grapefruit or cactus?

there may be no two better words in the english dictionary: spring training.  it just does not get any better than that.  i was thinking, though...does the location of your spring training facility have anything to do with your performance throughout the year?  spring training is split between florida and arizona (or grapefruit and cactus). here is the breakdown of who jogs where (legend: east, central, west - league neutral)

• grapefruit: braves, red sox, orioles, tigers, marlins, astros, twins, mets, yankees, phillies, pirates, cardinals, rays, jays, nationals
• cactus: diamondbacks, cubs, white sox, reds, indians, rockies, royals, angels, dodgers, brewers, athletics, padres, giants, mariners, rangers

on the surface, one major point appears obvious: east coast teams go to florida and west coast teams go to arizona. what about central teams?  it is a 6-5 split, with the majority headed to arizona. without diving in too deep on this tangent...it is hard to see any geographic reason as to why a team would pick florida or arizona.  almost all teams are closer to florida, and there is no split geographically among the 11 teams (the western central go to arizona, eastern central go to florida theory does not hold water, thanks to the astros - western most central team - going to florida and cleveland - second-most eastern central team - going to arizona).

so, back to the main thought: is there an advantage to florida or arizona?  When it comes to regular season wins - there is literally no advantage at all. starting in 1995, the average regular season wins for cactus league teams is 80.5, while grapefruit is 80.4.  when it comes to world series since 1995, 12 WS champions and 10 runner ups have come from the grapefruit league - but of those 22, only 4 came from a central division team (winning one - cardinals in '06). in the cactus league - three teams from a central division made it to the world series (also with one winning team - white sox in '05).  so does it have to do with being in florida, or just being an east coast team?  of those 22 grapefruit world series teams, 18 were from the east, meaning that in every world series since 1995, one team has been from the east (on average).

so - it looks like another geographic mystery.  next posting - why it sucks to be the toronto blue jays...