It’s a brave new frontier in the world of sign-stealing. Er, well, in the world of STOPPING sign-stealing.
Whereas technology was recently the root of the most egregious case of cheating in the sport in a long time, it’ll now be deployed by at least some teams to prevent cheating (among other things):
Sources: MLB to allow anti-sign-stealing device https://t.co/Vdy0kKs2Pd
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 5, 2022
I've heard rave reviews about PitchCom this spring, and Buster is reporting players will be allowed to use it during the regular season.
In addition to making signs from catchers an anachronism, PitchCom, some players and executives believe, could help speed up games, too. https://t.co/15Uzn4zeCN
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 5, 2022
In short, PitchCom involves a pad of buttons that catchers can wear on their wrist to call pitches. The message is relayed to the pitcher (and up to three defenders) through a listening device. The technology has been available for players to experiment with this spring, and has already been adopted by some college teams.
It will probably take some getting used to – for fans and players, alike – and not all pitcher-catcher combos are going to want to use it, even on teams that have chosen to use it. It’s not clear if any Cubs pitchers/catchers will adopt it this year.
But this is definitely the right long-term approach, since it eliminates the risk of traditional sign-stealing, improves the pace of pitches being called, and – maybe most importantly? – also eliminates the need for long cycles of signs with runners on base. That is when the game already gets increasingly bogged down in inactivity, so the more we can do to keep the game humming along, the better.