Some of you may remember an Atlanta Brave from the late 1980s named Andres Thomas. A genuinely excellent defensive shortstop, Thomas had one other thing going for him – consistency at the plate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really the sort of consistency that helps the team. In 1986, he put up a .267 OBA, and for each of the next two years he managed just .268. By the standards of the day, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds, but when in 1989 he produced a .228 OBA in 554 at-bats, he not only lost his job, he reached a level of offensive futility that hasn’t been approached since.

As it happens, Cristian Guzman of the Washington Nationals may be up for the job. In 254 at-bats this season, he has put up a historically futile batting line of .201 AVG/.239 OBA/.291 SLG. To put this achievement in perspective, 152 players with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title have batting averages higher than Guzman’s OBA. If his OBA stays this low (and if he keeps his job) Guzman, who was for some reason signed to a four-year, $16.8 million deal this past winter, would be the first player since Thomas to amass 500 or more plate appearances in a season and get on base less than 24% of the time. Enemies of Tony Womack, take note – should George Steinbrenner’s covetous eyes alight on Guzman, the Yankees’ situation could get even worse.

Guzman is far from the only player shooting for history – or quasi-history – this season. The Cubs’ Derrek Lee, a fine player having an extraordinary year, has a legitimate shot at the Triple Crown in the National League. Houston’s Roger Clemens is on pace to post an ERA that is better, relative to his league, than any in baseball history – and at age 42, no less. On the other end of the spectrum, both Jose Lima and Eric Milton are on pace to set records for pitching futility every bit as impressive as the offensive ineptitude Guzman has exhibited thus far. Taken altogether, these extreme performances indicate a radical shift in the way the game is being played – though it’s not entirely clear why.

I feel confident in predicting that the records for excellence will not come to pass. There is a good reason why no one has won a Triple Crown since 1967: Expanded leagues and greater offensive specialization make winning all three legs nearly impossible, especially for a career .275 hitter like Lee. Clemens has a real shot at his record, but the fact that he has given up exactly one run in 46 innings on the road this year actually works against him for predictive purposes. That’s not going to hold up.

In the realm of negative achievement, though, predictions can be made with greater confidence. Take the case of Jose Lima. Coming off a solid season with the Dodgers, the Royals signed him with the expectation that he would take the ball every fifth day, keep them in some games, and take some pressure off young starters like Zack Greinke and Runelvys Hernandez. Lima has taken the ball, but the results have been grisly. Should he continue to pitch as much as he has and give up runs at the rate he has, his 7.58 ERA will rank as the worst in baseball history among players who have thrown 170 innings or more.

Lima is not alone in this quest. Eric Milton, signed by the Reds for reasons similar to those that made the Royals acquire Lima, has been nearly as bad. Having given up 28 home runs in 100 innings so far, he could set a new record for home runs allowed in a season, breaking Bert Blyleven’s mark of 50, set in 1986. Should he prove unable to lower his ERA, which currently sits at 7.20, Milton will join Jack Knott (and, potentially, Lima) in the inglorious club of pitchers who have qualified for the ERA title allowing more than seven runs per nine innings.

As unlikely as it may seem, I think Lima and Milton will both achieve immortality. There is an obvious reason why most pitchers don’t get a chance to set such marks – pitch that badly, and you’re bound get released if you don’t make immediate and significant improvements. But both play for terrible teams that have no other options for emergency rotation spots, both sport expensive new contracts, both were good enough recently enough that there’s reason to think they’ll turn things around, and both are so wretched that there’s little chance they will. Clemens can have his ERA crown, but Lima and Milton will be the ones settling bar bets for decades to come.

When noting these achievements – along with those of Womack, who has a good shot at putting up the worst offensive numbers ever by an outfielder – it’s hard not to wonder why we’re seeing such historic performances, both for the better and the worse. I think it likely that some sort of major shift is taking place in the game. Such a change can happen very suddenly – look at what happened after the introduction of the rabbit ball in the 1920s, the alterations in the strike zone that turned the 1960s into the second dead ball era, and what steroids and hitter-friendly parks wrought on the game in the 1990s.

Maybe the balls are no longer juiced; maybe the players are no longer juiced; maybe it’s something else entirely, and maybe it’s nothing at all. Whatever the case, it’s too early to tell, but what Cristian Guzman is doing is every bit as interesting as what Derrek Lee is doing, and perhaps as indicative of where the game is heading.