Carlos Rodon

San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Carlos Rodon still remains on the trading block with Tuesday's 6 p.m. ET trade deadline rapidly approaching.

The latest news reveals that the New York Yankees are a "long shot" to land the talented southpaw, but the Philadelphia Phillies, Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals could still be in the mix.

Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Jon Heyman of the New York Post provided updates on the Rodon front.

This does *not* guarantee anything will happen. They’re not looking to give him away. They would want full value.

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) August 2, 2022

It sounds as if the Phillies have interest in Rodón. And yes, the Giants are pursing them in the wild-card race. Also the Twins, Cardinals showing interest still.

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) August 2, 2022

Yankees checked in at sone point on Carlos Rodon but it seems like a long shot. Rodon is clearly out there and he’s been linked to Phillies and Twins, too. @susanslusser mentioned Phils

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 2, 2022

Rodon, a two-time All-Star, has gone 9-6 with a 3.00 ERA and 158 strikeouts in 123.0 innings this season.

Rodon signed a two-year, $44 million contract with the Giants last offseason after seven seasons with the Chicago White Sox. The deal includes an opt-out after this year.

He's largely been excellent for the Giants and just posted seven shutout innings against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday in a 4-0 win, but he's now a potential impending free agent on a team that's been in a free fall.

Although the Giants posted an MLB-high 107 wins last season, they've gone 14-25 in their last 39 games and 3-9 in their past 12 matchups. They're not completely out of the playoff race but have an uphill climb at four-and-a-half games out of the final NL wild-card spot.

As noted by MLB.com's Mark Feinsand, an executive for a rival team believed San Francisco was "ready to sell" due to the recent losing skid.

That could mean the end of Rodon's brief Giants tenure, but he'll immediately boost a contending team's rotation if San Francisco deals him before the deadline. He's arguably the starting pitching crown jewel with Luis Castillo and Frankie Montas off the market, and it could be a fight to the finish for teams to land the star.

The San Francisco Giants reside in one of the most peculiar situations as the Major League Baseball trade deadline approaches on Tuesday.

The Giants sit 4.5 games back of the last National League wild-card spot, and their schedule opens up for a chance to make a surge above the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies in the next two months.

However, the Giants could throw their playoff aspirations to the side and cash-in on the weak starting pitcher market. Carlos Rodon would be viewed as the top arm left on the market if the Giants made him available before 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported on Monday night that the Giants have been "very quiet" and that a rival executive believes they "are not going to trade" Rodon.

Rodon enters Tuesday second in the NL in strikeouts behind Corbin Burnes, tied for eighth in wins and 13th in ERA and WHIP.

The left-handed hurler is coming off back-to-back 10-strikeout games against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs. He has six double-digit strikeout performances this season.

Rodon is the backbone of the starting rotation, and the Giants could make a wild-card push behind their ace Logan Webb, as well as Alex Cobb and Alex Wood.

San Francisco's rotation is better than the two teams directly in front of it in the NL wild-card race. Philadelphia is struggling for consistency behind Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, while St. Louis has been ravaged by injuries to Jack Flaherty and Steven Matz.

The Cardinals moved for Jose Quintana from the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday to provide some depth behind Adam Wainwright and Miles Mikolas. Even with Quintana in the fold, San Francisco can outpitch St. Louis because of its extra depth.

Philadelphia has been silent on the trade front, and St. Louis' pursuit of Juan Soto might be highjacked by the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Even if Soto joins the Cardinals, they would have to outhit opponents to win games because their starting pitching is not up to snuff.

San Francisco needs to look past its midweek series with the Dodgers to see how quickly the wild-card race could change in its favor if it holds on to Rodon.

The Giants have a five-game road trip against Oakland and San Diego before it hosts Pittsburgh and Arizona for seven games and then visits Colorado for three games. Detroit and Minnesota are also on the second road trip. Games could be picked up in the standings with wins over the Tigers as well.

