Brandon McCarthy has some ideas for how a profile of himself should read. He knows the formula cold: a quirky intro that sets the tone and lays out the big idea; background info on a life-altering event that shapes or cements a cogent personality trait; if you're lucky, some fleeting trash talk that becomes the one thing in the piece everyone remembers, all leading up to a scene that ties everything up in a nice bow. Slumped on the living room couch in his downtown Dallas townhouse, he explains, as someone who likes to control his own narrative, that he'd prefer to go with a day-in-the-life structure. It could be based on yesterday, he says. The story would start out with him playing golf, sinking his fourth hole in one of the week, a little off his usual pace.

"Then he donated another million to a children's charity," he says in a booming omniscient narrator's voice. "He lifted more weight than he ever has, beating all the combine guys in bench press for the third year in a row." Now that he's rolling, he doesn't stop. "He finished writing a television show, pitched it, it got picked up, and they said it's going to be the greatest thing ever."

Without missing a beat, he switches to first person. "Time-wise, I couldn't commit, so I turned it down," he says. "Then I came home, made the best dinner anybody's ever had, pleasured my wife, went to bed, and got a perfect eight hours of sleep.

What percentage of that is true?

"Well," he says. "I did work out yesterday. I came home and went to Fuel City and ate tacos." He's referring to a popular Dallas taco joint that's inside a gas station. "They were really, really good. Then I came back to get my golf clubs to go to the range, but ended up falling asleep on the floor for two and a half hours." He says he woke up with heartburn, then met some friends for drinks, and did, in fact, get a lot of sleep.

He nods. "And that was a productive day."

In the world of sports, Brandon McCarthy is something of an anomaly. So many successful athletes are guarded and consumed solely by the sport they play, or by the profit-driven hero-making machine of sports media. But the Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher, who will begin his eighth season with his fourth different organization when he takes the ball Opening Day, comes across as genuine and unaffected, whether it's to his 100,000+ Twitter followers or in his living room. It's helped him maintain control of his own story, his image. More than nearly everyone else in sports — with the possible exception of Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe — McCarthy seems to understand the nuances of modern mythmaking, the calculated randomness, the subtlety, the cultural value. And while Kluwe is, well, a punter, McCarthy is among the better pitchers in baseball.

Last September, after getting hit in the head with a line drive that fractured his skull, he was rushed to the hospital, where he endured two hours of brain surgery to relieve the cranial pressure. He spent nearly a week in and out of consciousness, his wife, Amanda, worrying at the edge of his hospital bed. When he finally got to go home, his first tweet to the world was: "WELL IF BEING DISCHARGED FROM THE HOSPITAL ISNT THE BEST TIME TO ASK ABOUT A THREESOME THEN IM FRESH OUT OF IDEAS."

McCarthy's humor is part of a particularly neoteric skill set that includes, by his own listing, the ability to weave in and out of highway traffic efficiently, being able to get through a crowded mall quickly (he tells people he has the moves of a world-class running back), finding spelling errors and typos, and doing a spot-on British accent. And there's another thing he says he excels at: doing nothing.

"I can sleep 'til 1, and do nothing, and finally brush my teeth at 5," he says. "Basically what today would be like if you weren't here."

It's his last Saturday at his offseason home before he reports to spring training in Arizona. In December, McCarthy signed a two-year contract with the Diamondbacks worth a reported $15.5 million. Two days from now, he'll be meeting his new teammates, learning all about another new city, another new organization.

McCarthy lives with Amanda and their fluffy West Highland white terrier, Hobbes, in a small gated community a few hundred feet from the American Airlines Center, where the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars play. His posh, modern townhouse once belonged to Brett Hull, and there are stories of old legendary rooftop parties. He's got his own small weight room, a large bedroom, and one of his prized possessions, an expensive toilet Amanda ordered from Japan. Downstairs he has an entire room dedicated to Ping-Pong and shuffleboard, and a framed picture of Nolan Ryan punching Robin Ventura in the head.

McCarthy watches golf with his laptop open on the cushion next to him, his phone buzzing on the other side. He's a slender, 6-foot-7-inch 29 year-old with dark hair that's prematurely turning silver in flecks. Today he's wearing jeans, a blue Superman T-shirt, black socks, and no shoes.

"When you procrastinate, it's a chemical reaction," he says. "There's a release of dopamine the longer you procrastinate, and then when you're forced into action. So it becomes like a little hit to you. Anyone who's a procrastinator knows that exact feeling of,

. So you enjoy that. And it drives people who are with you who aren't that way nuts."

To McCarthy, it's about optimum efficiency — he can focus when he has to, and not waste a bit of energy when it isn't necessary. And the way he analyzes how he relaxes, that's the same way he analyzes everything, from the pitches he throws to the tweets he sends out to the new sitcom script he's been trying to write with the help of some admirers, who just happen to be among the most successful comedy writers in Hollywood.

He's maybe working a little harder than he'd care to admit.