Pitcher throwing to unoccupied base

[parrothead]

Originally Posted by SNIPERBBB

Are you sure you are not confusing righty pitcher with a left? Righty with a runner on first, you go on a straight steal with the left foot moving. Lefty you have to wait till the right foot goes toward the plate or you are dead, dead, dead.

You are not dead because the majority of lefties are pre-determined not reading the runner because so much of what they are doing are "called", called picks, called pitches etc and so often they will not divert from that, but you need to have some feel for what kind of pitcher this lefty is or a very common first move is after the P picks over.

* If he is a "reader" then he is not someone you would likely go first movement with as he lifts his leg not knowing whether he will go home or to 1st and reads the runner. If he is a reader you can take shorter leads, jab step a bit and force him to make many more throws over and get his focus off the hitter, which is why some coaches dont like their lefites to read.

The other HUGE component to the first move steal is who the 1B is, because in order to get that runner out, still takes a somewhat timely glove to hand exchange, clear a lane and make a good throw. If teams have a lefty pitcher with a RH slow moving not great arm 1B? Thats first move all day long.

We have a lefty pitcher, and pretty much the standard move is 1st movement steal, so we are usually very cautious about who is playing 1B when our lefty is on the bump. We actually work guys out who can make that specific exchange and throw.