The 12-game stretch against the Pirates, Diamondbacks, Rockies and Tigers could move the Giants a few games up in the wild-card standings. Philadelphia has nine games with Atlanta and the New York Mets in August, while the Cardinals have six games with the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers in the next two weeks.

San Francisco's gap to the last wild-card spot could shrink over the next few weeks, and if it keeps Rodon past Tuesday, the Giants could leapfrog the Phillies and Cardinals to join the six-team playoff field.

The counter to keeping Rodon is that the Giants could get a few players in return for the left-handed pitcher on Tuesday since he would be the best pitcher available. Frankie Montas and Luis Castillo have already been dealt, and a few teams in need of starters would love to add Rodon.

Rodon signed a two-year deal in San Francisco during the offseason, so the Giants may look ahead by trading him for a few prospects if it can't extend his deal past 2023.

San Francisco needs to walk the fine balance between winning this season while also planning for the future, something the Milwaukee Brewers brought into play with the Josh Hader trade on Monday.

The wise choice for the Giants would be to keep Rodon and chase a playoff spot in 2022 because the other contenders are not as strong as they may be in previous years.

Once the Giants book a postseason ticket, there is always a chance their pitching staff catches fire and leads them deep into the postseason. The only way the Giants can keep that dream alive is to keep their ace past the trade deadline.

Boston Red Sox designated hitter J.D. Martinez, San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Carlos Rodon and Miami Marlins first baseman Garrett Cooper have been named as replacement players for the 2022 MLB All-Star Game.

We have three new All-Stars!

They replace Bryce Harper, Yordan Alvarez, and Josh Hader on the roster. pic.twitter.com/asDrfY7UVj

— MLB (@MLB) July 12, 2022

They'll replace Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez, Milwaukee Brewers reliever Josh Hader and Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter and defending National League MVP Bryce Harper.

Martinez, 34, is hitting .313 with nine homers, 38 RBI, 50 runs and an .880 OPS. This is his fifth All-Star selection.

Rodon will head to his second All-Star Game. The 29-year-old is 8-5 this season with a 2.70 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and 124 strikeouts in 100 innings across 17 starts.

The 31-year-old Cooper will make his All-Star debut. He has hit .299 with seven homers, 40 RBI, 28 runs and an .826 OPS.

Alvarez, 25, is having a fantastic season, blasting 26 homers in 75 games. The Astros put him on the 10-day injured list Sunday, however, with inflammation in his right hand.

"Yordan has been suffering with the injury for a couple weeks and it's gotten worse," Astros manager Dusty Baker told reporters. "We decided that hey, the only way to get this well is to try to use these [series] before the All-Star break to coincide with the 10 that he has to be on the IL."

The 28-year-old Hader leads Major League Baseball with 26 saves but will not play in the Midsummer Classic because of "family responsibilities," per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com.

Harper has posted an impressive .985 OPS in 64 games, though a UCL tear in his right elbow has forced the usual right fielder into DH duties. The 29-year-old has been on the injured list since June 26 after fracturing his left thumb and undergoing surgery.

He likely won't return from that injury until late August or September.

There's still a lot of baseball left to be played in the 2022 Major League Baseball season. About five months' worth, to be precise, which means the league's major award races are far from clear.

For now, though, here's who we think is leading the way for the Cy Young Award and MVP races in the American League and National League.

In keeping with how there are always three finalists for these awards at the end of the year, we mainly focused on the top three contenders in each race. But since anything can still happen, we also touched on some dark-horse contenders worth monitoring.

Naturally, we primarily looked to statistics for guidance. Yet in the case of the MVP awards, we also considered any narrative elements that could come into play.

We'll start with the AL Cy Young Award and go from there.

