Kuzul

In the midst of an abysmal season for the Texas Rangers, things just got much worse for the franchise. Ron Washington, the team’s manager since the 2007 season, has reportedly resigned from the franchise.

Bob Dutton of The News Tribune reported the news Friday afternoon:

Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram provided background information on the matter:

During Washington’s time in Texas, the Rangers went 664-611 and won the American League pennant twice, coming up short in the World Series both times. He was also the All-Star Game manager during both the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com relayed Washington’s statement on his resignation:

Today, I have submitted my resignation from the job I love – managing the Rangers – in order to devote my full attention to addressing an off-the-field personal matter. As painful as it is, stepping away from the game is what’s best for me and my family.

This is in no way related to the disappointing performance of the team this season. We were already discussing 2015 and looking forward to getting the Rangers back to postseason contention.

I deeply regret that I’ve let down the Rangers organization and our great fans. Over the past eight seasons, it’s been a privilege to be part of some of the best years in club history and I will always be grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here, and for the great management, players, and coaches who have made our time here a success. Thank you for respecting my privacy.

Jesse Spector of Sporting News offered his take on the resignation:

As for his replacement, bench coach Tim Bogar will take over managerial duties for now, per Jim Bowden of ESPN:

In eight seasons with the Rangers, Washington became the franchise’s all-time leader in regular-season wins and games managed. Though he was unable to win either of the World Series, Washington was the only manager to win an AL pennant in Rangers history.

While he was able to turn the franchise around, the Rangers have fallen apart due to countless injuries this season. After Washington’s announcement, Sullivan put the overall season in perspective:

Others like Ray Ratto of CSN and Phil Rogers of MLB.com noted how great of a person Washington has been as a manager:

Back in 2010, it was reported that Washington tested positive for cocaine during the previous season. The manager recovered from that scandal by leading the team to successful seasons, and his resignation was not due to the previous failed drug test.

Rangers general manager Jon Daniels confirmed that news, per Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News:

Much about the situation is still unknown, but it comes as a shock to many fellow managers around the game. The Rangers have severely underachieved this season, for obvious reasons, but Washington had led the team to four consecutive 90-win seasons from 2010-13.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today notes the reaction from managers:

Bruce Bochy of the San Francisco Giants was also shocked by the decision, via Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Though the current season has been underwhelming, the move was not due to any questions about his future with the team.

Daniels spoke on that matter, per Wilson:

The 62-year-old Washington leaves behind a team mired in a 53-87 season, but one with plenty of promise for the future. While the Rangers are struggling this year, they have talent in the franchise to build around with or without Washington.

Competing in a difficult AL West that includes the Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners, the road ahead will be difficult. Washington was able to lead the franchise to several successful seasons, but the division has drastically improved.

With Prince Fielder returning next season from a neck injury that has sidelined him for most of 2014, the team could take a completely different shape. But without Washington at the helm, there’s no telling what the leadership around the franchise will look like.

Follow @RCorySmith on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Arizona Diamondbacks fired general manager Kevin Towers as the team is going to miss the postseason for the third straight year. The team announced the move on Friday on Twitter:

Nick Piecoro of AZCentral Sports first announced the move.

MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert had more on Towers’ press conference:

FOX Sports’ Jack MaGruder has more on a potential hire:

Piecoro had more:

According to Piecoro’s report, the entire organization has been under evaluation since longtime manager Tony La Russa was added as the Chief Baseball Officer. With Towers out, the focus will shift to manager Kirk Gibson, whose status is unknown.

The report lists Walt Jocketty (Cincinnati Reds GM), Gary LaRocque (St. Louis Cardinals farm director) and Ray Montgomery (Arizona’s scouting director) as names to watch as Arizona starts the process of filling the key front-office void.

Towers joined the team in 2010 and the team had just one winning season (2011) during his tenure. Prior to taking the D-Backs job, Towers was GM of the Padres from 1995-2009. 

In an era where advanced statistics are becoming more prominent than ever, Towers had an old-school outlook of using toughness and grit to create a winning team. That approach led to some head-scratching roster moves.

Last fall, David Schoenfield of ESPN.com passed along comments from the longtime executive, who wasn’t happy with the lack of retaliation from his team when one of its own got hit. He said it was something that would be watched closely moving forward.

“Some of them, contractually, it’s tough to move,” Towers said. “But I think come spring training, it will be duly noted that it’s going to be an eye for an eye and we’re going to protect one another.”

It’s an attitude that had previously caused the Arizona general manager to trade Justin Upton, one of the National League‘s premier young hitters, and Chris Johnson to the Atlanta Braves for Martin Prado, Randall Delgado and a package of prospects.

Prado fit the mold of the type of player Towers was seeking, but his talent simply couldn’t match Upton’s. And when the prospects don’t pan out, those types of moves tend to sink a GM.

Peter Gammons of the MLB Network believes Towers’ best option is heading back to San Diego, where he spent more than a decade before heading to Arizona:

The Diamondbacks have been trending in the wrong direction ever since their 94-win season in 2011. Injuries certainly played a role in the subpar results this season, but the talent on the roster also didn’t match up with the likes of the NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers or San Francisco Giants.

Towers should be able to find a position with another team, as Gammons suggests, but it was time for Arizona to move on. The organization needs a fresh outlook as it looks to become more competitive in a tough division.

No timetable was given for the addition of Towers’ replacement. It’s not clear whether Arizona will try to make a hiring quickly or let the process play out during the offseason, but one can expect the new GM to have a much different mindset.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

After checking in with the guys behind the plate, the next stop for the B/R MLB 500 is the guys they do business with the most: starting pitchers. 

