When giving your defense a position to set up in, do you tell them verbally, or do you give them hand signs? If you give them hand signs, do you sign the catcher then have him sign the infield or do you just sign the infield yourself?

In what types of situations? I am not understanding the question.

If I want to position them for a certain hitter, I use hand signals. (e.g. - move an IF 2 steps to glove side...I show 2 fingers and shake my glove hand)

Playing a hitter we just yell it out. Something like "Johnny two steps to hole (or middle)" or "Bobby five steps towards LF gap". If the wind is blowing or actually playing before a loud crowd then we will use airplane signals. It's not like we are trying to hide anything with this.

If we are putting a defense on then we use verbal signals. Each defense has a certain word or phrase or inflection of tone to identify it. In this one we really aren't worried about hiding our bunt defense or even first / third defense but definately want to hide the pickoffs.

I used to do all hand signals but decided to just use them on offense and use something else (verbal) for defense. It's usually not a big deal but it does help to differentiate between the two.