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American League Cy Young Award: Kevin Gausman and Justin Verlander Lead the Way

Right off the proverbial bat, we'll grant that the order of these three pitchers is debatable:

• 1. RHP Kevin Gausman, Toronto Blue Jays
  
• 2. RHP Justin Verlander, Houston Astros
• 3. LHP Neston Cortes, New York Yankees
  

With Gausman at 45.0 innings and Verlander at 45.2 innings, there's essentially no difference between them when it comes to workload. There is, of course, a sizable difference between their earned run averages. At 1.38, Verlander's ERA is more than a run lower than Gausman's 2.40 ERA.

However, this is a case where ERA doesn't tell the whole story.

Gausman has not only struck out 18 more batters than Verlander, but has done so while remaining virtually untouched in the walk and home run departments. He's issued only two free passes and has yet to be taken deep.

Verlander also has an AL-best 0.64 WHIP that can't be ignored. But like with his ERA, sharing the credit for his excellence is an Astros defense that ranks fourth in the majors in efficiency at turning balls in play into outs. The Blue Jays, by contrast, are slightly below average.

Ultimately, we're trusting expected ERA on this one. It has Gausman at 2.51, with Verlander a tad behind at 2.62.

Cortes, meanwhile, currently leads the American League in ERA at 1.35 following his latest dominant effort on Sunday. That also comes paired with 49 strikeouts against 11 walks, as well as only three home runs allowed.

Such numbers might smack of unsustainability for a guy who only throws in the low 90s, but all you have to do is watch the Yankees southpaw pitch to understand how he makes it work:

Nestor Cortes, Back-to-Back 91mph Fastballs...with different arm angles. Artist. pic.twitter.com/hWBVopR2pT

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 9, 2022

Oh, and Cortes' expected ERA? It's all the way down at 2.18, fitting him safely within the top five of all pitchers who've had at least 50 balls put in play.

For now, at least, Cortes' weakness relative to Gausman and Verlander is the fact that he's pitched "only" 40 innings through seven starts. Five innings might not sound like a huge gap, but that's basically the equivalent of the average start these days.

The Dark Horses

One guy to keep an eye on is Chicago White Sox righty Dylan Cease. A tough outing against the Yankees on Wednesday boosted his ERA to 3.55, but it's nonetheless hard to discount his AL-high-tying 58 strikeouts and 2.01 xERA.

Another strikeout standout is Tampa Bay Rays lefty Shane McClanahan, who's punched out 13.3 batters per nine innings in tandem with a 2.52 ERA.

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National League Cy Young Award: Can Anyone Catch Pablo Lopez?

Meanwhile in the National League, at least there's a clear pick for the frontrunner:

• 1. RHP Pablo Lopez, Miami Marlins
• 2. RHP Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers
• 3. RHP Miles Mikolas, St. Louis Cardinals

A he's worked a solid 43 innings with an MLB-leading 1.05 ERA, Lopez is enjoying the best of both worlds with his workload and especially with his run prevention. And since it's backed up by a likewise excellent 2.36 xERA, the latter is legit.

The Marlins ace's secret weapon is surely becoming less secret with every start he makes. Hitters are 8-for-64 with 26 strikeouts against his changeup, which is downright nasty:

Pablo López, 2 More Changeup Ks.

7Ks thru 5. pic.twitter.com/UXfOkjVVOp

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 14, 2022

If there's a threat to Lopez's Cy Young candidacy, it's the specter of durability. A less pretentious way to say it is that he's peaked at 111.1 innings in the past, and that he'll therefore have to prove he's capable of much more.

With Burnes, there's certainly a sort of "been there, done that" appeal. Per his 1.63 FIP (fielding independent pitching), his 2021 season was the second-best by an ERA title qualifier in the live-ball era after only Pedro Martinez in 1999.

Burnes isn't lighting up FIP like that again in 2022, but his 1.77 ERA and 2.89 xERA nonetheless command respect. He's also putting a dent in the notion that he's not a workhorse with his 45.2 innings, which rank second in the National League.

After losing basically two whole seasons to injuries in 2020 and 2021, Mikolas is back to his All-Star form of 2018 in 2022. He has a 1.49 ERA through his first seven starts for the Cardinals.

