Predicting Cincinnati Reds' 2016 Record Going Into Spring Training

Cincinnati Reds fans, this is one of the easiest articles that I have ever written. The Reds are in line to have their worst season ever. They will lose 100 games without batting an eye. Here is how it will happen.

The main issue with the Reds is their pitching staff. They took a good bullpen and a young rotation and made it worse. They traded away Mike Leake and Johnny Cueto last year for young prospects. This means that out of the pitchers penciled into the starting rotation for 2016, only Anthony DeSclafani has pitched a full season. The Reds didn’t add a single veteran to eat innings or help the young staff. Then to make matters worse, they trade Aroldis Chapman to the New York Yankees to weaken a bullpen that had already lost its only left-handed specialist to free agency.

That leaves a rotation of DeSclafani, Brandon Finnegan, Michael Lorenzen, John Lamb and Raisel Iglesias. If Lamb isn’t ready after offseason back surgery, Jon Moscot may be forced to start too. That combo pitched less than 500 innings at the MLB level last season. That’s half of what teams want out of their starting rotation every season. Since the Reds didn’t add a veteran, this is pretty much it.

Who among those pitchers do you think can get to double digits in wins without Todd Frazier and Marlon Byrd hitting home runs? The last time the Reds lost 100 games was in 1982 when an aging Johnny Bench was their third baseman and Mario Soto was the young hotshot pitcher.

This will be an historically bad Reds team with a record of 61-101. Too bad they didn’t keep Frazier around for his long balls.