Career Pickoff Leaders?

[Badge714]

I've tried to find a list of career pickoff leaders. I can't find one. It is my understanding that Steve Carlton is at the top of the list. Can anyone help me here?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Doesn't Andy Pettitte or Mike Mussina have a lot of career pickoffs?

[ipitch]

Pickoffs weren't an official stat until 1974. Carlton supposedly has 144 or 145 (with about 99 coming after 1974), but in 2008, MLB.com said that Kenny Rogers took the "all-time" lead with 92. Baseball-reference says Rogers has 79. So, I don't know what the deal is. Andy Pettitte has 97, according to B-R.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080509&content_id=2673151&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

[SHOELESSJOE3]

How good of a pick off move did these guys have.
You would think that the opposing teams know about the pitcher's rep would be more careful, making thr pick off more difficult, yet some pitchers keep racking up those pick offs.

You do often hear that some pitcher's moves to first are borderline balks, a part of the reason, fooling the runner.

[Freakshow]

I believe this is mostly complete back to 1948. From the B-R PI:

Rk                Player  PO     IP From   To
1          Steve Carlton 145 5217.2 1965 1988
2          Andy Pettitte  97 3130.2 1995 2012
3           Mark Buehrle  87 2679.0 2000 2012
4          Jerry Koosman  82 3839.1 1967 1985
5           Kenny Rogers  79 3302.2 1989 2008
6          Mark Langston  78 2962.2 1984 1999
7          Charlie Hough  73 3801.1 1970 1994
8           Warren Spahn  66 5102.1 1947 1965
9    Fernando Valenzuela  65 2930.0 1980 1997
10           Wilbur Wood  64 2684.0 1961 1978
11         Randy Johnson  58 4135.1 1988 2009
12        Brian Anderson  58 1547.0 1993 2005
13         Mickey Lolich  58 3638.1 1963 1979
14          Jamey Wright  57 1896.1 1996 2012
15        Rick Sutcliffe  56 2697.2 1976 1994
16          Frank Tanana  56 4188.1 1973 1993
17         Greg Swindell  55 2233.1 1986 2002
18           Bruce Hurst  55 2417.1 1980 1994
19           Bob Shirley  55 1432.0 1977 1987
20           Jon Matlack  55 2363.0 1971 1983

Best seasons:

Rk             Player PO    IP Year Age  Tm Lg SB CS
1        Jerry Garvin 23 244.2 1977  21 TOR AL 10 19
2       Steve Carlton 19 283.0 1977  32 PHI NL 29 16
3       Steve Carlton 16 247.1 1978  33 PHI NL 12 14
4          Greg Smith 15 190.1 2008  24 OAK AL 11 12
5    Terry Mulholland 15 229.0 1992  29 PHI NL  2  5
6       Steve Carlton 15 283.2 1983  38 PHI NL 19 19
7       Andy Pettitte 14 240.1 1997  25 NYY AL 16  7
8       Charlie Hough 14 252.0 1988  40 TEX AL 32 12
9       Jerry Koosman 14 263.2 1979  36 MIN AL  7 16
10        Steve Avery 13 173.1 1995  25 ATL NL 30 11
11        Bob Shirley 13 214.0 1977  23 SDP NL 16 14
12           Bill Lee 13 282.1 1974  27 BOS AL 17 12
13      Mickey Lolich 13 272.2 1970  29 DET AL 10 16

Kershaw is the current champ. Most pick-offs 2009-12:

Rk            Player PO    IP   Age  SB CS
1    Clayton Kershaw 35 836.1 21-24  36 36
2       Mark Buehrle 29 831.1 30-33  18 20
3    Clayton Richard 23 673.0 25-28  34 26
4       Ricky Romero 21 794.0 24-27  44 29
5         Bruce Chen 19 549.1 32-35  39 25
6      James Shields 18 900.0 27-30  35 12
7       A.J. Burnett 16 786.1 32-35 122 26
8         John Danks 16 637.1 24-27  40 22
9      Derek Holland 16 569.0 22-25  30 16
10      Joe Saunders 16 776.0 28-31  40 35

[dgarza]

Best seasons:

Rk             Player PO    IP Year Age  Tm Lg SB CS
1        Jerry Garvin 23 244.2 1977  21 TOR AL 10 19

Uh... this guy was just a 21 year old rookie! The noive...

[Ben Grimm]

Best seasons:

Rk             Player PO    IP Year Age  Tm Lg SB CS
5    Terry Mulholland 15 229.0 1992  29 PHI NL  2  5
9    Jerry Koosman    14 263.2 1979  36 MIN AL  7 16

Pretty impressive since both are RHPs and only allowed a combined 30% SB success rate during those seasons.

[Badge714]

Freakshow - You dah man! Many thanks. The guys at baseball-fever.com always deliver.

[StanTheMan]

Yadier Molina gets more men at first than some pitchers do.

[Gee Walker]

Uh... this guy was just a 21 year old rookie! The noive...

I saw Garvin pitch a few times for the Blue Jays in 1977, both live and on TV. His move to first was amazing. Of course, he had a lot of opportunities to pick guys off with a WHIP of 1.357 that year. I'd swear that guys got picked off on purpose in blowouts just to see him do it.

The next year, most teams figured out that they'd probably score more runs if the guy on first made no effort to steal at all.

[SavoyBG]

I've tried to find a list of career pickoff leaders. I can't find one. It is my understanding that Steve Carlton is at the top of the list. Can anyone help me here?

Carlton has the most pickoffs, but also has the most balks with 90. Whitey Ford had 51 pickoffs with just 5 balks.

[Badge714]

Carlton has the most pickoffs, but also has the most balks with 90. Whitey Ford had 51 pickoffs with just 5 balks.

Thanks.

From Wikipedia: "Carlton picked 144 runners off base, by far the most in Major League Baseball since pickoff records began being collected in 1957. Jerry Koosman is second with 82."

Also this:

"Carlton has the second-most lifetime strikeouts of any left-handed pitcher (4th overall), and the second-most lifetime wins of any left-handed pitcher (11th overall). He was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards in a career. He held the lifetime strikeout record several times between 1982 and 1984, before his contemporary Nolan Ryan passed him. One of his most remarkable records was accounting for nearly half (46%) of his team's wins, when he won 27 games for the last-place (59-97) 1972 Phillies. He is the last National League pitcher to win 25 or more games in one season, as well as the last pitcher from any team to throw more than 300 innings in a season. He also holds the record with the most career balks of any pitcher, with 90 (double the second on the all-time list, Bob Welch)."

[RUKen]

Originally posted by Freakshow View Post
Best seasons:
Code:

Rk Player PO IP Year Age Tm Lg SB CS 5 Terry Mulholland 15 229.0 1992 29 PHI NL 2 5 9 Jerry Koosman 14 263.2 1979 36 MIN AL 7 16
Pretty impressive since both are RHPs and only allowed a combined 30% SB success rate during those seasons.

Jerry Koosman was a left-handed pitcher (but he batted righty).

[dominik]

How good of a pick off move did these guys have.
You would think that the opposing teams know about the pitcher's rep would be more careful, making thr pick off more difficult, yet some pitchers keep racking up those pick offs.

You do often hear that some pitcher's moves to first are borderline balks, a part of the reason, fooling the runner.

I think some of the guys were lefties though were guys go on first move. Pettite for example had a great move and picked off a lot of guys but his move to home was slow as dirt so it probably still paid off for the guys to run on him even though you are burnt occasionally.

[morpheus1776]

Kershaw may have had more pick offs than Buehrle between 2009-2012, but the latter allowed only 18 stolen bases versus 20 caught stealing. Eight less than Kershaw.