[sailorjoe]

A quick review: I'm not sure, but I think you may need a time delay in your teleopPeriodic() function, and perhaps a while statement wrapping the whole thing.
I noticed that your pickup motor speed, at 50%, may be a bit high to maintain control of the ball. I'd start smaller, and build it up when the bot is built.
Lastly, think about how you're using the pickup encoder. It's not giving you an angle with the get() method, it's giving you a count, and it's an int. Angle is a double. While that will work in Java, of course, unless you're very lucky with the robot gears, the count will not be the same as the angle.
If I see something else, I'll let you know.