We have 150 starting pitchers to get to, and they’ll be scored like so: 30 points for Control, 25 points for Whiffability, 25 points for Hittability and 20 points for “Workhorse” factor for a total of 100 points.

The Control category mainly concerns how good guys are at finding the strike zone and limiting walks. But it also considers command within the zone and if pitchers are good at toying with the zone.

The Whiffability category considers how good guys are at missing bats. The focus will be on what kind of stuff they’re working with and how good they are at using it to get hitters to swing and miss.

The Hittability category is a little different. Missing bats is great, but pitchers can also help themselves by manipulating contact. Guys who can get ground balls are ideal, but we’ll also be looking at proneness to home runs and line drives and for guys who just seem to have a knack for not getting hit hard.

Lastly, the Workhorse category is what it sounds like. It evaluates pitchers’ capacities for eating innings, which is not just a matter of endurance. Efficiency also helps. So does good health. And a track record.

On that note, we’re not doing a separate category for health this year. Any injury concerns we have will be applied to the category (or categories) that stand to be impacted.

Also note that a score in the middle (i.e. 15/30 or 12/25) denotes average, not failing. And while the discussion will be centered on 2014, we also have one eye on 2015. B/R prospect guru Mike Rosenbaum has thus provided some scores and scouting reports for a couple MLB-ready starters, and we’ll also be looping in a couple big-name pitchers who will be returning from injuries.

Lastly, any ties will be resolved with the following question: “If we could pick only one, who would it be?”

When you’re ready, you can read on.

Begin Slideshow

1. Bruce Bochy Moving Up Charts with a Bullet

Late last Wednesday night, manager Bruce Bochy and his coaches gathered in private in the San Francisco clubhouse for a quiet champagne toast.   

It was a short respite in the middle of the swirling grind that is a 162-game season: Bochy had just earned his 1,600th career victory, and for a few minutes, he and his Giants coaches stopped worrying about yesterday’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges so they could savor the moment.   

That this milestone arrived roughly one month after three managers were inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame—Joe Torre, Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa—was wholly fitting because in Bochy, what we’re watching is a Hall of Fame manager at the top of his game.

Click Ahead to Other Topics

• Astros’ troubles don’t stop with the manager
• A’s might like a do-over on trade-deadline deals
• Buster Posey rule just a plain bust
• Time to get a handle on September call-ups
• Mike Trout hasn’t conquered every part of this game
• Don Baylor resumes his fairy-tale story
• Looking for gems in baseball’s bargain bin
• And now some news from Bill Murray…

“I believe so,” Tim Flannery, Bochy‘s third-base coach in both San Francisco and San Diego, says. “I thought that when he won his second World Series.”

That 1,600th victory moved him past Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda into 19th place on the all-time managerial list. By Monday, he had moved into 18th place at 1,604, past Fred Clarke.

Bochy, like Lasorda, has pulled the levers for two World Series winners: The 2010 and ’12 Giants. Lasorda guided the 1981 and ’88 Dodgers to the title.

Bochy also steered the ’98 Padres to the World Series, where they were swept by the Yankees. Lasorda knows a few things about lost dreams to pinstriped Octobers, too: He managed the Dodgers in four total World Series, losing to the Yankees in ’77 and ’78.

“It was special to be here for that,” said starter Jake Peavy, who was reunited with Bochy at the trade deadline last month after pitching for him in San Diego from 2002-06, of the 1,600th win. “The man’s a Hall of Famer, that’s all there is to it. He’s got a couple of World Series championships that have solidified that. Obviously, I’m going to be partial…”

Judging impartially, Bochy might not be a lock, but he owns a resume that should get him there. At 59, he should still have several good years in front of him. He says he still enjoys the challenges and has no immediate plans to do anything else.

Not to make an incredibly difficult job seem easy, but say Bochy manages five more years. Even if he averages only 81 wins a season (.500, in other words, 81-81), he would move past Leo Durocher and into the all-time top 10 on the manager wins list. With the inductions this year of La Russa (third all time with 2,728 wins), Cox (fourth, 2,504) and Torre (fifth, 2,326), the top 11 managers on the all-time wins list all are in the Hall of Fame.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to play for a lot of great managers,” says Peavy, who counts Bochy, Bud Black, Ozzie Guillen, Robin Ventura and John Farrell among them. “All due respect to everybody I’ve played for, Boch takes the cake for me.

“The connection he has with players, he’s a special man in this game. And I think a lot because he does it here and in San Diego and not with the Dodgers, it gets overlooked. Anytime he’s had a roster to work with, he’s won.”

Peavy hears all about Cox from new teammate Tim Hudson, and he is intrigued by the stories and appreciates them. But he sits in various team meetings in San Francisco, “and it takes me back to meetings we had in San Diego. The man communicates as much as anyone.”

Or, as Flannery puts it, “you try to stay in the moment and win that night’s game. You try to keep the beast at bay every day.”

Far more often than not over the years, Bochy has tamed that beast.

“He’s like, for me, The Rolling Stones or Willie Nelson,” Flannery says. “The guys who have played music through the generations and adapted.

“He’s adapted to the players, and the players have changed drastically since 1995 [Bochy‘s first year]. You see great managers leave because they won’t change, or they won’t adjust. And some are happy to go. And you understand.

“I saw it with Dick Williams and Whitey Herzog. They just said, ‘I’m not doing this.’ And you have to have the ability with today’s players and in today’s game [to change], and to work with sabermetric stuff you might not fully believe in.

