There were a few ripples in the online pond during spring training when the Washington Post‘s Jesse Dougherty skipped a Twitter stone about MLB testing wireless communication devices at Nationals camp. Aimed at preventing sign-stealing, these watch-like pieces of wearable tech would allow catchers to communicate pitch types and locations to the mound.
The fallout from such a process, however, could mitigate any benefits from its adoption. Early reports were that the devices might actually increase time between pitches in some cases, thus counteracting the MLB’s pace-of-play initiatives. And what about the other seven defensive players, whose positioning and anticipation are based on the very information they could normally glean from a catcher’s signs?