Pitcher throwing to unoccupied base

[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.