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We have officially hit crunch time in the 2014 MLB season, as the month of August comes to a close and teams have roughly 30 games left to secure a spot in the postseason.

In the National League, seven teams still boast a winning record, and the Miami Marlins and Cincinnati Reds are hanging on the fringe of contention as well.

Over in the American League, things are much more jumbled as nine teams are above .500, and two division races, the AL Central and West, are as separated by fewer than two games. The stacked AL West makes things interesting. The No. 2 team in that division—whether it’s the Angels or A’s—appears to be a lock for the No. 2 wild-card spot, leaving the rest of the pack battling it out for one slot.

As we take a close look at each contender’s remaining schedules, as well as their recent performances both on a team and individual level, it’s clear that there are a few clubs that are headed for rough waters.

Here are the three MLB playoff contenders walking into September collapses.

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This is exactly how Bud Selig and Major League Baseball drew it up three years ago.

With the second wild-card spot, the number of viable postseason competitors increases and more teams remain in the hunt for longer. As the summer concludes and October quickly approaches, the drama spikes.

Each team now has 30 games or fewer to do one of a few things: catch their respective division leader and avoid the play-in game, hang on to their wild-card hold or chase down that second and final spot.

In each American League division, less than 10 games separate the top three teams; in the Central and West, two games or less separate the second-place team from the first; in the race for the second wild-card spot alone, six teams are realistically within striking distance at eight games or less.

With the likes of the Angels and Athletics nearly certain to grab the AL West crown and first wild-card spot—barring a Toronto-like meltdown over the next few weeks—we’re left with a few burning questions: Is this just a two-horse race for the second spot between the Mariners and Tigers? Can the Indians and Blue Jays, both hanging around, make a run in September? And are we buying or selling the Yankees?

Based on recent performance, statistical trends and strength of the remaining schedules, we’ll break down the current wild-card competitors and get into handicapping this exciting—or stressful, depending who you are—final month of baseball. 

Secured of a Spot?

*Inflated odds for Athletics reflect likelihood of winning either AL West OR one of two wild-card spots.

Athletics: 1-14

The next three days may dictate the most where the Athletics’ odds shift for the final month, though they currently sit on the largest cushion of any team in the wild-card race. They’re not a lock to make the postseason, but the odds are in their favor with three conceivable routes in—steal the division, secure the first spot, hang on to the second, at worst.

(FanGraphs, for instance, while setting Detroit’s postseason odds at 73.8 percent, places Oakland’s at 99.4.)

On Thursday, Oakland dropped the first of a four-game set in Anaheim against the division-leading Angels, who are now two games up after walking off in the 10th. But as it stands entering Friday, the A’s still remain more than five games up on Detroit in the first wild-card spot.

Perhaps surprisingly for some, it won’t be Oakland’s pitching that gets it into October—or that even keeps it there. The story on the A’s typically highlights the rotation—especially after Billy Beane came away with Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester prior to the trade deadline. But outside of the third-lowest ERA in the AL this season, Oakland starters haven’t been remarkable.

In the AL, the A’s have just the sixth-best BB/9, seventh-best K/9 and FIP, 10th HR/9 and 13th WAR. Since the All-Star break, they’ve actually ranked worse in all the same categories, with only the Red Sox compiling a lower WAR.

The Oakland offense, on the other hand, trails only the Angels among AL teams in WAR, is second only to the Tigers in OBP, third in wRC+, fourth in wOBA and ISO and sixth in slugging. Only one AL team (Yankees) has a lower SwStr (swinging strike) percentage, and a few batted-ball metrics tell us another interesting facet of this Beane-constructed offense: The A’s keep the ball off the ground; they have the lowest ground-ball rate and ground-ball per fly-ball rate in the AL—and the margin is significant.

But do the A’s have enough firepower without Yoenis Cespedes? In the month of August (his last game for the A’s was July 30), the A’s are still top six in the AL in HR, ISO and WAR. But here’s the sign the A’s could slip: This month, in which they’ve gone just 12-14, their average is an AL-worst .231 (.251 in the first half; .249 on the year), and their ranks of 10th and 11th in wOBA and slugging are significantly off the full season, over which they rank fourth and sixth in those categories.

If there’s one auspicious takeaway for Oakland this final month, it’s that it plays the greatest number of games against sub-.500 teams of any wild-card competitors; on the season, the A’s have beaten up on such teams. Only the Angels’ 46-14 record against sub-.500 clubs is better than Oakland’s 38-20.

Race for the Second Wild Card

*Odds reflect winning a wild-card spot.

