The 2016 Colorado Rockies aren't going to be very good and bees are dying at an alarming rate, globally

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?

This week, PECOTA and USA Today both released MLB predictions that had the Rockies finishing near the bottom of the NL West and nowhere near the .500 mark, abolishing hopes and dreams. USA Today's 62-100 prediction would be the Rockies worst finish in franchise history and would continue the Rockies dismal stretch of five straight 90+ loss seasons since 2012. PECOTA has a more optimistic view. Its 74-88 prediction would be a six game improvement over the previous season and could be a glimpse into a brighter future. But either way, the a stark reality remains: a bad 2016 Rockies' team.

For nearly a decade, a stunning trend has been noticed by scientists around the globe: bees are dying. Honey bees are disappearing at an alarming rate globally and it's causing numerous concerns around the world because bees do a lot of good things. Some of the good things bees do: pollenating plants so they can make more plants, creating honey that we can enjoy on delicious waffles, and stinging small children so they stop bothering me.

The Rockies rotation is the likely catalyst of these pessimistic predictions. There are more question marks than sure innings in this group headed by Jorge De La Rosa. Will Chad Bettis continue his improvement? Will Jon Gray continue his development or struggle at Coors Field? Is his slider really losing its deception? What about Tyler Chatwood or Jordan Lyles? Have their arms fallen off? Did they break any toes on the way down? Will I ever find true love? Is true love even real? Could we love anyone? Is fate real? Did I blow it with my soul mate in high school?

In 2013 alone, 37 million honey bees died. 37 million! If you put all those dead bees together, you wouldn't be able to fit them in your house and everyone would ask why you keep getting trucks of dead bees delivered to your door. The mass death of bees is a major issue; anything that upsets biodiversity is. There's an ecological reason honey bees exist and removing them could upset the balance in such a way that leads us all to our fiery doom.

The Rockies bench is, once again, a giant weakness. Brandon Barnes and Mark Reynolds are at the forefront, and the farm remains a year away from producing any homegrown depth in that department. Gone are the days of Jeff Baker and Seth Smith, here are the dreary days where Cristhian Adames will be taking meaningful at bats in late game situations. This isn't to say Adames couldn't be a revelation—we still don't know where this kid will land in terms of production—but all indications suggest he's a glove first shortstop on a bench that needs more bats. The club could cruise through early games with the lineup and bullpen at peak capacity, but the bats have such a strong lack of depth that even a short trip to the DL could destroy any run scoring ability the team has.

There are a lot of theories as to why the bees are suddenly and rapidly dying. One is that the pesticides that American's have used on their crops and plants are highly toxic to honey bees, and since the bees live in dense communities, they die in large numbers at an increasingly rapid rate. Think of it like an apartment building in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. But instead of 30 doofy hipsters in five apartments, it's like a hundred thousand bees and instead of them all getting mono because one made out with the lead singer of Tiger Jaw and drank almond milk straight out of the carton, it's one bee getting poison pollen on itself and thus killing all the other bees with it.

The road offense is going to be a huge concern for the Rockies, the Coors Hangover has attacked and killed even the best Rockies offenses. This one is certainly far from the best. It's extremely likely Arenado and CarGo will regress at least a little from their combined 82 home runs last season. Combine that with the loss of Corey Dickerson and consistent at-bats from shortstops like Daniel Descalso and Cristhian Adames, and you could be staring a very bad Rockies offense in the face in 2016. As our own Matt Gross points out, this lineup could be historically bad. Add in an injury or two, and the Rockies lineup could be borderline unwatchable.

Colony Collapse Disorder is a real thing that scientists are now attempting to stop, but it may already be too late. Worker bees are disappearing and leaving their queen and nurse bees to struggle. Bees are dying at such a rapid rate we could lose honey bees and from there we could lose flowers and from there we could lose birds and from there we could lose enough of our population that they would probably cancel all TV shows and I am NOT going to live on a planet where we don't get to see how Game of Thrones ends. We have to do something about this. We have to educate the world on the death of bees.

The 2016 Colorado Rockies are going to be bad, possibly very bad.

Bees are dying at an alarming rate, globally.

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The Good Opinion of the Week

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 prospect and two time Good Opinion Haver Correlle Prime, who tweets:

Kanye trippin

— Correlle Prime (@realprimetime32) February 12, 2016

Correlle, tell me about it.

For those that don't know me or follow me on Twitter, I am a huge Kanye West fan. I love his music and what he's done for hip hop. I've read about his sampling technique and celebrate the artists he's influenced and promoted. Kanye is to me what Michael Jackson and The Beatles were to other generations: a voice that they looked to and were influenced by as they grew up.

That all being said, Kanye West is a freaking lunatic. He's tripping all the time. It used to be something I could defend, a brash ego on a musician? Yeah sure that's not something we haven't seen before. Heck, Kanye isn't even the worst musician out there right now.

But it's gone from a brash ego to legitimate problematic opinions. Kanye is doing things that I can't defend anymore. He's become the Chick-fil-A of rappers.I will never agree with anything he has to say but heck, I love chicken biscuits.

Kanye's trippin'. He does it a lot, but he makes good music. So did John Lennon, so did Michael Jackson, so did Elvis, so did David Bowie.

None of these guys were perfect people, but we still respect their talent and the way they've changed the genres in which they worked. Kanye did that to hip hop. Like it or not, he's one of the most influential of all time.

But he is, indisputably, trippin.'

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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.

"Hello Connor,

With Adam Ottavino likely on the 60 Day DL to start the year, the Rockies will have an open spot on their 40 man roster for the first month or so of the season, who should they fill it with?

Also, did you like the new Kanye album?

-Josh R"

Hello Josh.

The Rockies will have 39 men on the 40 man roster here soon with Ottavino unlikely to return to the Rockies until at least May. But, this doesn't mean they HAVE to fill it with anyone. Now, they could put a guy like Chris Nelson on the roster and give him a month long audition to make the squad, but the fact is whoever they put on now they may have to take off when Ottavino rejoins the team in May.

Plenty of teams run with an incomplete 40 man roster, especially when they have a guy set to return to the roster sooner than later.

I wouldn't mind giving Nelson a chance but you have to ask, is he going to make the active roster? I doubt it. He's basically going to be this years Roger Bernadina so why put him through the DFA process when Ottavino comes back?

In short, I think the Rockies should leave his spot open, nothing truly to gain from it unless they sign Ian Desmond or something crazy. It's not like they would fill it with someone named Tony Wolters, which is a name I just made up and is definitely not the name of a recently DFA'd catcher from Cleveland.

Also, I did like the Kanye album. I think Ultralight Beam is a very good song.

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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:

@rockiesVSconnor when Connor's tweets are good pic.twitter.com/hNzUflK0Mh

— Dan Lucero (@danluceroshow) February 17, 2016

Freggin Dan Lucero joins the own attempts this week saying my tweets are bad! A complete and total lie, first off. My tweets have been and always will be good. Secondly, shut up Dan.

The Committee looked long and hard at this submission, considering the circumstances (Dan is a rookie at the own game) and the Stingray meme which Dan played off of to take the attempt, it seems unlikely that the committee will rule in his favor. The committee often plays towards veterans and usually rules in favor of anyone that has ever used the Stingray meme.

After a long meeting, the committee ruled that I was not owned in this instance. Any spread of information to the contrary will be met with swift legal recourse from the law team here at Connor, Inc. Thank you.

Regards,

Connor