Adam Ottavino's elbow surgery rehab is a fascinating mix of boredom and inspiration

Halloween is tomorrow! (And there's some kind of baseball game on tonight? Just heard rumors.) It was pretty slow overnight with news around the Colorado Rockies, but hopefully below I found some good stuff you might like to know about:

16 Weeks (Video) - Adam Ottavino via The Player's Tribune

This is just fascinating. Or maybe more accurately, it's fascinatingly dull. I've never torn my ulnar collateral ligament, but I've dealt with my fair share of baseball injuries at a relatively high level in both college and (very briefly) the professional ranks, and I've been around a lot of guys who went through the same surgery and rehab as Ottavino. It takes an incredible mix of patience and inspiration, and the ability to see the bigger picture of why you're doing what you're doing, but still being able to fire yourself up to go through every dull exercise and repetitive motion, and take them all seriously, every single day.

Kudos to Adam for getting through that. As far as I'm concerned, this video is a must-watch for people who might not have a good idea of what players go through when they get injured, specifically around arm surgeries. Being injured in professional baseball is a solitary existence, and as strange as it sounds, it can mentally break you. You're psychologically (and sometimes physically) removed from the team to take care of your new "job" while everybody else's career continues. It's not just the year lost that counts, but rather what goes on during that year that is such a mindf*ck.

Congratulations to anyone -- in this case Ottavino -- who gets to the final point in the video and is able to throw once again on the field resuming the normalcy of baseball.

Mapping the outfield for the 2020 Colorado Rockies - Mile High Sports

Casey Light uses the Kansas City Royals as inspiration when he takes a look into the crystal ball and tries to figure out what the Rockies' outfield is going to look like in 2020. He spends some time focusing on Corey Dickerson (while making a comparison to Alex Gordon), but I'm just over here excited about David Dahl and Raimel Tapia!

Colorado Rockies Offseason Speculation, Part 3 - Rox Pile

Andrew Dill looks at three things he'd like to see/predictions about the upcoming season in the third part of a series over at Rox Pile. I'm all about that number 2, baby. Yohan Flande is my guy! Put him in long relief and let that dog HUNT next summer! (Just please don't get so thin in the rotation that he's starting again.)

Ranking the Rockies: 33 Rex Brothers - BSN Denver

Jake Shapiro blogs about Rex Brothers' 2015 season for BSN Denver. Sexy Rexy did good things in September... kind of. Coincidentally, I just wrote up our Rex Brothers season recap post the other day, and it will run on November 12, I believe. Stick here for that!

★★★

Friday Fanpost Focus

In light of one of my recent posts (more on that below), I'd like to start highlighting Fanposts every Friday as they come up on the site -- and not just the ones that get pushed to the front page.

In part, I hope this encourages conversation amongst y'all on each other's posts. In my first three weeks on the job as assistant editor, I'm amazed by how many good ideas and interesting points are being made in the comments sections of my posts. You guys are passionate about the Rockies unlike any community I've been in/around before, you hit the ground running on my posts (which I really appreciate!), and this community is a breath of fresh air. Have a Rockies idea? You can start your Fanpost right here!

Anyways, to the posts:

My Rockies inspired commuter bike was stolen - Claytoniss

For the Denver-area readers, let's see if we can crowdsource a solution on this one! On Thursday, PR community member Claytoniss shares the sad tale of having his bike (notice the purple!) taken from south Broadway all the way back in September. You can connect with him on Twitter if you've got information.

Should Rockies bid for Nexen's Byung-ho Park? - shay.cheever

You've all probably seen this post on the front page, but PR community member shay.cheever gives a really interesting angle on a potential future free agent the Rockies could acquire. Knowing the Rockies' history with free agents -- especially notable ones overseas -- the chances Park comes to Denver are slim, but this post has a unique angle on a really unique player and I think it's a fresh perspective when looking at the Rockies' first base situation, especially considering Justin Morneau's departure.

A critical look at the Rockies' starting pitching - LTRock

PR community member LTRock took on my Thursday challenge for more Fanposts and delivered a whopper, telling us what we all (should) know about the Rockies' rotation. I hate this post, because it's depressing. No -- I'm kidding -- I like it a lot because it plays into that soft bigotry of low expectations idea; our relative (low) expectations for Rockies pitchers unfortunately color how we look at a rotation that is just... terrible.

Are you a Rockies fan out of passion... or out of habit? - evers44

PR community member evers44 also took my challenge and wrote a Fanpost! And it's interesting! I think it's an intriguing hypothetical situation. It all starts like this:

I love living in Colorado, and I expect I'll stay here for the foreseeable future. But, once in a while, I play a mental game with myself. Namely: "If I were to move to another city with a likable major league franchise, would I keep my loyalty to the Rockies, or would I shift my fandom to my new home town team?"

There's a poll in the post, it started a good conversation in the comments, and I love it. Truth be told, I think I'd also struggle keeping my (full) allegiance depending on the city I was in and the local team to follow. I can't see myself ever dropping the Rockies, but if the local team were extremely likable, too? Hmm.

Again, to review: Fanposts are good. You should write one about any Rockies topic that inspires you! Speaking of that... here's another shameless plug:

The Rockies and the soft bigotry of low expectations - Bobby DeMuro (that's me!)

I put it on here to remind those of you who may have missed it yesterday, I'm interviewing Rockies fans about how they feel about the team, ownership, the coaching staff, Coors Field... whatever inspires, pleases, or frustrates you about anything related to the Colorado Rockies (read my post for a little more information/angle).

I got some really good emails on Thursday from people who had read the post from disgruntled fans, loyal fans, and everything in between.

I know there are more people out there who may want their voice heard but are intimidated or uninterested in the Fanpost venue. I get it. Reach out to me via email (bodemuro AT gmail), on Twitter (right here), or in a Facebook message (right here). Have your voice heard as part of a compilation of fan interviews that will run either next week, or early the following week depending on how much information there is to compile!

(And a HUGE thank you to those of you who emailed me already! I was blown away with the depth, time, and thought you put into your emails!)

★★★

Final piece of non-important news: I earned baseball pumpkin redemption! See that pumpkin on the left? That's all me! Much, MUCH better than my disastrous Rockies pumpkin from the other day.

My girlfriend's pumpkin is on the right, attempting to mirror this template. She is freakishly talented.

What's everybody doing for Halloween, anyways?