“He’s got the ability to adjust to all of that, and God bless him.”

For his part, Bochy deflects the credit and does what the great managers do: He keeps his focus on tonight’s game.

“It’s all about the support I’ve had over the years,” he says. “Ownership, front office, players. People have helped me. You don’t forget that. I feel blessed.”

2. Astros Tell Bo Porter to Quit Laboring on Labor Day

Few clubs have embarrassed themselves this season like the Astros, and manager Bo Porter’s Labor Day sacking spoke far more to the dysfunction under management than it did to any X’s and O’s.

Granted, Porter may not be Connie Mack. But neither is general manager Jeff Luhnow Branch Rickey.

First thing Luhnow needs to do in his managerial search is reread the first sentence of his statement on firing Porter: “What we will seek going forward is a consistent and united message throughout the entire organization…”

Why there isn’t at the moment is colossally damning to Luhnow and his leadership skills—or, more aptly, lack thereof.

Yes, the Astros have a probable AL batting champ in Jose Altuve (.336), Dallas Keuchel has been a revelation as a starter, and they’ve introduced promising talents George Springer and Collin McHugh.

But the draft shenanigans with Brady Aiken and Jacob Nix were reprehensible, the Springer contract situation reeked, and the internal trade memos that were leaked and appeared very publicly online earlier this summer were a colossal embarrassment for the organization.

MLB currently is looking into the Aiken/Nix situation. Nix had agreed to sign with the Astros for $1.5 million, but when they failed to land No. 1 overall pick Aiken (after dropping their initial offer), they lost slot money. The trickle-down effect froze out Nix through no fault of the kid’s own.

The Astros’ reported offer to Springer last September of $23 million over seven years (which would have taken him out of his arbitration years and a year of free agency) was rejected, leading to heavy speculation that that’s why they shipped him to the minors late this spring instead of allowing him onto their Opening Day roster.

And in recent days, they not only promoted Mark Appel, the first overall pick in the 2013 draft, to Double-A after his Class A numbers harshly suggested he warranted no such promotion…they also brought him to Houston to throw a bullpen without even bothering to tell Porter.

“That whole thing is ready to blow up,” one American League executive told me Sunday.

On Monday, it did.

Heavy industry buzz has Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan waiting in the wings and eager to take over Astros’ baseball operations. His son, Reid, already holds the title President, Business Operations. Stay tuned.

3. Athletics Slip, Sliding Away After Trade Deadline

Talk about a brutal weekend. Oakland was trampled by the Los Angeles Angels of Na Na Na You Don’t Have Yoenis Cespedes Anymore, and the team that was the best in baseball for four months is reeling.

“It was embarrassing. Pathetic,” angry manager Bob Melvin told reporters after the debacle was complete and the Angels finished off a four-game weekend sweep to dump Oakland to five games back in the AL West [4.5 games back Tuesday morning]. “We don’t play like that.

“The last three games here are the worst I’ve seen this team play in I don’t know how long. I feel bad for our fans to have to watch that.”

While Cespedes collected 22 RBI for the Red Sox in August—most of any month in his career—this is an A’s team that misses him immensely.

“I don’t know if I have an answer for [how much],” third baseman Josh Donaldson told me the other day. “We’ll have to see how it plays out.”

How it is playing out right now is the same answer Donaldson gave reporters following Saturday night’s loss when he was asked about the club’s morale: “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

Between injuries to closer Sean Doolittle, shortstop Jed Lowrie, center fielder Coco Crisp and Nick Punto—and the absence of Cespedes in the middle of the order—Oakland is a different team. The vibe in the clubhouse is not good: You don’t need to be from Hawaii Five-0 to decipher that a significant portion of this team was not, and is not, on board with trading Cespedes.

In fact, ace Jon Lester must be wondering what all the fuss was about with these A’s, who had the best record in the AL at 66-41 at the time of the trade. With Lester aboard, they’re 13-17.

Does Lester sense that his new teammates miss Cespedes?

“With a guy like that, a franchise player who is well-liked by all the fans, especially when you make a deal and then you’re not playing well, there are always going to be second-guessers,” Lester says. “I’m just worried about how I can do my job the best I can. That’s all I’m concerned with.

“There are always going to be people who don’t like a deal.”

As the A’s burn, one Dodgers person drew an interesting corollary to then-Los Angeles general manager Paul DePodesta pulling a shocker at the July trade deadline in 2004 by dealing Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota and Juan Encarnacion to the Marlins for Bill Murphy, Brad Penny and Hee Seop Choi.

The Dodgers were scorching hot, having gone 21-7 in July. After the deal, the chemistry was never the same in a shell-shocked clubhouse, and though Jim Tracy’s Dodgers won the NL West that summer, they were beaten soundly in an NL Division Series by the Cardinals.

4. Sliding Home, Striking Out

What began as a well-intentioned rule to prevent baserunners from using catchers as target practice has become an unmitigated disaster. Rule 7.13, known by many as the Buster Posey Rule, was implemented this season to prevent home-plate collisions and concussions.

But while it has done its intended job of keeping catchers from getting trampled, it has caused far more problems and confusion than ever intended. The question now is when the new rule protecting catchers is going to be changed, not if it is going to be changed.

The basic premise as the rule stands now is that catchers cannot block the plate, and baserunners are disallowed from running into catchers. The problem is, in the split-second a play at the plate takes, there is far too much gray area and confusion.

Consequently, there is near-100 percent unanimity among those in uniform that the rule stinks. And there is near-100 percent certainty that the rule will be changed.

“It’s just how much and what portion,” Athletics manager Bob Melvin tells Bleacher Report. “I like some sort of balance. I like keeping the catcher safe.

