Best MLB Spring Training Streaks

Grapefruit League and the Cactus League
Most Successful MLB Spring Training Leagues

Spring training season is officially here! MLB fans looking to cash in early will be delighted with the action-packed schedule all across Florida and Arizona. The Grapefruit League plays in Florida, and the Cactus League plays in Arizona. There are multiple cities and ballparks involved in spring training. Most of the stadiums are much smaller than the regular season MLB games which can hold tens of thousands of People.

For example, the Pittsburgh Pirates play in Bradenton on Florida's West Coast. LECOM Park has a capacity of just 6,602 fans. On the other side of Florida, in Jupiter (where I live literally, across the road) there is Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, with a capacity of 6,871fans. This stadium is home to the Miami Marlins and the St Louis Cardinals, both of which teams I actively follow and attend their games.

A Little History about the Grapefruit League and the Cactus League

The ‘Grapefruit League’ is an interesting name given to a group of baseball teams that play in Florida. The name dates back to around 1915 when several teams made Florida their home and the league was getting started. The Grapefruit League indirectly got its name from an aviator named Ruth Law (who was dropping golf balls as part of a promotional activity). The story gets a lot more interesting, read on…

The nearby Brooklyn Dodgers in Daytona Beach decided it would be a great idea if Ruth Law dropped a baseball out of the plane and somebody caught it. The pilot forgot to bring a baseball and used a grapefruit from one of her crew’s packed lunches. The grapefruit was dropped from the plane at around 500 feet and splattered all over the Manager W. Robinson. Hence the name grapefruit league was born!

The Cactus League is a pretty self-explanatory term which is probably derived from the fact that Arizona and the desert areas are full of cacti. The name stuck.

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Which MLB Spring Training Teams Have Been the Most Successful of Late?

Every season, different teams from different leagues rise to the top of the standings. I wanted to keep this current so I've put together the MLB spring training standings from 2016 to 2019. Let's take a look at the Cactus League and the Grapefruit League respectively:

Cactus League 2019
* Milwaukee Brewers: 19 wins, 14 losses, win/loss ratio 0.576
* Kansas City Royals: 18 wins, 11 losses, win/loss ratio 0.621
* San Diego Padres: 18 wins, 11 losses, win/loss ratio 0.621

Grapefruit League 2019
* Houston Astros: 18 wins, 12 losses, win/loss ratio 0.600
* New York Yankees: 17 wins, 10 losses, win/loss ratio 0.630
* Washington Nationals: 17 wins, 12 losses, win/loss ratio 0.586

Now let's take a look at the MLB Spring Training Standings from 2018:

Cactus League 2018
* Milwaukee Brewers: 19 wins, 12 losses, win/loss ratio 0.613
* Cleveland Indians: 19 wins, 13 losses, win/loss ratio 0.594
* Chicago Cubs: 19 wins, 14 losses, win/loss ratio 0.576

Grapefruit League 2018
* Boston Red Sox: 22 wins, 9 losses, win/loss ratio 0.710
* Houston Astros: 21 wins, 9 losses, win/loss ratio 0.700
* New York Yankees: 18 wins, 13 losses, win/loss ratio 0.581

The MLB spring training standings from 2017 are interesting too, let's take a look:

Cactus League 2017
* Los Angeles Angels: 20 wins, 14 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.588
* Seattle Mariners: 19 wins, 14 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.576
* San Francisco Giants: 19 wins, 16 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.543

Grapefruit League 2017
* New York Yankees: 24 wins, 9 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.727
* St. Louis Cardinals: 20 wins, 8 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.714
* Pittsburgh Pirates: 19 wins, 12 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.613

Now, let's check out the MLB Spring Training Standings for 2016:

Cactus League 2016
* Arizona Diamondbacks: 24 wins, 8 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.750
* Los Angeles Angels: 19 wins, 8 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.704
* Cleveland Indians: 18 wins, 12 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.600

Grapefruit League 2016
* Washington Nationals: 19 wins, 4 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.826
* Minnesota Twins: 19 wins, 11 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.633
* Houston Astros: 18 wins, 11 losses, win/loss ratio of 0.621

Over the past 4 seasons, the MLB team with the best W/L record is the Washington Nationals with 19 W and 4 L. Their W/L ratio of 0.826 is pretty incredible. Their best winning streak was 7 games in a row. Now that’s impressive. But in the same year, the Los Angeles Angels had a 9-game winning streak and topped the Cactus League. 2016 was the best year for impressive winning streaks over the data that I sampled and let’s see whether the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Angels can come anywhere close to that this Spring Training Season!

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* Photo courtesy of Alex Brandon and AP

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About the Author

Brett Chatz

Brett is an internationally published sports journalist, political analyst, and medical fiction author. His commentary is seen in The Star, The Citizen, Tampa Bay Times, The Street, The Sowetan, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Independent, and across hundreds of online and print media platforms. He is the author of ‘Cricket Chatz’ and the highly-acclaimed, ‘Serum’.