read pitches and to swing the bat. If a hitter grows accustom to this type of help, then they are not developing the skills that they will need later in the game.
 
May 17, 2012
2,804
113
Do you think it doesn't matter at any level or just the younger levels?

For travel ball (any age any level) it doesn't matter. For talented D1 schools they could use it it to their hitting advantage and have meaningful results.
 
Mar 4, 2016
66
6
For travel ball (any age any level) it doesn't matter. For talented D1 schools they could use it it to their hitting advantage and have meaningful results.
If that's your reasoning behind it, I'll have to disagree. There's a pretty good reason coaches use signals/wrist bands instead of just yelling "fastball inside low" to a pitcher.
 
May 17, 2012
2,804
113
We use wristbands and play at the highest level of travel (16u last year). If you attended one of our games and couldn't pick the same number I REPEATEDLY called for change-up (or drop ball or rise ball depending on the pitcher) you weren't paying attention.

The question is if you knew the pitch and or location before each pitch would you be *better off* as a team (i.e. would you hit better than if you didn't know). My experience on both sides (telling my players what was coming vs having the opposing coach tell his team what was coming) is that it doesn't matter a whole lot.

The reason(s) are many but I will list a few.

1. There is little time to communicate the pitch/location if the coach is picking the sign (vs. the batter sorting a tell on her own);
2. You have to have the swing (ability to resist) in order to make the adjustment and hit the pitch successfully;
3. If the pitcher is hitting her spot(s) with her *one pitch* it doesn't matter anyway;
4, You face so many different pitchers each weekend; there is little to no scouting.

A high level travel team may have a batter or two that can use that information successfully (normally you see them the first time through the lineup and make a note of it for the next AB) but there isn't enough of them to string together multiple hits to score runs consistently.

Now if you are a D1 college team that scouts pitchers and works on pitch recognition daily in practice I could see the benefit.

The only advantage that I can think of is if you could pick the off-speed pitch that would help in stealing situations.

Just my observations....
 

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,477
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top