That totally makes sense, with the atrocious mound conditions at many high school baseball fields. As long as the pitcher touches the rubber with his pivot foot, his feet are parallel to the rubber when he comes set, and he fulfills the other requirements of being in the set position legally, I see no problems.
The part about pointing to where one is going is standard practice for good baseball umpires to use on rotations (I have pointed where I am going on the baseball field since the first game that I umpired).
It also make sense to have a standard signal for communicating information, so that an umpire is aware that his partner has something to say to him, and that he has reasons for saying those things.
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