PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — At some point near the end of spring training, Tim Teufel, the Mets’ third-base coach, will gather the team for a meeting to demonstrate and decode the hand signs they will use this season.
One sequence of signs may tell a batter to bunt, or tell a runner to steal, or tell them both that the hit-and-run is on. Teufel has about 10 signs, and he uses his own elaborate system to relay them, just to make the enterprise that much harder for an opponent to pick up on.
Most years, Teufel keeps some of his system the same, tweaking it here and there.