“If you say no to targeting the catcher if he’s not standing in front of the plate, I think that would do it.”

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, a former MLB catcher, favors a rule that would make every runner slide home no matter what. Melvin’s proposal makes sense, too: It would be easier for an umpire to make a judgment call as to whether a baserunner veers out of his way to hit a catcher than the present quagmire of interpretation.

“I hope they get rid of that, like, tomorrow,” Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter told Bob Nightengale of USA Today (h/t the Detroit Free Press). “This thing is terrible, man. I think, honestly, they should scrap it.”

The level of confusion at the moment is such that whenever a call at the plate goes against a team, that team’s manager should challenge the call 100 percent of the time because you never know how replay officials in New York are going to rule.

“You’re seeing guys go out every time,” Melvin says. “And that’s not the spirit of the rule.”

Says Hunter: “The whole thing is stupid.”

5. Another Rule That Needs to Go

As long as we’re ranting, and as long as September has arrived to quickly end another summer, it is long overdue that MLB tweak this entire September call-up situation.

Late-season call-ups serve a purpose and are an important aspect each season for an organization to get a look at players who may be able to help next season. But in no other sport do the rules change so drastically at the most important time of the season regarding rosters. When teams suddenly are allowed to move to 12-man bullpens, things get ridiculous (not to mention, games can become even more tedious).

Here’s what should happen: Clubs can summon as many minor-leaguers as they want in September. But each night, they should have to designate which 30 players are active (or 27, or 29, pick a number).

Within that, the base 25-man roster from Aug. 31 should remain frozen for the month of September. The point of that would be to prevent clubs from deactivating the four pitchers from their rotations who are not starting that night.

“I think there should be some roster management from the league to keep it equitable,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia says, and nearly every other manager is in agreement.

6. Tony Gwynn vs. Mike Trout

Talk about how the game has changed…

Tony Gwynn: 434 career strikeouts in 10,232 plate appearances over 20 years.

Mike Trout: 456 career strikeouts in 2,092 plate appearances over parts of four years (and just two full seasons).

Granted, Gwynn was extraordinary. In 1995, en route to winning his fifth batting title (.368), he fanned an incredible 15 times in 535 at-bats (577 plate appearances).

And this in no way is a condemnation of Trout, who currently has a career-high 31 homers and would go No. 1 for most people today (including me) if you were starting your own team.

Just very interesting numbers from two unique talents from two very different eras.

7. Angels Get Their Groove Back

Know what’s one of the quietest yet nicest stories of the season?

Don Baylor, 65, back in the Angels’ dugout as hitting coach.

Baylor going down on Opening Day with a fractured femur in his right leg while catching the ceremonial first pitch remains one of the most indelible—and unbelievable—moments from this year. 

As if that wasn’t bad enough on its own, it happened during Baylor’s homecoming. The man known as “Groove” starred for the Angels as an outfielder/DH from 1977-1982, and his return to the organization as hitting coach was a heartfelt story.

It isn’t over.

“It’s good he’s smiling again,” says Dr. Craig Milhouse, the Angels’ orthopedist who has been overseeing Baylor’s recovery following a surgery that took five-and-a-half hours back in April.

“Finally, full mobility,” Baylor says.

Though he received clearance to return to work June 24, he only received clearance to do everything—walking up and down stairs, carrying his own bag through airports—10 or so days ago.

Shortly after the surgery, he was pushing 90 pounds of weight with his leg during rehab. Now, he’s up to 195 pounds.

“It’s what players have to go through,” Baylor says.

As a player, Baylor mostly avoided serious injury. He missed time with a broken hamate bone once and with a broken toe on another occasion. But this?

“Catch a ceremonial first pitch, and you’re out two months,” Baylor says. “I tried to stand up, and my leg was like a Slinky.”

He can smile now, and that sure is great to see.

8. Waiver-Wire Fishing

Regarding the last-minute shopping over the weekend…

Adam Dunn to the A’s: Clearly, things in Oakland have deteriorated to the point of near-desperation. Maybe Dunn will help (and did with a homer in his first at-bat with the team Monday), but nobody is going to replace the presence of Yoenis Cespedes. One thing about Dunn: His August .349 slugging percentage and .570 OPS were his worst for any month this season.

John Mayberry Jr. to the Blue Jays: Mostly a cosmetic move for the Jays, who were supposed to contend but now have fallen back far enough that manager John Gibbons’ future is a hot-button topic on local talk radio. Mayberry, on the disabled list since July 21 with a sore left wrist, was finishing an injury-rehab assignment and mostly will be used against left-handed pitching. As for Gustavo Pierre, the minor league third baseman going back to the Phillies: At two Class A stops in 2013, he had 128 strikeouts and four walks.

Alejandro De Aza to the Orioles: Nice late-season pickup by Birds GM Dan Duquette. De Aza can play all three outfield positions and gives Baltimore another lefty bat as the O’s move closer to October by running away with the AL East

9. Groundhog Day in St. Paul

I always go to the wrong games…

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Day

Here’s to long Labor Day weekends, stretch runs, good school years and autumn leaves…

“Well, my mama so sad

“Daddy’s just mad

“‘Cause I ain’t gonna have the chance he had

“My success is anybody’s guess

“But like a fool, I’m bettin‘ on happiness”

—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “American Dream Plan B”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Philadelphia Phillies have been abysmal for most of the 2014 MLB season, but Monday was a bright spot, as Cole Hamels and three relievers combined for a complete-game no-hitter against the Atlanta Braves.  