The red flag there should be that Mikolas has only punched out 31 batters, but he's managed contact to the tune of exit velocity in the 82nd percentile and a hard-hit rate in the 91st percentile. That helps explain his 2.56 xERA, which actually puts him a hair ahead of Verlander.

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The Dark Horses

It feels weird to refer to a three-time Cy Young Award winner as a "dark horse" for the award, but New York Mets veteran Max Scherzer is still showing no signs of slowing down in his age-37 season. He's punched out 55 and racked up a 2.66 ERA through 44 innings.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have not one, but two righties with ERAs in the 1.00s. One is Merrill Kelly, who's at 1.71 through seven starts. Albeit through just six starts, Zac Gallen's 1.05 ERA would tie Lopez for the league lead if he had enough innings to qualify.

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American League MVP: The Mike Trout and Aaron Judge Show, Featuring Jose Ramirez

This, in the words of Han Solo, is where the fun begins:

• 1. CF Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels
• 2. RF Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
• 3. 3B Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians

After missing all but 36 games in 2021 because of a calf strain that just wouldn't go away, Trout is healthy this year. It therefore follows that he's doing typical Mike Trout Things, namely batting .312 with a .432 on-base percentage and what is currently a career-best .661 slugging percentage.

Naturally, the Angels' three-time AL MVP also leads the American League with 2.5 rWAR. That puts him on pace for his first 10-WAR season since all the way back in 2016.

As for Judge, well, he's mainly busied himself by hitting bombs: 

Judge leads the majors with his 12 home runs. He's also slugging .632 and even hitting  a career-best .296.

Lest anyone think the AL MVP race is strictly a two-horse affair, both Trout and Judge have a common Achilles heel: neither has been especially clutch.

To wit, both Trout (6 of 9) and Judge (8 of 12) have hit the bulk of their home runs with nobody on base. Both have also been largely mediocre in high-leverage spots, with Trout turning in a .732 OPS that only barely eclipses Judge's .718 OPS. The latter, especially, should serve as a reminder that it takes more than one walk-off homer to be truly clutch.

Which brings us to Ramirez.

The Guardians star is having an excellent season overall, batting .290/.386/.581 with eight long balls and, notably, an MLB-leading 33 runs batted in. And while his production in high-leverage spots has been slipping and is now down to a .733 OPS, he still has unreal numbers with ducks on the pond:

• Men On: 1.279 OPS
• Runners in Scoring Position: 1.444 OPS

We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention just how much weight is on Ramirez's shoulders. Whereas both Trout and Judge are surrounded by stars aplenty on teams with exorbitant payrolls, Ramirez is carrying a Guardians team that is largely full of unknowns who, altogether, account for just $67.7 million in payroll.

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The Dark Horses

Speaking of star teammates, Trout has a good one in the person of Taylor Ward. Though he got a late start to his season, he's now batting a stellar .385/.500/.747 with eight home runs in 26 games. Further, the Angels are 15-6 since moving Ward to leadoff on April 25.

There's also the Minnesota Twins' ultra-dynamic center fielder, Byron Buxton, though his lingering knee soreness is going to require regular days off. Also keep an eye on Asros slugger Yordan Alvarez, who's hitting at .310 with eight home runs over his last 20 games. Houston has won 16 of them.

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National League MVP: Everyone's Chasing Manny Machado

Finally, a major awards race with an obvious leader:

• 1. 3B Manny Machado, San Diego Padres
• 2. 3B Nolan Arenado, St. Louis Cardinals
• 3. RF/DH Bryce Harper, Philadelphia Phillies

There isn't much doubt that this is Machado's race to lose, and not just because he's leading the National League with a .359 average, .443 OBP and 1.029 OPS.

Like Ramirez, Machado has also largely made his hits count. He bears a 1.193 OPS with men on base and an even better 1.423 OPS in high-leverage spots. The latter is the best in the NL by plenty.