Tigers: 3-2

The AL Central-leading Royals lost in the 10th Thursday night, meaning that the second-place Tigers are now just 1.5 games back and more than capable of stealing the division and avoiding the wild card altogether. They don’t get to face the Mariners again—they’re behind in head-to-head games at 2-4 against them on the year—though they have six remaining against Kansas City. 

When they visited Yankee Stadium for four games back on August 4, they marched out their marquee men—Max Scherzer, David Price, Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello—yet came away with just one victory. They exhaled and redeemed themselves this week, taking two of three from New York at home, capped off by a walk-off win Thursday.

The doubts of late, if any, center on the pitching staff. Anibal Sanchez has been on the disabled list since August 9 and is worried he may miss the rest of the season, per MLive’s James Schmehl (h/t CBSSports.com’s Dayn Perry). Since the All-Star break, Verlander’s spun his wheels at 3-3 with a 4.58, only totaling 35.1 innings, and Price has faltered around his eight-inning, one-hit performance in Tampa, going 1-2 with a 4.41; he was also roughed up on Wednesday.

As for Detroit’s struggles in the win column—going 14-16 in its last 30—its pitching can’t be solely to blame. Over that span, Tigers pitching has posted the sixth-highest WAR in the AL, per FanGraphs. And on the year, Tigers starters lead the AL in wins, WAR and fewest home runs per nine. They’re also second in FIP and walks per nine and eighth in ERA in 2014.

The offense has held up—if not excelled—all year: Among AL teams, Detroit is still first in average, OBP, slugging and wOBA and second in wRC+ and RBI.

It’s definitely not time to worry despite playing .500 ball at the moment, and the best news for the Tigers’ final push comes in the final seven days—should it come down to that. They play solely against sub.-500 clubs, with three against the White Sox (60-73) and four against the last-place Twins (59-74).

Mariners: 2-1

The Mariners haven’t reached the postseason since 2001, but they’re putting together a memorable season in 2014. After finishing 71-91 last season, Seattle sits at a cool 72-60, tied with Detroit in the win-loss column and ahead on head-to-head games for the final wild-card spot entering play Friday.

Of any of these wild-card contenders, the Mariners have been the hottest of late, winners of 19 of their last 30 and 14 of their last 20. For a reference point of Seattle’s tear, the ballclub was just three games over .500 on August 1.

Similarly to Detroit, Seattle’s pitching has been there all year long, leading the league in ERA and HR/9, second in WAR and FIP and fifth in K/9, BB/9 and wins. Mariners closer Fernando Rodney’s 38 saves are second in the AL only to the Royals’ Greg Holland, and Seattle relievers lead the AL in ERA, FIP and WAR.

If there’s any noticeable trend that might hurt them in the race with Detroit down the stretch, it’s a weaker offense. Obscuring that picture is their red-hot month of August, in which they’ve been fourth among AL teams in WAR, third in wRC+ and fourth in wOBA.

But even with second baseman Robinson Cano the third-most valuable player in the AL, via WAR, Seattle’s offense ranks just 10th of 15 AL teams in WAR, 13th in wRC+ and dead last in wOBA on the year.

It helps that 10 of their final games come against the last-place Rangers (52-81) and lowly Astros (57-78). In short, if the M’s can stay hot, nothing is secured for Detroit.

Yankees: 5-1

The Yankees could not be hotter and colder in 2014. They’re the living, breathing, baseball image of one step forward, two steps back.

Last week, New York dropped its first two against Houston before Shawn Kelley wore a horse’s head and the team went on a five-game winning streak, outscoring opponents 27-11. Heading into the most recent series in Detroit, the Yanks were seven games over .500 and just 2.5 games out of the second wild card. Then they promptly dropped two of three and, save for an outlandish eight-run inning against Price, saw their typical absence of offense.

They enter their final 30 games just three games back of Detroit and Seattle, but they still seem to be doing a little more sputtering than chasing (they also play 12 of those games against two teams you’d imagine would love nothing more than to spoil Derek Jeter’s final postseason chase—the Red Sox and Rays). Winning seven of their last 10 is great, but in reality they’ve been playing right around .500 ball in their last 30 (16-14). 

New York’s offense—middling all year—ranks in the bottom half of the AL in the month of August in WAR, wRC+, batting average and slugging. 

The positives if New York is to make this a three-team battle: Pitching has saved and bailed the Yankees out all year long. Without Ivan Nova, Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia and, until recently, Michael Pineda, the Yanks have hung around on the rebirths of starters like Brandon McCarthy and Chris Capuano—and on the plain births of others, such as that of rookie Shane Greene. Since the break, New York starters rank fourth in the AL in WAR and FIP, fifth in K/9 and first in BB/9. The other tremendous sign comes in the form of Pineda, who is back and looking sharp: 1-0 with a 2.08 in his first three starts since returning August 13.