SportsCenter reported the final result when the score became official:

Matt Gelb of The Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out the significance of the game:

Jesse Spector of the Sporting News weighed in on the no-hitter in the grand scheme of the Phillies’ season:

Hamels pitched the first six innings of the contest, striking out seven batters. He allowed five walks while not giving up a hit. The Phillies pulled him after the sixth likely due to him having already thrown 108 pitches, although CBS Sports’ Eye On Baseball noted Hamels also suffered a groin injury during the game:

According to Phillies beat writer Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, Hamels said afterward the game ball would be dedicated to team president David Montgomery, who took a medical leave of absence Thursday:

As for the rest of the pitchers who toed the rubber, Jake Diekman, Ken Giles and Jonathan Papelbon closed the door for Hamels. In fact, after Hamels allowed five walks early, the arms out of the bullpen did not allow a single hitter to reach base.

ESPN Stats & Info noted just how historic the no-hitter was for Philadelphia:

As for the league’s history of combined no-hitters, High Heat Stats MLB broke down the most recent occurrences:

Carlos Ruiz caught the no-hitter, helping seal his place in history (via Ace of MLB Stats):

While Philadelphia likely won’t be making a playoff push at 63-74—the Phillies are 10.5 games out of the second wild-card spot—the team clearly has tremendous talent on the mound in Hamels. As he proved on Labor Day, the 30-year-old pitcher is one of the best starting pitchers in MLB.

Meanwhile, Atlanta’s offensive woes continue. If they are looking to make the postseason, the Braves will need a much greater contribution from the lineup to help out the pitching staff down the stretch.

Follow @RCorySmith on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When you see that former major league pitcher Randy Johnson is selling his Arizona mansion for $25 million, you may think that is a bit extreme. You’ll understand that price tag once you see the pictures of the home.

Johnson played for six different teams in his 22-year career, but there is no doubt that his best years came when he was a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Big Unit had two stints in the desert, from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2007 to 2008.

He went 118-62 with a 2.83 ERA and recorded 2,077 strikeouts in his eight seasons with Arizona. He won four consecutive National League Cy Young Awards with the team and also helped the Diamondbacks win the 2001 World Series.

Thanks to all of those accomplishments, he was able to afford an incredible house in the desert. It helps that he made more than $175 million in his career, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

According to Joffe Group of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Arizona Properties, via The Los Angeles Times’ Neal J. Leitereg, Johnson will be putting his Arizona mansion up for sale for $25 million on Monday.

Just look at this view of the house.

If that doesn’t sell you on the house, just wait until you see all of the details.

It includes seven bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a game room, a billiards parlor with a wet bar and a poker room. That’s just the start of things.

Johnson has an awesome trophy room.

The mansion includes a workout center.

There is also a movie theater with a ticket booth and snack bar in the house.

Johnson’s house has an awesome pool, which includes a water slide.

Check out the view that you can have while playing tennis or basketball.

This mansion is fitting for someone who won 303 games in the majors and ranks second in baseball history with 4,875 strikeouts.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Why are we here? Is man the product of chance or creation? Where do we go after we shuffle off this mortal coil?

These are all important questions, but today our aim is to discuss a greater quandary in the pantheon of intellectual discourse: Why does Adrian Beltre freak out when you touch his head?

For the uninitiated, over the last 15 years and longer, Beltre has exhibited a deeply entrenched fear of people touching his head. He hates it. Can’t stand it for a second.

It’s a strange side story for the Texas Rangers third baseman, whose career accomplishments include three Silver Slugger Awards, four Gold Gloves, four All-Star selections and over 2,500 hits. He’s a potential Hall of Famer and a respected veteran in the game, but after all this time, people still mess with him due to his gross overreaction to cranial contact.

Before we get into particulars of “why” Beltre is how he is, we must observe his habits. How does it happen?

For starters, the majority of Beltre-bothering comes from his own teammates.

Detroit Tigers designated hitter Victor Martinez personally made Beltre’s life a living hell during their time with the Boston Red Sox.

How much did Martinez bother his teammate? Enough to make murder a semi-viable solution in Beltre’s mind.

“Sometimes I thought about killing him,” Beltre joked with MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan. “But I thought about it. … I have a family, so I didn’t.”

Martinez didn’t start the tradition, though, as Sullivan reports:

Beltre said the head-rubbing began during his time in Seattle. Again, he won’t reveal who was the first guy to do it.

“It was my fault,” Beltre said. “I don’t remember, but somebody did it and I told them I didn’t like it. That’s like telling them to do it again. You know they’re going to do it because you don’t like it. So they started doing it over and over again.”

Now, Elvis Andrus has taken Martinez’s place as the ringleader. He has Beltre’s buttons on speed dial.

After that come the concerted, team-wide assaults on Beltre. Any time he belts a homer, his head is in for a genie lamp-style rubdown.

Then there are the not-so-sneaky sneak attacks.

It must be noted that the Rangers’ petting of their third baseman paints too narrow a picture of Beltre’s condition. He’s been around the league a long while—long enough to make friends who feel completely justified in picking at his scalp like a loose scab.

Robinson Cano favors bulk attempts over stealth.

Miguel Cabrera prefers to woo Beltre with flattery before making his intentions known.

Even mascots get in on the trolling.

At some point in life, Beltre’s aversion began to manifest itself physiologically. His paranoia has granted him the neck reflexes of a pit viper. Watch as he goes into Bullet Time to avoid a swipe from Cano.

Now, let’s see all these moving parts together. It’s time to take a look at a montage of Beltre’s tormentors and try to piece this phenomenon together, Carrie from Homeland style.

