During pile driving, soil plug effect evaluation has an important influence on the prediction of pile driving resistance and bearing capacity. The static equilibrium method is usually applied to determine the plugging status of a steel pipe pile with a small diameter. Steel pipe piles that are larger than 2 m have been widely used to increase the operating water depth of offshore platforms and to construct offshore wind projects. The stress and deformation characteristics of soil in pile tube change with the increase of pile diameter. Soil failure mode in the process of driving in sand, with steel pipe piles of different diameter to length ratios is obtained by using numerical simulation method. Based on the numerical simulation result, the Meyerhof formula is determined to calculate the soil resistance. To examine the soil plug effect of a large-diameter steel pipe pile, the quasi-static equilibrium method is proposed, in which the influence of the inertia force on soil plug is analyzed. According to the small-scale pile driving model tests with different diameter to length ratios and the analysis of practical piling project, the applicability of the quasi-static equilibrium method for a large-diameter steel pipe pile is verified.