This month, Yankee pitching is second in BB/9, third in K/9 and WAR and fourth in FIP. The better news: New York’s relief corps has been outstanding all year and should continue to factor in a huge way if the Yanks can turn the ball over with a lead (see: Adam Warren, Dellin Betances and David Robertson).

One final piece to consider—especially in the case that Detroit and Seattle begin to extend the distance in the second wild-card spot: Though Baltimore’s hold on the AL East lead has seemed all but cemented this summer and has been extended to seven games entering Friday, the Yankees still face the O’s eight more times. Anything’s possible in New York. 

Indians: 9-1

The Indians really turned things around this past month. Though on July 29, they were two games below .500, they enter the final weekend of August four games over .500 and four games back of the second wild-card spot.

They’ve excelled in two of the most vital statistical categories on the year: creating runs and getting on base. On the year, their 104 wRC+ is fifth in the AL, and their .318 wOBA is sixth.

The total offense, interestingly, is just 11th in the AL in WAR, eighth in average and seventh in OBP and slugging. But there are a few interesting metrics to consider for illustrating how Cleveland has remained afloat: It’s compiled the fifth-best walk rate in the AL to go along with the sixth-most stolen bases. And despite a low power output (seventh in HR, eighth in ISO), the Indians have the AL’s best line-drive rate and the third-best GB rate (A’s and Tigers).

If they’re going to make a run at Detroit and/or Seattle, their pitching will need to continue its recent run of excellence. This month, Indians pitching posted the AL’s best ERA and FIP, and only Rays pitching compiled a higher WAR or better K/9. Compare that with just the seventh-best ERA, third-best FIP and sixth-highest WAR for the full season.   

Helping the Indians’ cause: The majority of their final 30 games come against sub-.500 opponents, against whom they’re 37-26 this season. They’re also just four games back of the Tigers and 5.5 back of the Royals, and they begin their final stretch with three in Kansas City (6-7 against) and four hosting Detroit (7-5).

In other words, in the next week alone, they have the potential to both put themselves right in the hunt and take themselves right out of it.

Blue Jays: 15-1

Toronto chose the worst time to trend in the wrong direction, dropping 17 of its last 30 and 13 of its last 20. On July 1, the Blue Jays were seven games over .500 and one game clear of Baltimore in the AL East. As of Friday morning, they’re one game over .500 and 9.5 games back of first. They can still sniff a wild-card spot at just 5.5 games back with 29 games remaining—but just barely.

In baseball’s first half, they ranked among AL teams sixth, fourth and third in average, OBP and slugging, respectively. They led the league in home runs and ISO and were fourth in runs and RBI. Their .330 wOBA was third, their 107 wRC+ was fourth and they had the fifth-best walk rate.

This past month: Dead last in homers, runs, RBI, OBP, wOBA and wRC+; second-to-last in slugging and ISO; 11th of 15 teams in walk rate; 12th in slugging; and the only AL team with a negative WAR.

Toronto’s other issue—which separates it from the rest of the wild-card pack—is the lack of a helping hand from the pitching staff. In August, its starters are a meager 12th in the AL in WAR, ERA, FIP and HR/9; they’ve pitched the fewest innings of any team’s starters and have mustered just three wins.

The Blue Jays also see 17 games against teams over .500 of their 29 remaining; on the year, they’re just 33-38 against such ballclubs. If there’s a bright spot, it’s that they’re 29-25 against AL East opponents, whom they’ll finish up the year battling in 22 games. 

Statistics current through game action on August 28, 2014 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

Peter F. Richman is a Bleacher Report featured columnist and copy editor. Follow on Twitter: Follow @Peter_F_Richman 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

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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Trading in Major League Baseball doesn’t end until Aug. 31, but it sure feels like just about all the wheeling and dealing wrapped up back on July 31, doesn’t it?

In part, that’s because the non-waiver trade deadline brought not just a flurry but a full-on storm of moves, as 12 trades were completed between 18 different teams involving 37 players (and two draft picks). That was the most transaction action on deadline day since 1998, as Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com points out.

No wonder August’s waiver-trading period has felt like a letdown by comparison.

It’s not that there haven’t been any swaps so since Aug. 1, because there have:

That’s eight moves, which actually isn’t far behind the 11 that happened last August.

What should be immediately discernible from the table, however, is that the trades just aren’t all that exciting or impactful. Certainly not when the biggest name to change jerseys is Josh Willingham.

At least last August, fairly well-known players like Alex Rios, Justin Morneau and Marlon Byrd found new homes.