This is an epidemic, and there certainly appears to be no end in sight. Beltre’s aversion to head-patting has reached such fame that one crafty individual took it upon himself or herself to give it a theme song.

All Beltre does is wince—but why?

Why does the merest graze of his head elicit this response? The media has yet to be able to dig the answer out of Beltre, and it’s not for lack of trying.

SB Nation’s Amy K. Nelson traveled to the 2012 All-Star Game for the sole purpose of getting to the bottom of Beltre’s heady hangup. In the gentlest way possible, she tried to get Beltre to open up on the subject.

He barely budged.

“I don’t like it,” Beltre told Nelson. “I don’t let anyone touch my head. Not even my kids.”

His teammates at every franchise admit they’ve tried to psychologically profile Beltre, but to no avail.

At this juncture, I’d like to step in and postulate a few theories as to the roots of Adrian Beltre’s head-touching fear.

No. 1: He’s terrified of balding.

At 35 years old, Beltre is under attack from the reaper known as male pattern balding. This is prime molting season for men his age, and any interference with his scalp could disrupt the Rogaine he applied before heading to the ballpark.

No. 2: He’s a germaphobe.

Plenty of people can’t stand being touched by strangers, and it would be no large surprise if Beltre is afraid of catching whooping cough from an errant head rub.

No. 3: He was abducted by aliens.

The most plausible answer to all of this is rooted in the distinct possibility that Beltre was the victim of an alien abduction at some point in his life.

It’s likely that he was taken long ago—perhaps as a child—and whisked away into a spaceship for testing. Naturally, the extraterrestrials would’ve dug around in his head with sophisticated instruments (I find “probes” derogatory), neuralized his memory and dropped him off none the worse for the wear—save for an acute and persistent fear of people tinkering with his skull.

These are my theories, and I stand by them.

The sad part is, we may never know the cause of this strange phobia. Beltre’s refusal to speak on his discomfort has stonewalled progress in the field of study for years.

Feel free to lay out your own explanations in the comments. Every idea—even the weirdest—could help us crack the hair-trigger lock on Adrian “Don’t Touch Me Bro” Beltre’s head.

Follow Dan on Twitter for more sports and pop culture news.

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SAN FRANCISCO — One night after Madison Bumgarner lit up AT&T Park by taking a perfect game into the eighth inning, Tim Hudson was electric. Stretch-run energy buzzed through the Giants clubhouse in that old, familiar way.

“This is the fun time of year,” Buster Posey said after blasting the second walk-off homer of his career. “We’re fortunate to be fighting for the division.   

“A lot of us know what we’re capable of doing if we do get into the playoffs.”

Mmmhmm.   

But this is a tricky team to decipher, one of the most difficult to peg of manager Bruce Bochy’s 20-year managerial career.

“I’d say so,” Bochy agreed in that gruff, bear-like voice that has directed so many past winners.

No doubt, key injuries have derailed the Giants. He might not be a marquee name nationally, but it is no coincidence that San Francisco’s swan dive from those heady days of leading the NL West by 9.5 games (June 8) coincided with leadoff hitter Angel Pagan’s two-month absence with a back injury.

Brandon Belt’s frequent trips to the DL, Hector Sanchez’s concussion and the Giants’ decision to not add significant payroll at the trading deadline this year have opened some holes and limited their ability to plug others, stretching a thin lineup to the point of breaking.

But where the old Giants magic is really lacking is on the mound, with Matt Cain out for the season, Tim Lincecum in a funk, Sergio Romo barred from closing and a rotation that is tied for eighth in the NL with a 3.68 ERA.

Bottom line: Unlike the old days here, San Francisco’s pitching is no longer good enough to cover lineup shortcomings.

Which is why this week’s hit parade of Bumgarner, Hudson and Yusmeiro Petit, who set a major league record by retiring his 46th consecutive hitter Thursday afternoon, at least offered encouragement.

“It’s been a roller coaster, no question,” said Hudson, 39, now 9-9 with a 2.90 ERA. “Anytime you lose one of your top rotation guys.”

“He gets that blood-in-the-water sensation whenever he gets a lead,” reliever Jeremy Affeldt said of Cain. “He’s not going to lose it.”

The Giants staff has already lost enough this season.

Cain has been as big a fixture at AT&T as that ginormous Coca-Cola bottle beyond the left field stands. He made 30 or more starts in eight consecutive seasons before he had to pull the plug this summer after 15. Surgery to remove bone chips and have some bone spurs cleaned up was done earlier this month. Given his workload over the years, it could have been worse. Much worse.

As for Lincecum, the Giants should be deeply concerned with him given his 9.49 ERA over his past six starts. Everybody agrees a time out is in order.

“Just trying to take it slow,” Lincecum said. “Day by day and see where it goes.”

The immensely likeable Lincecum can be easily derailed, which is leading some to wonder whether the absence of Sanchez, who likely is out for the season with a concussion, has sent him spinning off his axis. Remember, it took Lincecum a bit to gather his wits when the Giants traded one of his favorite catchers, Bengie Molina, in 2010 to clear space for Posey.

“It’s a good question,” Bochy said of the Sanchez-Lincecum connection. “It’s a hard one to answer because I know Tim got used to throwing to Hector. Nothing against the kid, [Andrew] Susac, who has done a nice job. But whether that did play into a part of Tim’s struggles, I don’t know.”

It is not the only mystery Bochy and the Giants must solve. The phenomenal pitching that carried them to World Series wins in 2010 and ’12 is fading. This year’s rotation, as noted, is tied for eighth in the NL in ERA after finishing 13th (4.37) in 2013.

