Urias showing elite skill at picking off runners

All things considered, Julio Urias is having an extraordinary rookie year. In 72 innings of his age-19 season, Urias has struck out a quarter of all the batters he’s faced while posting a 3.50 ERA and a 3.25 Fielding Independent Pitching. The respected ZiPS projection system already sees Urias as being the near-equal of American League Cy Young Award candidate Masahiro Tanaka, and the Steamer projections think even more highly of the Dodgers’ young phenom.

Already, Urias has put himself on the map as one of baseball’s best young pitchers. And already, Urias is coming after one of teammate Clayton Kershaw’s crowns.

Kershaw wears plenty of crowns. You know about the big ones. Among the lesser-known ones: since he’s entered the league, Kershaw has been baseball’s Pickoff King. Dating back to his debut in 2008, Kershaw has picked off 57 baserunners. Next most is Mark Buehrle, with 49. After that? James Shields, with just 29. In other words, among active pitchers, Kershaw, as is the case with so many other pitching traits, stands completely alone when it comes to the art of the pickoff.

• FanGraphs’ Corinne Landrey shares why the Dodgers still need Puig

Kershaw is baseball’s reigning Pickoff King. Except lately, a challenger has emerged. And that challenger plays on Kershaw’s team, and that challenger just turned 20 years old.

Urias picked off his sixth batter of the season on Tuesday night. His six pickoffs lead all pitchers in the Major Leagues this season, and again, he’s only pitched 72 innings. Only three other pitchers in the Majors have even five pickoffs, per STATS Inc. Urias picked off a baserunner in four consecutive starts back in June. To really drive that point home: in a four-start stretch, Urias picked off as many baserunners as any other pitcher has all year.

Kershaw leads all of baseball over the last eight years by picking off 3.3 percent of his baserunners, and that number is substantially larger than anyone else’s. Urias has allowed 105 baserunners, and he’s picked off six of them. That’s a rate of 5.7 percent. He’s …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com