Still another feather in Machado's cap is that he's doing all this while the Padres are missing electrifying shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. And it's truly mattered, as the club's 22 wins are the most in an NL West division that doesn't have even one team below .500.

To his credit, Arenado is having a generally excellent all-around season with the Cardinals much like the ones he had in his heyday with the Colorado Rockies. He's hitting .312/.374/.600, with the most defensive runs saved at third base this side of Ke'Bryan Hayes.

Picking a player for the No. 3 spot on this list was looking difficult as recently as a couple days ago, but not so much now that Harper has found his power stroke. The reigning NL MVP Has clubbed six home runs in May and is up to a .305/.361/.634 line overall.

The catch for now is that Harper can only work as a designated hitters because of a small tear in his right ulnar collateral ligament. But if he can nonetheless keep carrying the Phillies offensively despite his injury, MVP voters won't likely forget it when it comes time to vote.

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The Dark Horses

Even if he's not the best, perhaps the most exciting player in the National League right now is Marlins second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. He's hit six homers and stolen six bases, and he's performed better in high (.970 OPS) and medium leverage (.953) than he has in low leverage (.790). 

As they lead the NL with 23 wins, the Mets deserve to have at least a peripheral representative in this race. How about Pete Alonso? He's up to eight home runs with an NL-high-tying 29 runs batted in.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Now that it's May, enough time has passed in the 2022 Major League Baseball season to accept some early trends as absolute truths and adjust expectations accordingly.

So, here are seven outrageous predictions that might just come true.

In putting these predictions together, we wanted to avoid lay-ups. We were only interested in outcomes that rarely (if ever) happen. We're not 100 percent confident that these things will actually go down, yet we've nonetheless chosen to trust in whatever tea leaves that, in proper Lloyd Christmas fashion, say there's a chance.

Take us away, Josh Hader.

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60 Saves for Josh Hader

Francisco Rodriguez's 62-save season in 2008 remains the only 60-save season in major league history. Only four years ago, however, Edwin Diaz came close with 57 saves for the Seattle Mariners.

There's therefore hope for Jordan Romano—and especially for Hader.

While Romano has already saved 11 games, he's appeared in 13 of the Toronto Blue Jays' 24 games. That workload isn't sustainable, and the same may be true of the good fortune Romano has enjoyed.

Hader, meanwhile, is the first pitcher to go 10-for-10 in save opportunities to start a season since Jose Mesa in 2005. The Milwaukee Brewers left-hander has pitched 9.1 innings and struck out 15 batters with only two hits, four walks and zero runs allowed.

In keeping with the theme of his recent seasons, the 28-year-old has succeeded with his slider. Its 68.4 whiff rate is the best in the game, and that largely stems from how he continues to use it in perfect harmony with his fastball:

Josh Hader, 97mph Fastball and 83mph Slider, Overlay. pic.twitter.com/GmpbIE4VNg

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 20, 2022

If Hader is going to join K-Rod in the 60-Save Club, he will almost certainly have to surpass his career high of 61 appearances from 2019. To wit, Rodriguez appeared in 76 games for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in '08.

A given? Not exactly. But whereas Hader used to be a multiframe fireman in his first three seasons, the Brewers have taken to using him exclusively for single innings in the last two seasons. As long as they keep that up and continue to hand him frequent opportunities, a path to 60 saves will be there.

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Carlos Rodon, Strikeout Record Holder

Elsewhere on the topic of electric National League southpaws, it's fair to say Carlos Rodon's first season with the San Francisco Giants is going well:

In each of his 4 starts in 2022, Carlos Rodón of the @SFGiants has:

-struck out 8 or more
-allowed no more than 3 hits
-allowed no more than 1 run

The only other pitcher in the modern era to do that in 4 straight starts at any point in a single season was Jacob deGrom last year

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) April 27, 2022

There's also this: Whether you go by his per-plate appearance or per-inning figures, the 29-year-old Rodon is tracking toward the highest single-season strikeout rate in history.

This is, of course, the second year in a row Rodon has started red-hot. He pitched a no-hitter in his second start for the Chicago White Sox in 2021, and he was still sitting on a sub-2.00 ERA as late as June 24.

That's about when Rodon, who has had shoulder and Tommy John surgeries in the last five years, began to break down. He made just 12 starts and pitched to a good but not great 3.05 ERA the rest of the way, with greatly diminished velocity to boot.

As they've thus far tasked Rodon with pitching on four days' rest only once, the Giants may have learned a lesson from that. If they can keep giving him extra rest throughout the season, he may stay healthy. If he pitches 162 innings, he will qualify for the ERA title and, by extension, a place on the all-time strikeout rate leaderboard.

Otherwise, all he needs to do is keep throwing the ball by hitters. He's obviously doing that quite well for someone who really only throws a fastball and slider, which speaks to just how nasty those two pitches have been.

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150 Walks for Juan Soto

Shifting gears to position players, even we don't want to mislead anyone into thinking Anthony Rizzo can maintain his 63-homer pace or that Eric Hosmer is going to hit over .380 (more on that later).

But 150 walks for Juan Soto? We can see it.

This might seem like a random accomplishment, but only five players have ever drawn that many bases on balls in a single season. The most recent was Barry Bonds, who drew 232 walks in 2004, which is still hard to believe as A Thing That Happened.

Yet Soto did come close by drawing 145 free passes in 151 games last season. If he can draw walks at the same rate and play in more games this year, he will have a shot to join Bonds, Mark McGwire, Eddie Yost, Ted Williams and Babe Ruth in the 150-Walk Club.

The 23-year-old is off to a good start on one of those fronts in that he's played all 24 of the Washington Nationals' games. But after walking in 22.2 percent of his plate appearances in 2021, he's down to 19.8 percent.

That walk rate is still the best in MLB. And it's ahead of where his walk rate normally is at this time of the year; Soto doesn't typically start taking ball four with extraordinary regularity until the second half of the season:

• 1st Half: 16.3 BB%
• 2nd Half: 21.1 BB%

One reason to believe that this pattern will hold is that Soto is likely to have less protection in the lineup come the trade deadline Aug. 2. As both are pending free agents, sluggers Nelson Cruz and Josh Bell are going to be primo trade candidates.

If Soto's path does lead to 150 walks, he would become the youngest player to cross that threshold. Basically, another feather in his cap as arguably the best young hitter in baseball history.

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An Angels MVP Not Named Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani

At the outset of this season, it was a good bet that the American League MVP would come from the Los Angeles Angels. Slugger and ace Shohei Ohtani was the reigning winner, and center fielder Mike Trout won the award three times from 2014 to 2019.

Now Taylor Ward is throwing his hat in the ring as well.

atAngels is a Taylor Ward fan account #GoHalos pic.twitter.com/IT5NbnsjLw

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) April 28, 2022

Though the caveat is that he's played only 16 of the Angels' 24 games, Ward really has been that good. He's slashing .393/.493/.746 with five home runs and has a .424/.457/.939 line and four homers since moving into the leadoff spot April 25.

"He keeps doing it," Angels manager Joe Maddon told reporters Friday after Ward clubbed his fifth homer, off White Sox ace Lucas Giolito. "Just quality at-bat after quality at-bat."

One thing that makes Ward's small-sample-size success so compelling is that his underlying metrics pass the smell test. His expected stats include a .325 xAVG and .609 xSLG that rank in the 94th and 93rd percentiles.

Besides, Ward hasn't come out of nowhere. The 28-year-old was a first-round pick in 2015, and he teased major league stardom with a 1.011 OPS and 27 home runs in Triple-A as recently as 2019.

For now, Ward is only having a moment. But if it blossoms into a breakout, the Angels could produce their third different MVP in four years. That hasn't happened since Johnny Bench, Pete Rose and Joe Morgan won for the "Big Red Machine" Cincinnati Reds in 1972, 1973 and 1975.

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120 Losses for the Cincinnati Reds

Speaking of the Reds, we're not sure we can adequately summarize the state of the team better than Joey Votto did Thursday: 

#Reds Joey Votto on the team's 3-16 start: "it's an awful and embarrassing experience." pic.twitter.com/b0ySF6ufPj

— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) April 28, 2022

And that was when the Reds were merely 3-16. They're now 3-19, making them the first team since the 2003 Detroit Tigers to drop 19 of its first 22 games.

If Cincinnati keeps losing at this rate, it would become the first team in major league history to rack up 140 losses. So, yeah. No further punchline, your hinor.

The good news for the Reds is they've seemingly underachieved. Their Pythagorean record, which weighs runs scored and allowed, is a not-pathetic 5-17.

Even if Cincinnati gets on that track, however, it would still be on pace to lose 125 games. Not as futile as the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, maybe, but only they and the 1962 New York Mets have lost 120 games.

It should be shocking that the Reds' outlook is so grim, but it's really not. When you wave goodbye to a free agent such as Nick Castellanos and trade Sonny Gray, Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez, you're not exactly trying to win.

At the rate the team is going, aces Tyler Mahle and Luis Castillo might as well pack their bags. If that day comes, the Reds could become even more powerless to divert their march toward baseball infamy.

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A Pitcher with a Sub-1.50 ERA

In case you haven't already heard, the 2022 season is shaping up as a great time to be a pitcher and a terrible time to be a hitter.

The leaguewide strikeout rate is down to 22.9 percent, but that's little comfort to hitters since basically every other measure of their effectiveness has taken a turn for the worse. Most notably, their .232 batting average is the worst in MLB history.

As for why this is happening, here's the short version of a long story: 

• The ball is dead
• Batters are getting more at-bats against relief pitchers
• Pitchers are throwing more breaking balls and off-speed pitches
• Defensive shifts are plentiful and effective

As if all this wasn't scary enough for hitters, MLB probably can't boost offense with a midseason change like it did last year. There likely isn't another sticky stuff ban coming to the rescue.

So, might as well begin a watch party for a starting pitcher with a sub-1.50 ERA.

That hasn't happened since Bob Gibson made history with a 1.12 ERA in 1968. Not counting Shane Bieber's 1.63 ERA in the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020 season, only Dwight Gooden, Greg Maddux (twice) and Zack Greinke have come close to a sub-1.50 ERA since then.

If ever there was a time for the streak to be broken, it's now. Led by Seattle Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert and his 0.64 ERA, there are 15 pitchers with ERAs in the 1.00s. And there is no shortage of pitchers who could join the race once their ERAs more closely align with their dominance.

Just sayin': Blue Jays righty Kevin Gausman may have a 2.27 ERA, but he's struck out 41 with neither a walk nor home run allowed through 31.2 innings.

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A Batting Champion with a Sub-.300 Average

Though Gibson's '68 season is the stuff of legend, it might not be the most telling data point that shows just how hard it was for hitters that year.

Instead, consider that Carl Yastrzemski won the American League batting title with just a .301 average. That was and still is the lowest batting average ever for the top finisher in either league.

Since this season is shaping up to be even worse than 1968 in the batting average department, it seems logical to ask: Might a batting title winner finish with an even lower average? Dare we say even below .300?

It looks like a long shot. Led by Ward and his .390 average, 25 batters are hitting in the .300s. More broadly, the tide seems to be rising as the weather warms. The MLB average has ticked up to .234 over the last week.

And yet, even a .234 average would still be below the .237 that the league hit back in 1968. There's also a question of how many of the 25 leading hitters can hang on. Of the bunch, all but five are overperforming relative to their expected batting averages.

As such, we're going to file the notion of somebody winning a batting title with a sub-.300 average in the "Would Not Surprise Us" folder. If it came close to happening in the worst season for hitters on record, then why couldn't it happen in a campaign that's making a push to be the new worst season for hitters on record?

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.