And of course, there’s still some residue remaining from that memorable, shocking August 2012 blockbuster when the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers essentially remade their rosters in one fell—and financially monstrous—swoop.

A waiver trade that big, both in names and dollars, is unlikely to happen again any time soon, if ever. But why has August been such a bummer this year?

It’s not that there isn’t a need or demand for pitchers and position players, especially with so many clubs still in the hunt because of the second wild card in each league. In fact, that’s the biggest reason for the inactivity this month.

Through Wednesday’s games, only 11 teams—five in the AL and six in the NL—could safely be considered completely out of the running for a playoff spot, depending on how one classifies the Tampa Bay Rays and Cincinnati Reds.

Because so many teams are still in it, there aren’t nearly as many options as there might have been in the past, when only four teams in each league made it to October.

What’s more, the few clubs that are out of it aren’t exactly swimming in available players who might make an impact for a contender. That’s why those teams aren’t any good in the first place, right?

The other thing to remember, and it’s related to the above, is that this remains a seller’s market. That means the teams who would consider trading players away have the ability to ask for a haul, whether their players have passed through waivers entirely or were claimed by a specific team.

The only case when that doesn’t apply is if a club views trading a particular player as a salary dump. That is more or less what happened when the Chicago White Sox sent second baseman Gordon Beckham—who hit just .221/.263/.336 for them despite a $4.175 million salary this year—to the Los Angeles Angels for the ubiquitous Player To Be Named Later.

Beyond that, a number of players were put on waivers already, only to be claimed and then pulled back by their team, which eliminates them from being traded for the rest of the season. This reportedly is what happened to, among others, Cole Hamels, Yunel Escobar and Chad Qualls.

Same goes for Byrd and Morneau, as Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reports, otherwise those two players could have been involved in a waiver deal for a second consecutive year.

That’s a formula for an inactive waiver-trade period.

As Brewers general manager Doug Melvin told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the prospects of his club making any last-minute additions via a waiver swap, “I’m not totally encouraged by it.”

There isn’t an easy fix to make Augusts of the future more trade-filled, either. Not unless there just so happen to be fewer contenders in a given season.

One possibility, though, could involve moving the non-waiver trade deadline back from July 31 into August, say Aug. 15 or Aug. 31. It’s not like that hasn’t been done before: Back in 1986, the deadline was moved to its current July 31 date—after six decades of being set at June 15.

As for the final days of this year’s deadline, which remains Aug. 31, there still are some names to keep tabs on.

The following players already have cleared waivers, according to MLB Trade Rumors, meaning they can be traded:

Will any of them be traded between now and Sunday? Quite possibly, if an interested—or desperate—suitor is willing to pay the price.

Will others not on the above list get moved? Almost certainly.

Because even though this August hasn’t been quite as gloriously chaotic as July was—and clearly won’t be in the end—one thing should be clear: As long as teams can make trades, trades will be made.

Statistics are accurate as of Aug. 28 and come from MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.com, except where otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11

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For every fantasy owner, there comes a point in the season when a should-be stud just isn’t cutting it—so it’s time to cut him. That’s what this is all about: Letting you know it’s OK to let go.

Difficult late-season drops can come in all shapes and sizes, from that third-rounder not living up to expectations to the injury-prone star who just can’t get and stay healthy to a midseason pick-up who broke out then flamed out.

We get it: Once you’ve invested in a player and become attached, it’s not so simple to say so long. But sometimes, it’s for the best. After all, the stakes only get higher and the standings more solidified the longer you wait for a turnaround or rebound that might never come.

With owners everywhere making a push for the playoffs—and a shot to win it all—numbers become more important than names. Even the big ones.

What follows is a batch of players who either were selected as early draft picks or looked like surefire starters at one time, only to have since become cut candidates for one reason or another.

But don’t worry: Each player comes complete with suggestions for readily-available replacement options. Because as science says, for every drop, there should be an equal and opposite addition.

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With rosters set to expand from 25 to 40 players on Monday, September call-up fever is officially in the air.

In the last week we’ve looked this year’s potential call-ups in a variety of ways, including an overall ranking, position-by-position breakdown and, more recently, a deeper look at prospects capable of improving their teams’ playoff chances.

And with roster expansion still a long weekend away, we’ll be rolling out even more call-up-related content in the coming days.

The rankings for this article were based on those released earlier in the week in our look at the top 25 call-up candidates. However, instead of simply identifying the best prospects, this article strives to focus on players who have been rumored to be in the mix for a call-up as well as those facing an imminent promotion thanks to a spot on the 40-man roster.

With all that being said, here are our predictions for the potential impacts of baseball’s top 10 prospects next month.

