Why Not This!?

Late Winter Blues

How is a post posted on April 5th have a name like that. Well SoulSlam will tell you: we don't really have spring in spring anymore.

So far this week we had almost 8" of snow in my neck of North J. And then torrential cold rain and a windstorm that knocked out some power. Now we have conflicting weather reports about snow this weekend. Brutal.

So basically we have winter, then late winter, then spring for about 4 days, then summer.

YSSS' HS Baseball team has already had two games this week postponed. Has a game Friday and Saturday, who knows if they get played. It's like that all over in this area.

#LGM!

Fantasy Baseball Begins!

Well in a couple of days...but we drafted last night.

My Keepers:

Giancarlo Stanton

Trea Turner In no particular order:
Position Players

Christain Yelich

AJ Pollock

Jay Bruce

Miguel Sano

Whit Merrifield

Michael Conforto

Lucas Duda

Chris Iannetta

Brandon Crawford

Yuli Gurriel

Logan Morrison

Adam Duvall

Joe Panik

Joc Pederson

Addison Russell

Pitchers

Noah Syndergaard

JA Happ

Patrick Corbin

Johnny Cueto

Jose Quintana

Matt Harvey

Felix Hernandez

Ken Giles

Jameson Taillon

Vince Velasquez

Joakim Soria

Adam Wainwright

SWAGBROS IS READY!!!

The Bleak

So last time was before Nor'easter #2...we ended up with about 2' of the snow. Good news is we didn't lose power, which I can't say for everyone else. Lots of trees and limbs down (we had a 40' limb crash into driveway behind la casa but it didn't hit anything). Approximately 2 hours of shoveling and snow throwing Wednesday evening and another 2 hours on Thursday morning to get the driveway and cars cleared. We were supposed to have another Nor'easter today but the track changed and we were spared.

As for HS baseball...with the weather what it was, they've (YSSS' team) has only had 4-5 practices. He was taking SAT on Saturday so he missed that one. They are working out as we speak (or as I type).

Spring training baseball is getting down to it. We'll see how my NY Mets are in pretty short order. I think the pitching will be ok (if healthy), though most of the pitchers (except deGrom and Vargas) will be limited to well below 200 innings. You have to have the horses to pitch a minimum of 1458 innings in MLB season, so this will begin to be an issue around August 1. Figure that 567 innings are a lock for relievers...that leaves around 891 for starters. If deGrom and Vargas can go 400 that leaves 491 for the rest. That's a lot to ask for guys who will be on a short leash. Expect a lot of spot starts. Right now rotation looks like:

deGrom

Syndergaard

Vargas

Harvey

Matz

Lugo and Wheeler in pen. Wheeler only has about 70-80 innings I think so his dream of starting is just that, a dream. You can add Gsellman and Montero in there as well. We'll see.

Hitting for NY Mets will be spotty. Bet that.

As for D...I'm not in love with it. Especially with Nimmo and then, Conforto on CF. The catchers are not going to light up anybody's fantasy draft. The IF is suspect. Rosario is fine. The rest (Gonzalez, Frazier, Reyes, Cabrera, Flores) are all a bit slowed, if you catch my drift.

Nor'Easter!

We had one on Friday...nothing much happened in my neck of the woods, but power is out for some folks, and if you lived a bit north of SoulSlam, you got some accumulation. Now we have a forecast for another one mid-week here. Saying a possible 6-8". AAAARRRRGGGHHH.

NJ HS Baseball was supposed to starts practices on Friday, which for most of state became a dream. Saturday in Morris County was a series of roadblocks and power outages so YSSS' team practice was cancelled. They start today indoors. He has SATs on Saturday AM so it'll be a short week no doubt.

March is a bitch man.

Free DVR Finished

A long time ago (over a year), Altice USA nee Optimum nee Cablevision sent me a letter saying the lost a class action lawsuit and I could get a free DVR service (or something else I can't remember) as part of settlement. Truth be told, I had no idea. So I filled out the form and voila! Free DVR. Had it about a year I guess. It was cool. Most shows are also on the On demand channel but that is slow sometimes.

Anyway, the time has come and gone and now I don't have my free DVR. They would like me to pay $12.95 a month for this. Nope. I pay this company enough moo-la-di every month. You have your cable service (I have HBO & Showtime so it's not cheap), your modem, the cable boxes (and remotes), the internet service and my landline phone service. All in all it's over $250 a month. If I could get live sports reliably I might cut said cord. But for now it is what it is. That's living in 2018 I guess. And before you ask, I also have Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.

Assorted musings:

I am on a cut right now. 1600 calories yesterday, I'm on track for less today. I'll be getting very cranky very soon. Phase 1 is 20 lbs off. Should take 2+ months.

I wore a Mets cap 2x to gym this week. I'm making progress in liking my team again.

The weather has been odd.

The mancave got an upgrade last week. New Power Reclining Couch and Power Reclining Chair. Sweet.

NJ HS Baseball starts Friday. YSSS is looking for a good one this year.

Speaking of YSSS, he's playing baseball in Omaha in late June. More to come.

OSSS is away at college and doing great. Dean's List, steady girl. He's happy.

BWSS is taking piano lessons. She's pretty good.

I'm still me, SoulSlam. C-Ya!

Pitchers and Catchers

You know winter is waning when pitchers and catchers report to FLA and AZ in February. Today is 2/14 aka Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday 2018. Sweet.

Anyway, I'm keeping a leery eye on the NYM. They've done what they can to break my heart. I'm not ready to commit. It's too early. Let's see what happens.