That may be an improvement, but from ’09 to ’12, Giants starters never ranked worse than fifth in the league, and they ranked either second or third in three of those four seasons.

Still, as of Thursday, the Giants are a playoff team. Though they trail the Dodgers by 4.5 games in the NL West, they doggedly cling to the NL’s second wild-card slot, 1.5 games ahead of the Braves.

This is all part of why Posey uses the word “fortunate” when describing his team’s positioning right now.

Veteran Jake Peavy was acquired from Boston to pitch. With Cain out, he’s a necessity. Petit has replaced Lincecum in the rotation—for how long, Bochy cannot yet say. He simply doesn’t know. The veteran manager, whose 1,600th career win Wednesday moved him past Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda to No. 19 on the all-time list, has had success in the past shuffling the rotation with guys such as Barry Zito and Ryan Vogelsong.

“When you get diminishing returns, you’ve got to change it up,” Bochy said, and so he has.

Scouts were still raving about Bumgarner’s dominance a day after he throttled the Rockies. Hudson, Petit…things are beginning to perk back up around San Francisco. Every day left on the schedule is another day for the Giants to minimize the damage done by their 10-16 June, 12-14 July and their 12-24 record over their past 36 home games.

As Affeldt said, “Baseball can turn around in a hurry if you don’t tuck your tail between your legs. If you get knocked down seven times, you’ve got to get up that eighth time.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.

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Portland, 2008. I’m standing at the entrance of the clubhouse, the cavernous confines of the now defunct Portland Beavers, staring at a list of horse names hastily scrawled in black magic marker across a hunk of brown cardboard. We’re minutes from the start of the Kentucky Derby.

The latest Vegas odds are there, on the cardboard, next to the names of each horse that’ll be running. The team’s clubhouse attendant has been taking bets for the last few days, the totals marked near the horse names, little tickets marking picket fences around the board like horse pens.

I can’t help but chuckle. After all, there is a strong possibility that no one in the room, not one of my teammates or the staff, has ever seen a horse race beyond the movie Seabiscuit. And yet, for the last few days, it’s been horses, horses, horses. Almost everyone on the team has picked a horse and laid his money down. Some by the odds, some by the horse’s name, some just to be an accessory to the chaos. Even the bat boys have made their bets.

“There’s still time,” says the team’s clubhouse attendant/bookie, sliding up behind me, placing an encouraging palm on my shoulder. “Race hasn’t started yet.”

“Nah. I’m good,” I say. “The only furniture I have back in my apartment is an air mattress, a lawn chair and an ironing board—I need all my money.”

Minutes later, the team is gathered around the clubhouse’s pair of flat-screen television sets, one at each pole, with its own cluster of players. The guys have long since tired of listening to all the hubbub about horses, what could be history, who might be a Triple Crown, what jockey is up for what…all they care about are the following words: “And they’re off.” The guys scream it, randomly, like a mini-bet that when they say it, the horses will actually obey them and start running.

“And they’re off!”

“Aaaaaaand they’re off!”

Sure enough, the bell rings and the horses break into action, charging down the thoroughfare, gulping air as the whip or their jockey forces them onward. No whip is required for the animals in the clubhouse, however. Insanity ensues. It’s only the team, no elitists with big hats or billionaires with horse fetishes, just a pack of miserable Triple-A dirt bags with a meager sum of meal money on the line.

“Come on you son of a bitch, run! RUN YOU M—-R F—-R! I got $20 on this and I can’t lose to Myro again!”

“Yes, he can!” yells Myro. “Yes he can. Trip! Fall! Break a leg!”

“Run! Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnn!”

It didn’t matter who won. Winning and losing really wasn’t the point of it all. It was something to do. Something to get a rush from. Maybe for a few players, like Myro, it was $20 and some vitriol fuel, but that was it. A byproduct of the competitive athlete culture, something to get the competitive juices flowing—or if not to get them flowing, then at least a place to collect them lest they spill into other, less friendly places.

Before the Kentucky Derby, it was the College World Series. Before the College World Series, it was the Masters. Before the Masters, it was March Madness. Depending on the time of the month, a good clubhouse attendant will always have brackets up on a poster board next to the clubhouse’s announcement board, next to the roster and, ironically, close to the rules and consequences about betting on baseball.

Gambling is alive and well in baseball culture. Players may not be betting on the game like Pete Rose did, but they sure as hell are betting on something. If it’s not betting on sports games, it’s betting on cards; if it’s not betting on cards, it’s pretty much any style of bet that a player can come up with—golfing on the off day. American Idol. Ultimate Frisbee. Bowling. Bass fishing. I’ve even seen guys bet on games of Connect Four—now that’s just pathetic.

There is a never-ending supply of impromptu challenges of skill, like back during one of my earlier years with the Padres, when David Wells was still around. The big league club brought in a basketball hoop and placed bets on consecutive free-throw totals. In 2008, my old San Antonio Missions team had an entire Olympics program made up, with individual and team events and fake countries.

While many of these examples are players taking relatively innocuous forays into the world of gambling, or buying a ticket on the roller coaster of team bragging rights, there were some serious, even damning gambling issues.

When I was injured in 2010, I missed an entire season of baseball. I didn’t know what was going on in the big leagues or Triple-A—and Triple-A just happened to be Las Vegas, the gambling capital of America. I was locked up in the training rooms of Dunedin for most of the year, with my only news coming by way of injured players.

