{"id":93,"date":"2010-04-07T14:59:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T19:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=93"},"modified":"2010-05-09T04:23:40","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T09:23:40","slug":"are-offensive-signals-necessary-by-daniel-dee-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/93","title":{"rendered":"Are Offensive Signals Necessary?"},"content":{"rendered":"
April 7, 2010<\/div>\n

\"bad\"<\/p>\n

In a telephone conversation with Griff the other night, I was stunned when he told me that his C-Teamers missed a whopping 19 signals in double-dip.\u00a0 Immediately I wondered why Griff was giving his hitters 19 signals over two games in the first place.\u00a0 I considered that we were talking about young players developing in a system, and obviously a necessity for that development is knowledge of the club\u2019s signals.\u00a0 Still, this scenario reopened an internal debate that I have had since I first realized how foolish any and all hit-and-runs are.\u00a0 Are signals from base coaches a necessary component of the game, or are they simply another piece of the game\u2019s antiquity?<\/p>\n

Last summer, I coached third with basically three signals and no indicators.\u00a0 Two of the signals were green-light-types, and the other was the take sign which was simply me raising my index finger.\u00a0 Everyone in the stadium knew when we were bunting because I basically yelled to the hitter to bunt.\u00a0 We bunted very, very sparingly.\u00a0 Our runners knew who had the green to go and who didn\u2019t, so I basically did not give signs across the diamond.\u00a0 Guys who could drag knew when to drag because I told them when good times were.\u00a0 Obviously we did not have an hit-and-run sign because forcing a hitter to swing at whatever the pitcher throws is a bad way to prevent outs.<\/p>\n

Was our offense in any way lacking because we did not have sophisticated signals?\u00a0 Was it inhibited by the fact that we had no secret strategies for run creation?\u00a0 First, what is each offensive player\u2019s objective at the plate?\u00a0 To get on base.\u00a0 No player needs to be reminded of this by a coach.\u00a0 What about sacrifice bunting?\u00a0 This is 2010.\u00a0 How about stealing bases?\u00a0 Utilizing a simple green light allows the player the freedom to gauge his own chances while ensuring that he does so in a reasonable situation.\u00a0 What good can come from sophisticated signals?\u00a0 I guess there are times when a delayed steal or get-picked sign could be advantageous.\u00a0 Answer me this, though: would yelling across the diamond at a runner to get picked change the outcome?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 More importantly, does the limited frequency of plays such as these justify using practice time for them?\u00a0 Of course not.<\/p>\n

Signs can\u2019t possibly hurt.\u00a0 The problem, however, arises when players forget what the real goal is because they are too busy hitting-and-running or leaving early.\u00a0 Hitters are there to reach base.\u00a0 Runners are there to touch home.\u00a0 OBP is the primary predictor we know of for run creation.\u00a0 Hitters hopefully don\u2019t need a signal for getting on base.\u00a0 Varying from this default setting, therefore, is likely only to reduce run production.\u00a0 By that line of reasoning elaborate signals should only be given when trying to score fewer times.
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April 7, 2010 In a telephone conversation with Griff the other night, I was stunned when he told me that his C-Teamers missed a whopping 19 signals in double-dip.\u00a0 Immediately I wondered why Griff was giving his hitters 19 signals over two games in the first place.\u00a0 I considered that we were talking about young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,15,8,6],"tags":[182,99,183,181],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}