Super Wrist Decoder

The Yankees are going to a wristband to limit mound visits by their catchers, especially Gary Sanchez:

Should the Yankees have their catchers wearing wristbands in regular-season games, they hope it will allow them to change signs during an at-bat without talking. The Indians used them last season and the Rays and Mets have introduced them this spring.

Asked if they would be used like the ones quarterbacks wear in the NFL, Rothschild said: “We’re not going to be running out-patterns.”

While the Yankees declined to get into specifics about the wristbands, other teams use them primarily for pitch sequences so catchers and pitchers can change signs during an at-bat.

Again, it’s an entropy and encryption problem. Here is how the wrist bands work in colleges:

Coaches tell the computer what pitches they want to use, and the computer spits out a grid that assigns a different number combination for every single pitch.

There could be 25 different combinations, for instance, for an inside fastball. Ideally, no same combination would be used more than once in a game.

Here’s how it works: Meyers might flash 324 at Greiner. Greiner looks to find the first two numbers, 32, on the top row of the chart. He then goes down four squares, the 4, to locate the desired pitch.

He then lets the pitcher know the call. Only the catcher wears the wristband.

I don’t know if Sanchez calls pitches or the coaches do. This system implies that the coaches do. I suspect there could be another number added to indicate which set of signs are being flashed to the pitcher, so if there is a man on second, one finger might mean a fastball on one pitch, a curve on another.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2pt19no