The skinny was that one of the new Las Vegas coaches had a serious gambling problem, to the point that he had to borrow several thousands of dollars from the established veteran players. He ran up hefty gambling debts, not to casinos but to the players and coaches he bummed money off of to go gambling with. To my knowledge, none of them were ever paid back. Moreover, they were afraid to draw a hard line about outstanding debts for fear of it affecting their possible promotion.

Though gambling among players is ubiquitous, Las Vegas represents a specific pitfall for players—and coaches—who are tempted by the rush of betting. Organizations know it. Of course they do. If they know about pot abuse and are willing to stick high-ceiling talent on the 40-man roster to shield players who like to toke up too often, they certainly know about the players who habitually lose their hat at the table. When I was with the Jays in 2009, they wouldn’t send certain prospects to Las Vegas in order to protect their own bet on that player’s talent.

I’ll admit, I myself was worried about playing in Las Vegas. I didn’t have a problem with gambling; I had a problem with losing. When I’d go there as an opposing player with a visiting club, like back when I was with the Portland Beavers, most of my team would be out at the tables nearly every single night we were in town.

Unless the home team, the Las Vegas 51s, imploded, the odds of us visitors winning any of the following games decreased each night we were in town. It was not uncommon for some players to sleep less than eight hours on a four-game road trip. “Vegas baby, Vegas,” they would say, massaging the dark, low-hanging circles under their eyes.

The following year I became a member of the 51s. Naturally I assumed that the results would be the same. However, to my surprise, after about two weeks of going out every night, wasting money, chasing thrills and getting drunk on comps, the urge wore off. That kind of gambling, at least for the vast majority of players, wasn’t as fun or exciting.

Sure enough, the best games of chance once again became those posted on locker room walls, or ones made up among teammates spontaneously. You could win or lose a few bucks at the tables, sure, but we all discovered that it was the social currency you won or lost that made leveraging fun.

That’s not to say there weren’t players who did both, or that the stakes never got higher than bragging rights and meal money. In 2006, while I was with the Lake Elsinore Storm in Lake Elsinore, California, the High-A affiliate of the Padres, there was a pitcher on our team who considered himself a professional online poker player, as well as a professional baseball player.

In fact, he felt he was so good that he could retire—if pro ball didn’t work out—and rely on the checks he was making online. He said he was making $30,000 a month—more than any of us made in two years of baseball wages at that level.

He would sit outside the pools of crappy minor league motels, plugged into three or four different poker games simultaneously, just playing the odds. Announcing every time he won.

“It’s really not that hard, if you know statistics. I learned most of this reading a book on what to do in certain hands. I just play those hands and most of the time I win. It’s because most people who play are stupid and just play because they want the rush.”

Many of the players saw him winning, bought that book, tried to do what he was doing and went broke or, worse yet, never got paid their winnings since the accounts were offshore with virtually no accountability.

When I was in the big leagues for the first time in 2009, the amount of meal money given to me, and I mean actual cash in hand, made me feel like I hit the jackpot. In Triple-A, $120 translated to nearly $800 in the bigs. It was more than I’d made in two months of work in short-season Single-A baseball.

But this wasn’t short-season ball. It was the big leagues, and many of the players who’d been there long enough for the culture shock to wear off took that cash money and went to the rear of the big league jet, where tables and chairs were set up and continuous games of poker were always in session. Some of the veteran players could play for hands in the thousands and not feel a thing.

I don’t want to make it seem like I’d never gambled before. In 2005, I took my money to Pechanga, just south of Lake Elsinore in California. I did dollar bets on an automated roulette table. I took $70 of meal money and turned it into $300. Then, half an hour later, I lost it all and more—trying to earn what I’d made back—about $400 in total.

I had to eat peanut butter and jelly for the next 10 days because of it. That’s when I decided gambling wasn’t for me. Well, that’s not exactly true. More precisely, that’s when I decided that the only gamble I was interested in was the long odds of winning the lottery known as trying to make it to the big leagues.

Dirk Hayhurst is a former pitcher who spent nearly a decade in professional baseball between MiLB and MLB. He is also an accomplished author and has appeared on Baseball America, ESPN, TBS’ MLB postseason broadcasts, Sportsnet Canada and more.

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The New York Yankees are currently riding a five-game winning streak and have pulled to within 2.5 games in the American League wild-card race. Teams may credit success to many different things, but the Yankees attribute their hot streak to something pretty unusual.

At the beginning of the day on Aug. 21, New York was sitting at 63-61. That’s when reliever Shawn Kelley decided to wear a horse-head mask during the team’s pregame stretch.

The team has not lost since, so naturally the players believe the mask is a good-luck charm.

Now that the team is winning, the reasoning behind the mask doesn’t really matter. Kelley did explain why he bought the mask, which the players call Seabiscuit, per Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan.

“When I see those things, randomly in a crowd, it makes me laugh,” Kelley said. “So I figured I’ll do that, and it’ll make everyone laugh in the clubhouse. And then we went on a winning streak.”

Something like this does a great job to loosen up the clubhouse during a pennant race.

As silly as it may seem, the players are buying into the mask.

“Kelley is undefeated with the horse. I’m never going to go against that,” Yankees outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury said. He added, “At first, I was wondering who it was. And then I wondered why he had it on. And then we got on a little roll, and I figured it doesn’t matter what the reason is. We’re winning with it.”

The Yankees are averaging 5.4 runs per game and allowing just 2.2 runs per game since Seabiscuit made its debut at Yankee Stadium.

A 162-game season is a grind, and once August hits, the pressure for playoff contenders kicks up a notch. That’s why it’s good to have someone in the clubhouse who is willing to do something silly to help keep the team loose.

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