8 records that teams could break in 2019

Major League teams have played nearly 1,800 games so far this year, which is another way of saying that about 35 percent of the season is complete. It's still early, but it's also not so early that you can't take some things seriously. The Dodgers and Astros again look like two of baseball's most dominating teams. Superstars Cody Bellinger, Mike Trout and Christian Yelich lead the Majors in WAR. There's plenty of signal through the noise.

That being the case, and given the level of talent in the game today, we can at least look at some of the teams on pace to set all-time records and try to see how many of these marks actually have a chance to fall by the end of the season. "Pace," obviously, is imperfect, because you can't expect teams and players to simply repeat what they've done, and trades, injuries and other unforeseen circumstances will happen.

That said, these are all teams that are on track to set records -- and we'll bet at least one does.

1. The Twins have the highest slugging percentage ever

At .511, this isn't just first, it's first by a lot -- second place is .491 -- and the two teams they're ahead of are the 2003 Red Sox of Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Nomar Garciaparra, and the 1927 Yankees, who were the 1927 Yankees.

For what it's worth, little about this seems like a mirage. Thirteen Twins have at least 50 plate appearances, and 10 of them are slugging at least .500. They're slugging .514 against righties and .501 against lefties. They slugged .495 in April, then .521 in May. Their expected slugging percentage, based on Statcast metrics, may only be .491, but even that is nearly 40 points ahead of second place among clubs this season.

It's absolutely fair to point out that the sport is setting homer records left and right -- the Twins are on pace to hit 304, which would shatter the record 267 set by last year's Yankees -- and that this year's .426 Major League slugging percentage would be one of the 10 highest of all time. But even taking that high baseline into account, the Twins are slugging 19 percent better than league average, which would be tied for the highest mark ever with ... the 1927 Yankees.

The Twins are also on pace to win 112 games. We'll probably take the under on that, as well as on them hitting 300 homers. But the slugging mark? This seems possible.

2. The Angels have the lowest adjusted strikeout rate on record

In a baseball world dominated by strikeouts, the Angels are doing something completely different: They're making contact. Lots of it. They're striking out in only 16.3 percent of their plate appearances, the lowest in baseball, well below the 22.9 percent average. Now, you can't simply look at raw strikeout rates throughout history, because the game has changed so much. In 1929, for example, the Majors whiffed only 7.2 percent of the time, less than a third as often as today.

Instead, it's better to compare each team's strikeout rate to the league average of that season. Going back to 1920, when data is first available, no team on record has had a better adjusted strikeout rate than that of the 2019 Angels, who are whiffing a full 28 percentage points less than the rest of the Majors. The second-best team would be the 1986 Red Sox, who were 25 points better than the league that year. That is clearly the most interesting thing about the 1986 Red Sox, and we'll take no further questions.

It's one thing to look at the legendary Trout, who, in his eternal quest to find something to improve upon, has cut his whiff rate to a career-low 15.4 percent. It's another to look at the 166 players who are qualified for the batting average title and realize that the three lowest strikeout rates are all from Angels (David Fletcher, Andrelton Simmons and Tommy La Stella).

They have a shot at this, but it's going to be hard. They struck out 15.7 percent of the time in April, then 17.2 percent of the time in May, and Simmons is likely to miss extended time with an ankle injury.

3. Astros pitchers have the lowest average and OBP against on record

It's impressive, obviously, to point out that by allowing opposing hitters a mere .270 on-base percentage, the 2019 Astros sit atop the all-time (since 1920) OBP suppression leaderboard. If the best thing you can do is to prevent hitters from getting on base, then no team has ever done it as well as the 2019 Astros.

The thing is, however, that second place on that list ... are the 2018 Astros, who tied with several other teams at .282. And when you look at the lowest batting average allowed, you'll see that the 2019 Astros, at .208, are second behind only Luis Tiant's 1968 Indians.

This isn't really about historical context, because this year's Astros are tied with the 2016 Cubs for the lowest average allowed vs. league average, at 16 percent better. It's because the Astros are really that good. They're leading the Majors in strikeout rate this year, just as they did last year, but also note that in 2018, all five of their top Minor League affiliates led their leagues in strikeout rate, too. That's no accident.

4. Rays pitchers have the lowest adjusted ERA in AL history

The Astros aren't the only pitching staff threatening records this year. Tampa Bay's 3.10 ERA is the best in the Majors by a pretty large gap over Houston's 3.37, and a very large gap over the 4.40 Major League average. That gives them a 143 ERA+ (meaning 43 percent better than league average), and that is the best mark the Majors have seen since the 1905-09 Cubs -- which was long enough ago that "Tinker to Evers to Chance" referred to infielders, not poems.

