Catcher signal to manager - How do you deal?

[briancurtin]

Is he not allowed to have an opinion or something?

[TussAgee11]

Originally Posted by briancurtin

Is he not allowed to have an opinion or something?

Are you just trying to ridicule without offering any real advice? If you have some, I'd rather read that.

[briancurtin]

What does it matter if he is signifying to the dugout that he doesn't agree with the call? Are you going to get him on arguing balls and strikes? Let it go. Batters him and haw, huff and puff, lean back, etc, and you probably don't say anything to them. The catcher tapped his shin guard...seems pretty minor.

How do you know he wasn't signaling about a location they don't think you'll call, so to possibly work in a different location? Catchers at that level tend to pick up whether or not they will get certain spots, or at least I know I did. If they don't get a spot, they need to make a mental note if they are calling the game, or let the game caller know. It's baseball and they aren't insane (you know, the thing about doing the same thing and expecting different results). He's not going to stand up and say "he's not giving me the outer black" into the dugout, just like he wouldn't stand up and announce "throw a fastball on the inner half"...there is a sign for that.

[cc6]

You probably could have said "please don't signal to the bench after a close call" instead of "ok". Saying "ok" might make him wonder why you asked in the first place, and doesn't get your point across that you don't want him signaling.

[UmpJM]

Originally Posted by TussAgee11

Are you just trying to ridicule without offering any real advice? If you have some, I'd rather read that.

Tuss,

I believe Brian's point was that the catcher was (likely) NOT "showing you up" by his action. If he does this in a way that nobody in the crowd is going to notice and you don't get a "chirp" from the coach in response, he didn't really do anything he shouldn't.

I might tell him "He needs to bring that in about a ball" or some such thing depending on where I thought it missed. I wouldn't ask him what he was doing.

JM