Reds and Angels meet in Free Game of the Day

It’s been a disastrous season for the Cincinnati Reds. At 55-76, the team currently sits in last place in the National League Central. While first baseman Joey Votto remains effective at age-32, the team around him is in pretty rough shape.

Aside from Votto’s fantastic heel turn this season, the Reds haven’t received a lot of national attention. That’s not really a surprise considering their performance and the lack of star players on the roster.

But what if we told you this Reds team had a chance to break some records? Maybe that would peak your interest in an otherwise uneventful team. Oh, and when we say “records,” we aren’t talking about the good kind. No, the Reds are bad, and there are certain aspects of the 2016 team that have a chance to be historically awful.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now]

It all starts with the team’s bullpen. By many measures, the Reds have put together the worst collection of relievers in baseball this season. Put their powers together, and you might have the worst bullpen of all-time.

The team’s late-inning ineptitude will be the focus of Wednesday’s Free MLB Game of the Day on Yahoo Sports. The Reds bullpen will try its luck against Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels. You can stream the game for free on on the Yahoo Sports app, Yahoo’s Sports Home, MLB index, video home and this very post. Local blackouts apply, per MLB rules. First pitch is at 7:05 p.m.

No matter how you look at it, the Reds bullpen has been an absolute dumpster fire this season. In 473 innings, Reds reliever have combined for a 5.06 ERA. That’s good for the second-worst figure in the league, barely ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 5.07 mark.

By fWAR, however, Cincinnati has been so much worse. The team’s bullpen has put up a -3.4 fWAR this year. That’s easily the worst in the league by a large margin. The D-Backs rank 29th in the category with a -0.3 fWAR. So, yeah, that is hilariously bad.

That -3.4 fWAR isn’t the worst of all-time, but it could be by season’s end. The only club with a worse bullpen fWAR in the last decade has been the 2013 Houston Astros. Their relievers were worth a whopping -5.2 fWAR. That -5.2 figure is the worst bullpen fWAR of all-time according to FanGraphs. The Reds could certainly pass it depending on how poorly the team plays over the next few weeks.

What separates the Reds from the typical, bad bullpen is the club’s ability to give up home runs. Reds relievers have allowed 87 homers this year. The next closest club has surrendered 65.

That 87 figure is significant. Only two teams in the history of the game have had their bullpen give up more home runs in a single season.

Thanks to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, we know that the major-league record for home runs allowed by a bullpen belongs to the 1964 Kansas City Athletics. That club’s bullpen gave up 92 home runs.

The 2016 Reds already rank third on that list at 87. The team still has 31 games remaining. They are just five home runs away from tying the major-league record. Barring some type of miracle, the Reds bullpen is going to break the record for most home runs allowed in a single season. It’s been that bad.

For what it’s worth, the starters haven’t been much better. Reds starting pitchers lead the league with 127 home runs allowed. Put those two figures together, and the team has given up 214 home runs this year. That’s bad.

So, things haven’t gone well in Cincinnati this season. But, hey, if you’re going to be bad, you might as well be historically awful, right? We’re sure the overwhelming majority of Reds fans won’t find the joy in that, but the small contingent of masochistic Reds followers can at least derive some joy out of being so bad the team is actually entertaining.

More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik