RotoWire.com wanted to know who the sneakiest MLB teams are, according to data from Statcast. We pulled the top 50 best slider pitchers and top 50 best base stealers over the past three seasons and compiled the average horizontal break (GLV) and stolen base percentage for each MLB team. We then ranked teams based on the average ranking for both data points.
Top 10 Sneakiest MLB Teams
Rank | Team | Avg. Ranking |
T1 | Kansas City Royals | 3.5 |
T1 | Chicago Cubs | 3.5 |
3 | Colorado Rockies | 7 |
4 | Athletics | 9.5 |
5 | New York Mets | 10.5 |
6 | Tampa Bay Rays | 11 |
7 | Detroit Tigers | 11.5 |
8 | Milwaukee Brewers | 13.5 |
T9 | Arizona Diamondbacks | 14.5 |
T9 | Texas Rangers | 14.5 |
T9 | Boston Red Sox | 14.5 |
Which MLB Teams Have Sneakiest Players?
While two MLB clubs (the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals) ranked atop the franchise rankings over the last three years, with average ranking of 3.5 apiece when it came to slider pitchers and stolen bases, the players at the top of both lists were a bit more varied.
On the pitch front, Bryan King of the Houston Astros (17.8 GLV), Tanner Bibee of the Cleveland Guardians (16.6 GLV) and Jake Bird of the Colorado Rockies (15.7 GLV) have posted the best horizontal break on their respective sliders during the young MLB season, while Eduardo Bazardo (15.6 GLV) and Ryan Walker (15.5 GLV) are next in line leaguewide.
Over the last two years, pitchers like Astros right-hander Cristian Javier (16.7 GLV) and Andrew Vasquez of the Detroit Tigers (18.2 GLV) won the honor of being baseball's best slider throwers, with both finishing well ahead of the next closest hurlers (Bibee in 2024 at 14.9 GLV and Mauricio Llovera at 15.3 GLV in 2023).
On the bases, the MLB players with the highest stolen base attempt percentage in 2025 have been Leody Taveras of the Texas Rangers (16.7%), with the veteran outfielder ranking ahead of Kansas City Royals outfielder Tyler Tolbert (11.8%) and Jonny DeLuca of the Tampa Bay Rays (9.7%).
In recent years, players like Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds and Dairon Blanco of the Royals and Blanco were the MLB leaders on the bases in 2024 and 2023, respectively.
The efforts of those players on the bumps and bases of Major League Baseball ultimately netted spots on the MLB's sneakiest teams leaderboard for teams like the Colorado Rockies, who placed third overall with an average ranking of 7, with the Athletics (9.5 average ranking) and New York Mets (10.5 average ranking) rounding out the league's top five across the two categories covered in our study.
