MLB Bullets Breaks The Internet

Happy Friday.

• Steve Kettmann, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, writes that focusing on modern statistics is distracting us from the beauty of baseball. Kettman is the author of a new biography of Mets GM Sandy Alderson that Jon Heyman, of all people, all but called a hagiography.
• This caused the internet to explode, of course. Bill Chuck responds to Kettmann on Peter Gammons' website by saying we can enjoy baseball and follow the stats at the same time.
• At FiveThirtyEight, they had a round table response cleverly entitled "Don't Let Op-Eds Ruin Baseball."
• Ben Lindbergh takes a look at what we can learn about baseball from the new StatCast data. Which isn't actually new. What's new is that the general public now has access to it.
• If you're reading this, then the internet didn't break when Alex Rodriguez hit his first home run since 2013 yesterday.
• Grant Brisbee notes that MLB is trying to pretend that Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens never existed. For their "Franchise Four" promotion at least. Yet Barry Bonds and Ryan Braun do. Weird.
• Usually I try to hide the difficult material later in the Bullets, but this one is one that you should try to read. But it's a very difficult and tough read. Michael McKnight and Jon Wertheim comb through court and police reports as well as published news stories to tell the story of the violence and domestic abuse inflicted by Milton Bradley on his wife. It's a sad but important story of how everyone failed to protect a woman from violent abuse with tragic consequences. Again, you should know your own tolerance for such stories.
• In another rather difficult but important read, Jeremy Horton talks about his own struggles with addiction in the light of Josh Hamilton's struggles. The point he wants to make is that Hamilton has been sober 3,449 of the past 3,452 days. That makes him an inspiration to Horton, not an symbol of failure. And doing that is a lot harder than any non-addict can ever realize. (h/t Hardball Talk)
• Back to baseball, or at least the business of baseball. The Pirates signed Josh Harrison to a four-year contract extension.
• Craig Edwards tries to evaluate the wisdom of this deal for both sides.
• Sam Miller gives every team a chance to do one do-over and take back a move that they'd wish they hadn't done. For the Cubs? It's trading Josh Harrison.
• A record number of people logged on to mlb.tv to watch ballgames on Opening Day. A full 60% more than last season. Because they wanted to see baseball die, no doubt.
• The Athletics Brett Lawrie had a pretty lousy night on Wednesday. He managed to strike out four times on only 12 pitches. The perfect Golden Sombrero.
• Lindsay Berra writes about how teams are realizing that players perform better when they have more days off. Any chance you could get in a Hot Tub Time Machine and go back to 1969 and get this article into Leo Durocher's hands? Also, I'm scared to think how good Cal Ripken really could have been.
• Sad news. Former pitcher Jose Capéllan has died of an apparent heart attack. He was only 34. Most of his career was with the Brewers. He last pitched for the Rockies in 2008.
• Ramona Shelburne has a long piece the inner workings of the new Dodgers front office this past offseason. She's impressed.
• Ken Rosenthal, on the other hand, is not impressed with the job the new Braves front office is doing recently.
• Rosenthal also thinks the Phillies need to lower their demands and get a deal done to send Cole Hamels to the Red Sox.
• Jonathan Papelbon is still a Phillie but he told the Boston Globe that "I don't really feel much like a Phillie."
• The Padres are reportedly shopping for a shortstop. Ken Rosenthal thinks the big names are unlikely, but has a list of lesser possibilities that he thinks the Padres can and probably will land one of them.
• Dave Cameron also goes shopping for the Padres.
• Stephania Bell looks at the new data about Tommy John surgery and takes apart some of the myths about the surgery. At this point, only about 2/3 of pitchers return to their former level.
• Jose Fernandez is recovering from Tommy John surgery and he's itching to get back on the mound.
• Yankees pitcher Nate Eovaldi is extremely good at preventing stolen bases.
• Will Leitch lists the 13 oldest players in the game.
• John Allen Jr. explains why baseball is the most Catholic of all sports. (scroll down for the part about baseball.) (h/t Hardball Talk)
• Bert Blyleven dissed Detroit.
• Prince Fielder works out by lifting a Rougned Odor.
• The Matt Damon and Ben Affleck movie about the wife-swapping Yankees teammates from the 1970s is moving forward.
• Check out this 14-armed first pitch from Japan.
• Yo! Hyun-jin Ryu raps!
• The television series Game of Thrones is returning to HBO this weekend. So we have not one but two articles comparing MLB teams to characters from the show. This first one from our friends at DRays Bay compares each team to a specific character from the show. Theo Epstein, the mother of dragons.
• And this one from Sports On Earth compares each team to a house from the realm of Westeros. I think even the most hardcore Cubs fan would have trouble calling the Cubs the Starks and the Cardinals Joffrey Baratheon with a straight face, but I'll take it.
• And finally, if you think the inconvenience of the Wrigley renovations are bad, it could be even worst. The Huntsville Stars moved to Biloxi, MS this year into what was supposed to be a state-of-the-art new ballpark, ready on Opening Day. The only problem is that it's not finished, and now isn't scheduled to be finished until June. So the Biloxi Shuckers will start the season with a 55-game, 60-day road trip. I'm sure the Brewers are pretty upset about this. If I were them, I wouldn't put a single serious prospect on that team until the road trip was over.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Except for the Biloxi Shuckers. They'll still be on the road.