Awakening the sleepers

Followers of the SPF knew Cubs and Royals would improve

If you thought the Kansas City Royals and Chicago Cubs have been surprise teams this season, then you don't know your SPF factor. No, we're not talking about lathering on the lotion before heading out to the Wrigley bleachers. We're talking Sleeper Predictor Formula, a handy-dandy equation developed by the Elias Sports Bureau that, since the advent of the wild card in 1995, has been 71 percent accurate in predicting sleeper teams. And the Royals and the Cubs are the SPF's "it" teams for this season, which means the formula's batting average should rise to 75 percent.

First, an SPF primer is in order. The good people at Elias found a seemingly incongruous connection between a team's win-loss record one year and its spring training record the next. But the theory went something like this: one-run records are often the residue of luck (or lack thereof) and therefore can turn around easily from one year to the next. And though people generally dismiss all meaning from spring training records, if a team with a lousy regular-season record one year plays much better the following spring, it could mean it is taking a step forward.

Elias had its peanut butter and its jelly, and wondered what would happen if you put them together. So Elias quantified what it was looking at: Take every team that finished five or more games below .500 in one-run games the previous season. Then, check if any of those teams posted a spring training winning percentage at least 100 points better than its previous regular-season winning percentage. Teams that showed that kind of improvement, Elias predicted, would win more regular-season games than they did the previous year.

When Elias used the SPF from 1980-88, 21 teams qualified as official sleepers. How did the SPF formula work? Every one of those teams improved its record.

Noting that kind of track record, I decided to dust off the SPF in recent years, as regular readers of this column might remember. How has it done? From 1995-2002, the SPF nailed 10 sleeper teams in 14 tries. Last year, the SPF predicted the improvement of the Orioles (+4 wins), but the formula's average was dragged down by the Rockies (who matched their previous season's win total) and the Tigers (-11). The 10 sleeper teams that did come through improved by an average of 11 wins.

When I ran the SPF this year, only two teams came up as guaranteed to surprise this year: the Royals and Cubs. Kansas City was 14-27 in one-run games last year, then played .704 spring training ball, a huge leap from its 2002 regular-season mark of .383.

Likewise, Chicago was 18-36 in one-run games in '02 and played .607 ball in the Cactus League, up from last year's .414 regular-season win percentage.

So, how's the SPF doing this season? Through Monday, the Royals were on pace to win 81 games, a 19-game improvement from last year. The Cubs were on pace to win 90 games, a 23-game improvement. The SPF lives on.

Good enough to lose

When it comes to one-run games, the Royals of recent years have been a train wreck. They began this week 9-10 in such contests, which is a major achievement for them. Consider that over the previous seven years, Kansas City has ranked 12th once, 13th once and last four times in one-run games in the AL.

Royal mess Year  W-L  PCT  Rank  2002  14-27  .341  14  2001  11-24  .314  14  2000  21-26  .447  12  1999  11-32  .256  14  1998  17-16  .515  5  1997  20-29  .408  13  1996  14-26  .350  14

While the Royals began this year a respectable .444 in games decided by one run, since 1996 they had played .375 ball in the close ones. That kind of consistency in games often decided by luck is rather remarkable, unless, of course, you consider the Kansas City bullpen over the course of those seasons. Here is how the Royals have fared in one-run games in the previous seven years.

The Rookie watch

While Texas' Mark Teixeira has been swinging a hot bat lately, he still has ground to make up on AL Rookie of the Year favorite, Rocco Baldelli. The Tampa Bay outfielder, who leads all AL rookies in batting, hits, on-base percentage, steals, triples and total bases, is the pick so far over preseason front-runners Frankie Rodriguez of the Angels and Hideki Matsui of the Yankees, a.k.a. Groundzilla for his penchant for hitting infield grounders.

Lance Carter (Tampa Bay) and Mike MacDougal (Kansas City) could turn out to be 25-save pitchers as rookies, gaining them attention for the award.

The Rookie of the Year picture is much more unfocused in the NL. Here's a look at some leading candidates: