The Reds’ Pursuit of Historical Ignominy
Last night, Kris Bryant became the first player in Major League history to hit three home runs and two doubles in the same game. His offensive barrage was part of a five homer attack by the Cubs — Jake Arrieta and Anthony Rizzo also went yard last night — in their 11-8 win over the Reds. But while Bryant’s game was indeed spectacular, we also shouldn’t be too surprised that it came in Cincinnati, because the Reds staff is allowing dingers like no pitching staff in baseball history.
Through 77 games, the Reds have allowed 129 home runs, 23 more than any other team has allowed this season. That works out to 1.7 homers allowed per game, a pace that would shatter the all-time record for home runs allowed if the Reds were to keep serving longballs at this rate. The title of the most homer-prone pitching staff in history currently belongs to the 1996 Detroit Tigers, who allowed 241 homers, or a rate of 1.5 homers per game. They edged out the 2000 Royals, 2001 Rockies, and 1999 Rockies, all of whom were attempting to pitch during the height of baseball’s “Steroid Era”, when home run records were falling left and right.
To break the record, the Reds would have to allow 113 home runs over their remaining 85 games, a 1.3 home run per game pace that would be somewhat formidable for most pitching staffs. But for this particular group of hurlers, it’s actually not that hard to imagine them breaking the record.
Over on our Reds depth chart, we currently have 25 different pitchers projected to throw at least a few innings for the Reds over the rest of the season. The forecasts for those 26 pitchers looks like this.
ALL Pitchers Reds
| Name | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | BABIP | LOB% | ERA | FIP | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony DeSclafani | 93.0 | 7.4 | 2.6 | 1.0 | .304 | 71.2 % | 3.97 | 3.92 | 1.3 |
| John Lamb | 68.0 | 8.4 | 3.6 | 1.2 | .304 | 72.1 % | 4.28 | 4.35 | 0.7 |
| Brandon Finnegan | 85.0 | 8.0 | 4.1 | 1.2 | .300 | 71.3 % | 4.43 | 4.53 | 0.5 |
| Raisel Iglesias | 34.0 | 9.4 | 2.4 | 1.0 | .309 | 74.8 % | 3.43 | 3.47 | 0.4 |
| Dan Straily | 68.0 | 8.3 | 3.4 | 1.5 | .303 | 70.5 % | 4.68 | 4.68 | 0.4 |
| Cody Reed | 58.0 | 7.3 | 4.0 | 1.2 | .296 | 71.3 % | 4.47 | 4.68 | 0.3 |
| Tony Cingrani | 34.0 | 10.1 | 4.5 | 1.1 | .298 | 75.3 % | 3.83 | 4.12 | 0.1 |
| Blake Wood | 24.0 | 9.7 | 5.0 | 0.7 | .306 | 72.4 % | 3.89 | 3.83 | 0.1 |
| Ross Ohlendorf | 21.0 | 9.4 | 3.3 | 1.2 | .306 | 73.8 % | 3.96 | 4.07 | 0.1 |
| Daniel Wright | 9.0 | 6.8 | 2.6 | 1.3 | .298 | 71.3 % | 4.37 | 4.56 | 0.1 |
| Timothy Adleman | 9.0 | 7.1 | 3.4 | 1.3 | .297 | 71.3 % | 4.46 | 4.62 | 0.1 |
Homer Bailey  |
5.0 | 7.5 | 2.8 | 1.1 | .298 | 72.1 % | 4.02 | 4.20 | 0.1 |
| Robert Stephenson | 20.0 | 8.5 | 4.9 | 1.5 | .297 | 70.8 % | 4.99 | 5.15 | 0.0 |
| Alfredo Simon |
55.0 | 6.2 | 3.2 | 1.4 | .299 | 68.6 % | 4.91 | 5.00 | 0.0 |
| Jumbo Diaz | 8.0 | 9.4 | 3.3 | 1.2 | .303 | 73.3 % | 3.89 | 3.94 | 0.0 |
| Amir Garrett | 5.0 | 9.1 | 4.0 | 1.0 | .296 | 74.6 % | 3.69 | 3.97 | 0.0 |
| The Others | 13.0 | 8.9 | 3.5 | 1.1 | .309 | 73.6 % | 4.06 | 4.08 | 0.0 |
| Caleb Cotham |
13.0 | 8.6 | 3.1 | 1.1 | .303 | 72.9 % | 3.95 | 4.06 | 0.0 |
| Sal Romano | 5.0 | 7.5 | 3.2 | 1.1 | .297 | 73.3 % | 3.97 | 4.26 | 0.0 |
| Rookie Davis | 5.0 | 7.2 | 2.8 | 1.2 | .298 | 73.0 % | 3.98 | 4.28 | 0.0 |
| Josh Smith | 18.0 | 7.8 | 3.0 | 1.1 | .304 | 70.7 % | 4.23 | 4.20 | 0.0 |
| Keyvius Sampson | 5.0 | 8.8 | 4.8 | 1.3 | .302 | 71.6 % | 4.70 | 4.80 | 0.0 |
| AJ Morris | 10.0 | 7.6 | 3.6 | 1.1 | .302 | 71.1 % | 4.29 | 4.36 | 0.0 |
| Timothy Melville | 5.0 | 6.6 | 4.9 | 1.7 | .302 | 67.8 % | 5.85 | 5.86 | 0.0 |
| Jon Moscot | 30.0 | 6.0 | 3.4 | 1.7 | .299 | 68.3 % | 5.47 | 5.59 | -0.1 |
| Michael Lorenzen | 34.0 | 7.1 | 3.4 | 1.3 | .302 | 70.4 % | 4.59 | 4.67 | -0.2 |
| J.J. Hoover | 29.0 | 8.4 | 4.2 | 1.5 | .289 | 73.6 % | 4.54 | 4.97 | -0.2 |
| Total | 765.0 | 8.0 | 3.5 | 1.2 | .301 | 71.5 % | 4.36 | 4.45 | 3.6 |
Not a stellar collections of names there; the Reds plan for pitching this year was to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what stuck, but all they ended up with is a bunch of broken noodles. But even with a pitching staff of replacement level of arms, it is remarkable just how homer prone the entire group is. Of the 25 guys on that list, exactly one — Blake Wood — is forecast to allow fewer than one home run per nine innings pitched. For context, 17 of the 23 pitchers projected to throw for the Nationals over the rest of the season are expected to allow fewer than one homer per nine innings; finding guys who can keep the ball in the park isn’t as hard as the Reds are making it look.
Of course, even with a poor group of pitchers, our forecasts still only call for the Reds pitching staff to allow 102 home runs over the rest of the year, which would leave them with 231 home runs allowed, 11 shy of the 1996 Tigers record. But there is a pretty good reason to believe that the Reds pitchers might give up more homers than our forecasts expect.
You’ve probably noticed that home runs aren’t only flying in Cincinnati right now. After a long stretch of dominance by pitchers, batters turned the tables in the second half of last year, and started launching home runs left and right, and that trend has continued so far this year. Thanks to the second-half homer surge last year, the league HR/FB rate reached 11.4% in 2015, and that carried over to April of this season as well. But then in May, it jumped again, up to 12.8%. In June, the league average HR/FB rate has been a ridiculous 13.9%, and at this point, we really have no idea when this is all going to level off.
We’re now going on six straight months of a big surge in home runs, with the trend increasing upwards at a rapid pace. The average HR/9 in MLB this year is the same as it was back in 2000, and higher than it was in 1999 or 2001, the years that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds surpassed Roger Maris on the all-time single-season home run list. For reasons that no one has been able to entirely explain — a more tightly wound ball makes the most sense, but representatives of the league swear they’ve tested the ball and found no changes — we’re currently seeing the ball fly out of parks at record rates.
And our forecasts aren’t based on that kind of extreme run environment, so if you think this home run surge is here to stay, those HR/9 projections for the Reds pitchers are probably too low. It doesn’t take much adjusting upwards in the league-average HR environment to push the Reds expected HR/9 rate from 1.2 to 1.3, and that’s the mark they’d need to reach in order to break the Tigers record.
Of course, there’s still a half season to go, so maybe the Reds will find a pitcher who can figure out how to avoid throwing batting practice before the year is up. And given that they’re pitching in a year where seemingly everyone can hit bombs, perhaps setting the all-time record for home runs allowed isn’t entirely their fault. But if you’re a Reds fan looking for hope that opposing teams will stop bombarding the outfield seats at Great American Ballpark, well, I don’t have much hope for you. If nothing else is that much fun about this Reds season, at least the fans who buy tickets out there have a good chance at going home with a souvenir.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
(Deleted, don’t do that.)
Great article. What do we call this surge in dingers and strikeouts? The Power vs. Power Era?
The Grip It and Rip It Era.
Tanking, Power vs. Power, hotter weather, excellent crop of rookie batters. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tightened the balls too in the commish’s first year.
I’d be pretty surprised if
1) Alfredo Simon tossed another 55 innings
2) Homer Bailey only throws 5 innings
Meanwhile, the Braves as a team have hit 38 home runs in 76 games, well behind the next least dingery team, the giants, who have 62.
In on June 28th, 2001, Barry Bonds had 39 home runs.
What happens when the Braves face the Reds?
We all lose.
With a name like Homer Bailey, it’s no surprise that they are giving up the long ball.
I’m not gonna lie – even as a Reds fan, Kris Bryant’s game was all sorts of fun last night. Those bombs were majestic.
But yes. This is a very bad baseball team in Cincinnati. Very bad indeed.
How long before they trade Votto to the Red Sox?
Never. Votto has repeatedly said he’d never accept a trade out of Cincinnati.
Of course, before Brandon Phillips turned down two trades in a month to much better teams than the Reds (Arizona and Washington), I always assumed that no trade clauses were just negotiating tools. But I really think that Votto is serious when he says that he’s in Cincinnati, for better or worse, his whole career.
It must be great to be a batter for the Cubs or Cardinals, playing in the same division as the Brewers (27th of 30 teams in pitching WAR), the Pirates (29th), and the Reds (30th), with a combined WAR of +0.9. You play at least a third your games against essentially minor league pitching. That’ll give a real boost to the old wRC+.
It’s possible that part of the reason the Brewers and Pirates and Reds have such bad pitching WAR is that they have to pitch to the Cubs and Cardinals hitters.
(golf clap)
Don’t worry Reds, once global warming really heats up home run rates will skyrocket
I know this was in jest, but actually it won’t make as much difference as some might think. Thanks to work by Dr. Alan Nathan addressing this very issue, we know that a rise of 10°F results in 2.5 added feet on fly ball distance (or 3.3′ in Denver), which is good for about a 6% increase home runs.
While a 10°F rise from present average temperatures is possible, it’s far enough in the future that the Reds will undoubtedly be playing in a new ballpark by then — and they might actually have a decent pitching staff by then, too. (And meanwhile, considering the impacts should that kind of warming come to pass, the fate of Cincinnati’s baseball team may be the least of our worries).
(Additional studies on temperature’s influence on run scoring here and per-stadium effects here.)
During the steroid era, nobody had a good explanation for what was happening, either. I think there were theories about “tightly wound ball” then, as well. It was only after that era *ended* when the reason became clear.
The explanation is pretty simple. Current batting evaluation metrics put a lot of emphasis on home runs and care relatively little about singles or strikeouts. For some reason most management and players thing that doing well on these metrics is the key to winning the world series.
The white ravens have flown. I’d say The Others should be projected for much more WAR.
While their pitching certainly sucks and they play in one of the most homer friendly ballparks in MLB, I have to wonder how much of a role is played by the fact that they play in the same division as the Cardinals and Cubs, ranked #2 and #4 respectively in the NL in home runs.
I’ve seen around 80% of the Reds games this year… they are giving up homers to everyone. Aaron Hill got them for 3 in a game. Then a few more during the next series. It’s madness.
Aside from the reds being #1 in the league in hrs allowed, the brewers and the pirates are #3 and #4. It’s more a matter of the cardinals and cubs being so high in hrs because they face these teams in 1/3 of their games.
Here’s something:
Against the Cubs and the Cardinals, the Reds have allowed 118 runs in 14 games, good for 8.4 runs per game.
Against everyone else, the Reds have allowed 332 runs in 63 games, good for 5.3 runs per game.
To say ‘the Cubs and Cardinals offensive numbers are inflated because of their competition’ takes a massive assumption to believe. One could just as easily argue the opposite – that the opponents of the Cubs and Cardinals have inflated defensive numbers because of THEIR competition. And the numbers sure seem to say that – at least in the case of the Reds – they perform significantly worse against those two teams than anyone else.
Could just be that the Cardinals and Cubs are as good as the Reds are bad.
There’s no point in discussing with him… he’s got his narrative, it’s not going to change.
It isn’t just the reds, it’s the pirates and the brewers, they’re #27 and #29 in pitchers’ war.
Realistically it’s presumably a lot of both. The cardinals and cubs have their hitting stats inflated to some extent by the pitching of the reds, pirates, and brewers, while the reds, pirates, and brewers have their pitching stats deflated to some extent by the hitting of the cardinals and cubs. Neither of them are as extreme as they appear to be.
The giants had a series in pittsburgh last week, one game they won 15-4, the next they were behind 6-1 before coming back to win 7-6. It looks like a fun dividion to hit in.
Make that 131 HR’s allowed, two more last night, still on pace. The NL league average is 84.