Football Friday Presents: Are the Rockies controlled by BuzzFeed?

Welcome to Football Friday, a baseball column by Connor. I am Connor. Each week I will dive into the previous seven days of baseball news, shout my opinion into the void, discuss some things about the Colorado Rockies, and answer your emails. Some of them. Send them to connorsmailbag@gmail.com and we'll see what happens, OK?

I've cracked the code, you guys.

People have been asking questions of Jeff Bridich ever since he quietly started his offseason by dumping Rex Brothers, Jason Gurka, Yohan Flande, Wilin Rosario, and Tommy Kahnle, turning them into Jason Motte, Chad Qualls, and Mark Reynolds.

The questions they asked were, "why?" and, "what does this have to do with the Broncos?" and finally, "does new Jason get free applesauce?" The last question is stupid. Motte and Mott's are spelled different, you doofus.

But while everyone else has been asking questions, I've been investigating. And I've finally cracked the code.

Before I tell you the answer, let me lead you through my evidence. Let me take you through the case step by step, to see if you reach the same conclusion I did.

First, let's take a look at the guys the Rockies traded and released: Brothers, Kahnle, Gurka, and Rosario. What do they all have in common? Not a lot, at least on the surface. Brothers and Kahnle were possibly jettisoned due to the team's new "War on Walks" directive as they move away from players with control issues and hope for a bullpen that won't get itself into trouble like it did so many times last year. Gurka, on the other hand, may have been released due to the medical condition that afflicts many players as they enter the Major Leagues, known in layman's terms as "being terrible."

Rosario is a different case altogether. A former catcher turned first baseman, Rosario was handled strangely in 2015. At first the team seemed to want to make him their backup first baseman, but Rosario wasn't learning the position fast enough and was quickly looking like a hitter that every pitcher had figured out. So they stashed him in Triple-A Albuquerque with occasional call-ups to spell injuries, but Ben Paulsen took the majority of at-bats at first base and near the end of the season it was very clear the organization had moved on from the Wilin Rosario Experience.

But what if all of these moves were connected? What if the swap of these guys for new signings were part of a master conspiracy to change the nature of this team forever?

As I read about these roster moves and the likely reasons behind them, I pulled up the team photos of all of these players. I usually try to get a good look at the players that I will be ALL-CAPS COMPLAINING about on Twitter for the next season. While on these pages, I noticed an interesting trend.

Take a look at the pictures of the guys we let walk:

Ok.

Next, take a look at the guys we acquired:

Waaaaaaaaaaait a minute.

Now take a look at these photos of headlines from BuzzFeed articles:

Ah-ha!

Let me show you the guys we released again, this time with a circle around the important stuff:

And now the guys we signed again, this time with circles around the key points:

And now the BuzzFeed articles, again with the interesting point circled:

Do you see what I see?

Do you see it?!

The Rockies have been taken over by BuzzFeed.

It's almost as if the club has become the @horse_ebooks of Major League Baseball. I emailed BuzzFeed's editors this week to see if they had any comment, including a code for them to secretly admit to their conspiracy (but it was actually a trick!).

Here is my email:

Currently, BuzzFeed has not responded to the allegations, which could mean they are not in control of the Rockies or it could be an admittance that they ARE in control. Take this information how you will, but let it be known that BuzzFeed did not reply to an email that SPECIFICALLY stated not replying was admitting their control.

Jeff Bridich is a puppet, and he is not in control of the Colorado Rockies. BuzzFeed runs this team.

If we lose 100 games next year, it is because we are innocent victims of an overgrown millennial listicle site obsessed with cats. Because of that, keep an eye out for The 20 Times We Ruined Your Favorite Baseball Team, next winter from the Colorado Rockies BuzzFeed.

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The Good Opinion of the Week ^TM

Each week, I will personally scour Rockies-related Twitter feeds for good opinions on food, music, movies, or even bottled water. I will feature anything that I look at and think "that is a good opinion."  This week, the good opinion comes from Rockies fan @bullardberry, who tweets:

This is a good opinion.

I wrote a few weeks ago about not attacking people for being a different type of fan than you. It's just silly, to me at least, to attack someone's experience. If someone wants to enjoy something differently than you that is their right as a human, and more importantly as an American. The wave isn't like someone shouting at a movie or heckling a stand-up comedian; it doesn't affect the performance or your enjoyment unless you let it. I'd prefer people doing the wave than the hospital ward crowd you see every night at new Yankee Stadium only cheering when the help is around to clap for them, anyways, but that's just me.

