The Cincinnati Reds have been baseball’s worst team in 2022 by a comfortable margin. But the struggles go far beyond that. The Reds aren’t simply MLB’s worst team this season but are tracking to be one of the worst ever.
We can look simply at Cincinnati’s record, which, through play on Thursday, May 5, is 3-22. At that pace, the Reds would win 19.44 games. For the sake of argument, we’ll round that up to 20. That would be exactly half of the total of the 1962 New York Mets, a team in its first year of existence. The Mets went 40-120. No team since 1900 has lost that many games and no team since MLB went to a 162-game regular season has won that few.
Other than that Mets team, the closest comparison to the Reds at their current pace would be the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who went 20-134.
The Spiders and Reds are a decent comparison as both had winning records the previous year (Cleveland was 81-68 in 1898 while Cincinnati was 83-79 in 2021). But the Spiders were owned by a family which owned two teams. Showing blatant preference to the other, the team owners put Cleveland’s best players from 1898 on the other team, leaving the Spiders with the scraps. Cleveland was one of four teams contracted by the National League at the end of the 1899 season.
But there’s more. The Reds share the city of Cincinnati with the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals and MLS’ FC Cincinnati. The Bengals and FC Cincinnati have played a combined 16 games in 2022. Both have more wins (four) than the Reds, who have played 25. Also worth noting, the Bengals lost two games in 2022 (the regular season finale and the Super Bowl) while FC Cincinnati has a losing record.
In the year 2022… The #Reds have won less games than both the #Bengals & #FCCincinnati. pic.twitter.com/oroytOFTn4
— Caleb Noe (@CalebNoeTV) May 6, 2022
Now, is that pace likely to continue? Probably not. Baseball is too random from game-to-game to imagine a team winning only 20 of 162 games. But before we get too optimistic, we have to point out that Cincinnati is not trending in the right direction. The Reds started the season 2-2, meaning they’re 1-20 over their last 21 games. That pace would have Cincinnati winning 8 of the season’s final 158 games. That, combined with the 2-2 record over the first four, would place the Reds at 10-152.
Of course, if we take any team’s worst stretch of games, we can distort the numbers. For example, the San Francisco Giants lost their fourth straight game on Thursday after starting 14-7. If they maintain the pace of the last four games for the rest of the season, the Giants will finish 14-148. Only, that projection relies on four games instead of 21. The aforementioned 10-152 pace for the Reds relies on 21 games instead of four.
While the win-loss record is ultimately what matters, it may not be the greatest predictor of future success. That’s where run differential comes in. If a team has a good record with a tight run differential, some regression may be on the way. Those close wins can turn into close losses. Conversely, if a team with a bad record has a tight run differential, good things may be on the horizon as those narrow losses can turn into narrow wins.
But when we look at Cincinnati’s run differential, it’s hard to think a good run is coming.
The Cincinnati Reds are now 3-22.
They have scored an NL-worst 79 runs. If they doubled that, it would still be fewer runs than they've allowed, 166.
Their 6.90 ERA is a full two runs worse than the next-worst team. Not nice at all.
This is tanking at its absolute ugliest.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 5, 2022
Based on its run differential, Cincinnati’s expected win-loss record is 5-20. Sure, that’s better than 3-22. But 5-20 would have the Reds winning 20% of their games. Over 162 games, that’s 32.4 wins. We’ll let you decide whether you want to round up to 33 or down to 32. Either way, it’s a record — and not the kind you want to set.
And as that 6.90 staff ERA would suggest, future opposing hitters are no doubt circling the series against the Reds on their calendar. And frankly, it’s hard to blame them.
Cincinnati pitchers have been awful this season, and not just against the other team’s best bats, either. Opposing batters are hitting at a literal MVP level — collectively.
Opponents are hitting .325/.413/.573 against Reds starting pitching this season.
Christian Yelich won the 2018 NL MVP with a .326/.402/.598 slash line.
— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) May 6, 2022
What’s particurly said is that as bad as 3-22 is, it’s wasn’t unfathomable at the start of the season. We saw the moves that were made and heard what former Reds like Zack Cozart and Nick Castellanos said.
On the day of Cincinnati’s home opener, team president Phil Castellini (son of owner Bob Castellini) made several controversial comments regarding the frustration of the fans. Among the many regrettable comments Castellini made was when he asked the fans, “Where are you gonna go?”
The Reds are playing at a historically low pace — and it seems unreasonable that the pace will continue, the actual numbers tell is its quite reasonable. They’re not only losing nearly every time out but are often getting drubbed. Castellini asked the fans where they were going to go? Now, the question flips. What will Castellini and the rest of the front office do to make this situation better?
Because if you’re a frustrated Reds fan trying to find other places to spend your entertainment dollar, the season’s first 25 games have shown that you’re not going to do worse anywhere else.
[Caleb Noe, Jeff Passan, Jeremy Frank]
