[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by parrothead

Well on a straight steal a lot of times, the rule of thumb is "no jump no go" and with a lefty waiting to see if they go home a lot of times results in bad jumps, which is why some teams steal with a lefty is on first movement and you see this all the way up to the bigs, where they just go when P lifts his leg either hoping to guess right or hoping to beat the exchange from pick to 1B to SS.

As for the risk of a balk, the one area I would use it is in youth ages where they are stealing, like 9U-11U travel, where the catchers rarely throw out the runners and the runners go on every pitch from 1-2. So its pretty much a given if they are gonna go, and if by some miracle they dont go and you balk? Oh well, he was likely gonna steal anyway.

If they know you are gong to go on first move you'll get picked off every time.