I do dislike the wave, for what it's worth. I think it's silly and it kind of annoys me when people do it during a close game. But, like @bullardberry, I'm done hating people for experiencing things. It's more about me than it is them and it's usually kids doing it so what am I going to do? Hate a bunch of kids? I don't know, that sounds like a terrible way to live.

Rockies Club Status

Each week, this column will dive into the Rockies' Club Status. I will be judging the Rockies' prior performance by comparing them to what type of song they would be at the club. The worst is a country song; the best is a BANGER. This week the Rockies are:

CLOSED

They didn't do a damn thing. The club is closed for the season. Maybe it's a beach club or something or maybe they just got shut down for letting a bridesmaid get so drunk she puked into the mouth of someone trying to kiss her on the dance floor. Whatever the reason, the Rockies were shut down this week. That's fine, it's the second half of December, anyways.

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Reader Mailbag

Welcome to the mailbag! Every week I'll read what you degenerate jerks have to say to me. Better make it good.

Connor,

Your column last week sparked a question for me, if the Rockies shouldn't spend now should they wait two years for the 2018-2019 free agent bonanza?

-Brian

Excellent question, Brian.

The 2018 free agent class is already getting billed the same way the next NBA free agent class is being billed. It's like when your friend decides to sell his Playstation for an XBOX and has all these Playstation games laying around that he can't play anymore so you're like "I got 14 bucks and an afternoon to kill, let's do this."

Only the Rockies won't have 14 dollars by 2018, the Rockies will have a LOT more.

As of now, the Rockies don't have any big money contracts guaranteed to ANYBODY past the 2018 offseason. They're basically free and clear to dive headfirst into this class and fill whatever positional holes they couldn't fill from the farm.

So if one of their outfield prospects doesn't work out, bam, there are outfielders. If they need a pitcher to shore up the rotation in front of or behind Jon Gray—Jeff Hoffman—Kyle Freeland, bam, there are pitchers (Jose Fernandez and Clayton Kershaw to name a couple). Maybe, just maybe, by 2019 the Rockies will be competitive, too, and can convince some big time guys to come play for us as we potentially enter an era where the Rockies are good at baseball.

So yeah Brian, I do think the Rockies should maybe wait. Sit on it for a couple winters and go get someone later. The 2016-17 class is weak, anyways.

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Has Connor Been Owned?

Each week, our team of investigators and officials here at Connor, Inc. will look into whether or not Connor was the victim of an "own".  For the uneducated, an own is often a comeback or put down that renders the person speechless and unable to turn the conversation around. It's also described as a "serve" or "savage." I'm a medical miracle in that at no point in my life have I been owned by anyone online or in real life.

Here is what is being brought forth to the Committee of Owns this week as alleged evidence of my owning:

So a little backstory to this tweet: I get yelled at by Patriots fans on Twitter a lot. Like, a lot. It's probably because I send tweets to Adam Schefter and SportsCenter and other high profile accounts all the time that say things like "Tom Brady should be in prison," and "Tom Brady committed Felony Fraud," and "Tom Brady killed my dad." Just stuff disparaging the character of America's favorite quarterback, mostly — but it's always stuff that's so unbelievably ridiculous, a halfway intelligent person can see it's hyperbole.

Not Patriots fans. Oh, boy, not Patriots fans. They get EXTREMELY upset about it, due to loving Tom Brady so much it hurts their very core that someone could possibly make fun of him.

I especially love tweets from the people that have no personal attachments or touches on their Twitter profile. Their personalities are literally ONLY informed by the teams for which they cheer. Are they nice? Do they have hobbies? Are they married? We have no freakin' clue, because the only thing they want people to know in this messed up world is that they are Patriots fans.

So this guy (or gal), a Patriots fan from New Hampshire who has some affinity to the number 72, decided to call me ugly.

Well the committee didn't even have to meet very long on this one, they laughed in the face of this tweet and determined that I was not owned in this instance. Any spread of information to the contrary of this ruling will be met with swift legal justice from Connor, Inc. and yada yada yada, don't try to own me.

With Football Friday taking the holidays off, this means...

I WAS NOT OWNED FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR OF 2015

Wow. Congratulations to me. A 26th straight year of not being owned on this planet! I will take any and all gifts you would like to provide to me for this accomplishment. I am great.

Football Friday will be back in a couple weeks. Don't even think about owning me in the meantime. Happy Holidays to all of you... but only if you have a beard.

Regards,

Connor

[Editor's note: Connor's Mailbag is taking the next two Fridays off for the holidays; it will return in the first week of the New Year. In the meantime, keep sending him your emails: connorsmailbag@gmail.com.]