Looking for a long shot pick in 2023? How about the Cincinnati Reds?

If you want to play a long shot in 2023, you could do worse than to take a flyer on the Cincinnati Reds.

And it would be a true flyer. The 2022 Cincinnati Reds tied for last in the NL Central — by consensus baseball’s weakest division — with a 62-100 record. Almost nobody with an opinion thinks they’ll be much better this season.

Offseason improvements have been few and far between. The Reds signed free agent Wil Myers to play right field and back up Joey Votto at first, but Myers is a 32-year-old career .254 stick who’s beyond the point of hoping for much better.

Aside from Votto, the infield is about as young as you’ll ever see. Third-year starter Jonathan India, 26, hopes he’ll be healthier than in 2022, when he was limited to 103 games.

Spencer Steer, a 25-year-old acquired in a deadline trade with the Twins, is penciled in at shortstop next to 25-year old Jose Barrero, who barely fails to qualify as a rookie.

It would be asking a lot of the Reds to lean on three youngsters of that inexperience for production either offensively or defensively, which is one reason why oddsmakers are down on the Reds as usual.

Another reason is the team’s pitching staff, which produced a collective 4.86 ERA in 2022.

On the mound, however, there is reason to hope that a longshot bet may pay off … possibly big.

Those longshot hopes center around three members of the rotation, all of them 25 or younger, and all of whom showed serious potential in 2022. If those three develop in 2023, well … teams with a strong front three tend to do pretty well.

Start with the best-known of the three, Hunter Greene. He’s 23, and went just 5-13 as a rookie in 24 starts, including a very interesting start in May against the Pirates.

But Greene’s stuff is the kind you don’t give up on. His fastball averaged 98.9 mph last season, and he threw it 54 percent of the time. Obviously velocity isn’t everything (if it was he wouldn’t have been 5-13), but it is a good place to start. Greene’s problems — principally locating that fastball — are fixable.

Nick Lodolo, 25, made 19 starts as a rookie and compiled a credible 3.66 ERA. He allowed just 90 base hits in 103.1 innings but 39 bases on balls drove his WHIP to 1.248. Some pitchers never learn to throw the ball over the plate, but his 3.66 ERA as a rookie suggests that Lodolo can overcome his control deficiencies.

Then there’s Graham Ashcraft, a 25-year-old rookie who made a strong debut against every team he faced in 2022 except one.

If Ashcraft never sees a Chicago Cubs uniform this coming season, it will probably be okay with him. He faced the Cubs four times in 2022, and was pummeled for 15 earned runs in just 14.2 innings.

His Cub experiences caused Ashcraft to finish the year with an unimpressive 5-6 record and bloated 4.89 ERA in 19 starts. The truth was more subtle: In his 15 starts against any team not hailing from Chicago’s North Side, Ashcraft was 5-2 with a 3.57 ERA in 88 innings. If that had been his season-long line, he’d be hailed as a potential star.

Assuming Ashcraft’s Chicago-sized voodoo doesn’t repeat in 2023, he could be one of the season’s big pitching surprises.

The Reds could have another secret weapon in their rotation ready to explode in 2023. Their projected fifth starter is Luis Cessa, a 30-year-old who has worked largely out of the bullpen in New York and Cincinnati.

But two-thirds of the way through 2022 — hopelessly out of the race and with nothing to lose — the Reds tried Cessa out as a full-time starter. The results were at least eye-opening, and they reveal Cessa as yet another longshot candidate to emergence from obscurity this season.

When the transition occurred around August 20, Cessa was a pitching disaster. In nearly 40 innings of relief work, he had allowed 23 earned runs and was sporting a 5.49 ERA. He had been credited with just five holds in 37 appearances.

But when the Reds gave Cessa the ball as a starter, something clicked. In his second such outing, he allowed just one run and four hits. For his final nine appearances (all starts), Cessa averaged nearly five innings with just two earned runs allowed and only once walking more than two batters.

His 5.49 ERA as a reliever through August 20 fell to 3.77 once he entered into a starter’s role.

It’s no sure thing that Cessa will replicate his 2022 starting experience in 2023. It’s no sure thing that Greene will consistently locate his 99 mph heater, or that Lodolo will avoid a sophomore slump. And it’s a virtual certainty that Ashcraft will have to confront the demons that haunt him against the Cubs.

Putting all those contingencies into a parley is the reason the Reds are such a longshot pick in 2023. Still, Greene does have that 99 mph fastball, Lodolo was solid in 2022, Ashcraft’s numbers can’t be hurt as much by one team as they were last year, and Cessa will get a full starting shot this season.

When you’re looking for a longshot that might pay off, all you want is a chance. The potential of those four guys adds up to that long shot chance for Cincinnati.