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The New York Mets are desperately trying to stick around in the NL postseason race, even though it will be difficult to overcome what is currently a 9.5-game wild-card deficit.

The team, though, seems more ready to really compete in 2015, particularly with all the young pitching it has. However, this is not to say that the Mets are perfectly fit as is to be a postseason contender next season. There are certain areas that the front office will need to address for the future.

Here’s a guide to what the Mets’ offseason could look like.

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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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If Hanley Ramirez knew what was good for him, he wouldn’t be playing shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That’s not to say Ramirez shouldn’t be wearing Dodger blue. He should, however, consider wearing it at a different position.

Namely, third base.

That’s not a new idea. Before Ramirez came off the disabled list August 24, he made headlines by taking grounders at the hot corner. Was a positional switch in the works?

Turns out, no.

“I think he thinks, moving forward in his career, that he’s a third baseman,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told JP Hoornstra of the Los Angeles Daily News.

But, Mattingly insisted, there’s been “no real talk” about making the change this year.

“He likes making everybody raise their eyes and making me answer questions,” the L.A. skipper added.

Since being traded to the Dodgers in 2012, Ramirez has played just eight games at third base, and none in the last two seasons.

In fact, he explicitly told the Dodgers upon arriving that he didn’t want to move around the diamond in-season, Hoornstra notes.

In his days with the then-Florida Marlins, Ramirez was adamant that he was a shortstop. “Hanley doesn’t want to play third base and the Marlins were informed of that,” an unnamed source told Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com in 2011.

Still, the 30-year-old has started nearly 100 games at third in his MLB career.

So far his current club has honored his desire to remain one half of the keystone combo. Entering play Friday, all three of Ramirez’s starts since coming off the DL have been at shortstop.

Yet, why not make the switch now—or at least seriously entertain the notion—for the good of the Dodgers and Ramirez’s own future?

For Los Angeles, the primary consideration is defense. As Hoornstra points out:

Miguel Rojas, who’s been playing the majority of innings in Ramirez’s stead, ranks first among major-league shortstops in UZR per 150 games. Ramirez ranks 37th, above only two other shortstops.

UZR, or Ultimate Zone Rating, isn’t the final word on defensive ability. But most every defensive metric puts Ramirez at or near the bottom of the league, per FanGraphs.

That should at least give the Dodgers pause.

Los Angeles, after all, is pushing toward the postseason. Their primary concern should be to put the best possible team on the field. Period.

Justin Turner, who’s been getting the bulk of the action at third base with Juan Uribe on the disabled list, is hitting .321 in 284 at bats. So it’s not as if the position is caught in a black hole.

But Ramirez is a known commodity. His .270/.359/.443 slash line and 12 home runs aren’t the production L.A. was hoping for, but the Dodgers want his bat in the lineup.

Yet he’s fielding less and less like a quality big league shortstop. Which brings us to Ramirez’s best interests.

While it behooves the Dodgers to slide Hanley over, it behooves Hanley just as much.

An impending free agent, Ramirez would automatically hit the market as one of the more attractive third-base options, possibly eclipsed only by Pablo Sandoval (assuming the San Francisco Giants don’t make a last-minute move to lock up the Kung Fu Panda).

Ramirez could go a long way toward solidifying his value if he gave prospective suitors (including the Dodgers) an extended audition in the heat of the pennant race.

It’s a risk, certainly. If he shows rust at a position he hasn’t played in nearly two years, or if the move disrupts his performance at the plate, his value could take a hit.

It’s a risk worth taking, though. Both for Ramirez’s future and the Dodgers’ present.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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The San Francisco Giants‘ 2014 regular season is winding down and has just over four weeks remaining.

As the Giants scratch and claw to make the playoffs, general manager Brian Sabean must also begin planning for the future. Sabean will have several critical decisions to make, as he builds the roster for the 2015 season.

The Giants have five key free agents about whom they must make decisions. These include Pablo Sandoval, Michael Morse, Jake Peavy, Ryan Vogelsong and Sergio Romo. 

At approximately $150 million, the Giants have one of the top payrolls in Major League Baseball, according to baseballprospectus.com. It remains to be seen how much, if anything, the Giants ownership group will allow Sabean to increase this number for the 2015 season.

Sabean will need to bolster the pitching staff and try to bring in more consistent bats this winter. If he does not get the buy-in from ownership to increase the payroll, this task will be almost impossible.

Let’s take a look at some of the potential moves Sabean and the Giants could make prior to the 2015 season. The final outcome will be largely based on the money.

All stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com.

All contract and free agency data courtesy of baseballprospectus.com.

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