Looking Back

In an unlike Twins fashion of the past few season, Minnesota was able to lock up the AL Central title without playing 163 games. This team has had its fair share of ups and downs but are now in position to try and get healthy and set up the rotation for the playoffs. We can see how much this actually means after last season Minnesota won game 163 in a 5 hour marathon then the next night had to face CC Sabathia in game 1 of the playoffs.

We all have preseason predictions and I just want to see what I got right.

AL East: New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Oriels, Toronto Blue Jays
AL West: LA Angels, Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics
AL Central: Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals
AL Wild Card: Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners

I got New York and Minnesota right. But right after the first month I felt dumb giving to much into the recent history of Boston and LAA as neither team did what they set out to do.

AL MVP: Derek Jeter (writers feel bad that he still does not have one)
I picked Jeter because writers feel bad for him. Josh Hamilton will win this.
AL Cy Young: John Lester Red Sox
Lester had a solid year but Felix is the best pitcher in baseball and CC sadly will win the Cy.
AL Rookie of the Year: Neftali Feliz Rangers (as a starting pitcher) RIGHT? Closer.
Manager of the Year: Ron Gardenhire Twins RIGHT!
Comeback Player of the Year: Fausto Carmona Indians and Fransisco Liriano Twins
Both definitely had comeback years but what Liriano is doing is award worthy.

NL East: Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins, Washington Nationals, New York Mets; solid battle out in the NL East but the Phillies have taken over.
NL Central: St Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates (Cardinals might be the biggest bust of 2010 with that pitching and that lineup. But good for the Reds)
NL West: Colorado Rockies, LA Dodgers, San Fransisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres (The Rockies are still in it in what is the funnest division race but my last place team San Diego has played terrific in 2010.)
NL Wild Card: Atlanta Braves, LA Dodgers, Florida Marlins, San Fransisco Giants RIGHT!

NL MVP: Ryan Braun Brewers (Will go to Joey Votto)
NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay Phillies (over under for Halladay wins will be set at 22)RIGTH and Halladay has 20 wins with 2 starts left.
NL Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward Braves (edges out Stephen Strasburg Nationals)Strasburg had it until that terrible injury, but Heyward will be in a dog race with Jamie Garcia. If you are wondering as I was, Mat Latos did not qualify because he had 50.2 innings last year. 2 effing outs away. Sheesh.
NL Manager of the Year: Bobby Cox Braves (go out into the sunset) Sorda right but it will go to Padres manager Bud Black for making something out of nothing.
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Manny Ramirez Dodgers (also go out into the sunset lol) More of a joke on me for thinking this. Award will go to idk?

ALDS
Twins beat Red Sox 3-2
Yankees beat Angels 3-1
NLDS
Cardinals beat Braves 3-1
Phillies beat Rockies 3-2
ALCS
Yankees beat Twins 4-2, MVP CC Sabathia
NLCS
Phillies beat Cardinals 4-3, MVP Chase Utley
World Series
Phillies beat Yankees 4-2, MVP Roy Halladay (all TBD but lets hope its different)

Other Twins predictions
90+ wins will be enough to win AL Central (RIGHT and counting)
93+ wins will be enough to not have to play New York in ALDS (RIGHT because we will host Tampa)
Twins have just as good of team as the Red Sox or the Angels (They were better)
Joe Mauer will not have a decrease in power this year 25+ home runs is a lock. (Target Field is fucking HUGE! So I was bloody wrong)
Denard Span will steal 30 bases (currently at 23 projected for 25 so wrong)
Delmon Young will play at least 140 games and set career highs in HR and steals (career year with HR slugging and RBI)
John Rauch will have at least 20 saves. RIGHT
Pat Neshek will have 0 saves. RIGHT
The Twins Closer of the future is not on the opening day roster (RIGHT sorda)
The Twins closer of the future in not on the Twins AAA team (RIGHT)
the Twins closer of the future is on the AA team. (Bullock is in AA now)
Brett Favre will announce he will not play for the Twins but return to the Vikings for 1 more year (Given and RIGHT)
Jim Thome will have at least 1 walk off home run this year (Matt Thorton wishes it was not true and I was RIGHT)
Fransisco Liriano will have an ERA under 4.00 and will make 30 starts (RIGTH)
Twins will make a hard run at Heath Bell with trying to use one of two packages
package 1 will include Ben Revere or (wrong but they discussed it)
package 2 will include Angel Morales (same goes but wrong)
Wilson Ramos will be called up in September and will make the playoff roster (called up before and traded)
Twins will have 3 starters pitch 200 innings (very wrong, with only Carl Pavano. I though Baker and Blackburn would do the same. Was not the case as they sucked)
Their will be 0 snow outs at Target Field until October (so far so good)
If Danny Valencia is called up, Alexi Casilla might be DFA (Not true)
Twins minor league player of the year will be Wilson Ramos (False this goes to Joe Benson)
Twins minor league pitcher of the year will be Kyle Gibson (TRUE)
Twins MVP will be Denard Span (so very wrong. This could go to many different guys like Delmon, Liriano or Mauer but I think it should go to Jim Thome)