There are a lot of reasons for this. There's the presence of Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Charlie Morton, obviously. There's the opener, though the effect of that is still unclear. There's the fact that Rays pitchers are just dominating at the things pitchers need to be great at, in the sense that they have the second-best adjusted Fielding Independent Pitching -- which is based on strikeouts, walks and home runs -- of all time, and they're essentially tied with the Dodgers for baseball's lowest hard-hit rate.

They have baseball's rangiest outfield defense and baseball's third-lowest average allowed on ground balls. It's a good pitching staff, sure, but it's a good defense, too.

5. The Royals are on pace to hit more batters than any team ever

There's a persistent myth that fire-breathing flamethrowers of years gone by hit far more batters than today's pitchers do, but it's just not true. The Majors are on track to set a modern record for the most hit batsmen per game in 2019, at 0.41. That's more than twice as many as it was in 1981 (0.17).

With the Majors on track to set a record, perhaps it's not surprising that there's a team on track to do the same, and it's the Royals, who are hitting 0.61 hitters per game, putting them on pace for 99. The current Major League record is held by the 2003 Devil Rays, who plunked 95, one more than ... the 2002 Devil Rays.

It's tempting to say this is entirely about the ongoing "Royals vs. Tim Anderson" feud, but it's really not. Anderson has been plunked only twice by Kansas City, the same as Gordon Beckham and Shin-Soo Choo.

6. The Angels are on pace to throw more wild pitches than any team ever

Along the same lines, there are more wild pitches these days than ever, too, and that's not terribly surprising, given the massive increase in velocity and breaking pitches compared to the game of decades ago. The current modern Major League record for wild pitches per game is 0.38 in 2018, just ahead of 0.37 in '17 and '16. This year, we're at 0.36.

When we saw that, we figured that maybe this year's team wild pitch leader could be on pace to set the all-time record, and wouldn't you know it? They are. The Angels have 38 wild pitches, most in MLB by seven over Baltimore's 31. That puts them on pace for 104, which would top the record of 98 set by the 2016 Astros. That's maybe not the team you expected it to be, but a full 31 of those were just from Mike Fiers and Ken Giles, and each were gone by the end of 2017.

This one has been a group effort; 14 Angels pitchers have a wild pitch, led by Cam Bedrosian's nine. Then again, the Orioles already have had 18 pitchers uncork one.

7. Dodgers pitchers have the lowest adjusted walk rate in NL history

You don't get on a pace to win 111 games, as the 42-19 Dodgers are, without doing a lot of things well. They're a top-three offense, have a top-three pitching staff and bring the best defense in baseball. They're so, so good, and there's probably no shortage of things we could focus on here to prove that.

One of those things could well end up in the record books: Their total refusal to walk opposing hitters. Dodgers pitchers have walked 2.22 batters per nine innings, well ahead of San Diego's second-best 2.54 and the Major League average of 3.38. That puts them a full 30 percent better than the Major League average, and that is the best mark on record, ahead of the 1933 Reds.

It doesn't hurt that Hyun-Jin Ryu has 69 strikeouts and only five walks, but it's not just him. They have three of the top 17 and five of the top 39 lowest walk rates among pitchers with 20 innings. Interestingly, it's not just about throwing strikes, because they have only the fifth-best zone rate this year. It's that they have the highest chase rate and have thrown the fewest pitches on three-ball counts. It's hard to issue walks when you don't even get to three balls, right?

8. The Red Sox could become the first team (probably) to have zero bunt hits

We thought we were going to see this last year, when the A's made it all the way to Aug. 24 before Jed Lowrie gave them their first bunt hit of the year. As we said at the time, data on this goes back only to 1988, so we can't be 100 percent sure that no team has had a season free of bunt hits, but based on what we know about how the game has progressed ... it seems almost certain that it hasn't happened before.

So far, 29 of the 30 teams have at least one bunt hit; in fact, they all have at least two. The Padres and Nationals have 15. The Red Sox have only put down eight bunts this year, all for attempted sacrifices, though there are three teams with fewer. (The Mariners only have four, but they also have Dee Gordon, who has successfully bunted for a hit.)

The Red Sox don't exactly have an ideal candidate for this. Most of their lefties don't see a great deal of shifts, and the one that does, Mitch Moreland, is both injured and not especially fast. We might see this one fall. We can only hope.