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In the immortal words of Michael Jordan, "I'm back." Consider this the Wizards portion of my blogging career. It's all been the Wizards portion, so it should be easy to adjust. Before the season started, I made 11 BOLD predictions. I had planned to make those predictions after the season, but the jagwagons who run the blogging cabal said that I had to make predictions before things actually happen. This will adversely affect my accuracy, but apparently that wasn't important. At this moment, I would like to take a fond look back at my original 11 predictions. If you didn't read these predictions back in March, well...what's wrong with you? I worked hard on those predictions. I didn't sleep for days. I ate nothing but Lemonheads and BBQ sunflower seeds. That's my normal diet, but the sleeping part really sucked. Here's the post if you missed it, but I expect some level of sympathy as you read. Support local arts in the future, you monster. Prediction #1 - Sam Deduno will be voted King of Minnesota Most people grow out of their sarcasm faze after they leave high school. Some people just can't help themselves. Obviously, Minnesota does not have a King. Sam Deduno is not royalty. I was all annoyed by his disproportionately popular status and I took to my blog to knock him down a peg. Now he's gone. I wrote a song for him almost twenty years ago to apologize. I stole most of the lyrics, didn't sing it, and I didn't write it either. . Prediction #2 - Kevin Correia will be traded by the end of the season *swish sound* That was a lay-up, but one of those lay-ups that is more of a finger roll because you have too much time on the fast break and you get in your own head and forget that the backboard exists. One of those. We all knew Correia would be traded. Had he been just a complete disaster, he might have been simply released, but that was unlikely because he had been serviceable for so many years. Now, he might get a ring with the Dodgers. A promise ring. Prediction #3 - Eddie Rosario and Trevor May will not make their MLB debuts I choose to see this prediction as half-correct instead of half-incorrect. I am an optimist. Although, I am concerned that this half-correct prediction could ruin my karma and leave me prone to a bee attack. Rosario was a bit of a lay-up. The easy kind, backboard and whatnot. May was a lot better at AAA than I was expecting and some of the guys who I thought could be ahead of him on the depth chart were unimpressive. I'm glad I was wrong about May, even if his first season with the Twins did not go well. Prediction #4 - Byron Buxton, Alex Meyer and Danny Santana will make their MLB debuts I choose to see this prediction as half-weaksauce. Santana was outstanding (just wait for my year-end POWER RANKINGS later this week). Meyer was great at AAA but he's really tall so the Twins chose to keep him out of the clubhouse. At least, that's how I perceive it. And it's best not to talk about Buxton because my keyboard is not tears-resistant. Also, in the original piece, I actually predicted that Bryon Buxton would make his MLB debut in 2014 which would have been super impressive because he is not a baseball player. Prediction #5 - Pedro Florimon out, Eduardo Escobar in NAILED IT! OH GOD I NAILED IT! ADMIT IT, I NAILED IT! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHOOOO! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Please ignore the second part where I compared Escobar to Yokozuna and thought he would then lose his job shortly thereafter. I NAILED IT! Prediction #6 - Josmil Pinto will replace Kurt Suzuki as the full-time catcher by June Can a prediction be superwrong? Ron Gardenhire couldn't handle Josmil Pinto's machismo and toothpick flicking, so he got relegated to a bench role. In addition, Kurt Suzuki decided to have a season where he actually hit baseballs for the first time since Nixon was still kicking around. I'm not sure if that's accurate, but I do know that Pinto has taken up permanent residence in Gardy's doghouse, Suzuki's luster is going to wear off and the 2016 Twins will likely feature Henry Blanco as the starting catcher. I'm not bitter, I just want everyone involved in the decision to hold down Pinto to feel an intense burn when Pinto has 55 home runs for the A's in 2017. Of course, I predict that MLB will replace baseballs with superballs in 2016, so I'm not sure if 55 home runs will be a lot or not. Intense burns regardless. Prediction #7 - Phil Hughes will be better than Ricky Nolasco I'm so proud of this one, I got a vanity license plate. It's worth the many tickets. Prediction #8 - Oswaldo Arcia will finish the season with 55+ extra-base hits My most arbitrary prediction, I honestly cannot remember where I came up with the number 55. I thought 20-25 home runs (right) and 30-35 doubles (wrong). I didn't think he'd spend as much time with Rochester as he did and it took him a long time to get going at the plate. Even so, his 36 extra-base hits in 102 games would translate to just about 55 extra-base hits given a full season. I wasn't THAT far off when you start doing annoying math. Arcia's low batting average overshadows some improvements that I saw from him this season. He walked more, he hit for more power, and he slugged almost .550 in August and September. I think he's a cornerstone player, even if his defense can best be described as "whaaaaaa?" Prediction #9 - Joe Mauer will win his 4th batting title Judging my Twitter, I am going to say this did not happen. I have also learned from Twitter that Joe Mauer might be overpaid, he might be in the decline, he might be soft and he might be pure evil. I can't confirm any of this in 140 characters. Prediction #10 - Chris Colabello will hit more home runs for the Twins than Josh Willingham Willingham 12 - Colabello 6. It was closer than it should have been. Willingham did get traded, as I predicted. He did struggle to hit home runs, as I predicted. Colabello did force his way to the Majors, as I predicted. The rest is fuzzy and I'm pretty sure Colabello was abducted by aliens who needed a Spanish translator for all their aliens who actually did something valuable for their alien baseball team. Prediction #11 - The Twins will win at least 75 games The "at least" was probably overkill. Now, if the season ended today, the Twins would win 70 games. But, there's still...wait...what?...oh. The season's over. I did not notice that. That's on me. The Twins fell short of 75 wins and that is sad. Their starting pitching was somewhere between "dreadful" and "not cool" and their defense was funny, but not funny "ha-ha." Their offense was actually in the top-half in the AL and their Pythagorean record was closer to 74-75 wins. All I really care about is what could have happened, not what did happen, so this confirms my prediction. Predictions, huh? Yeah, not great. I tried my best though. I predict that I will make more predictions before the 2015 season. I'm here for the long haul. I'm going to write so much Twins nonsense this offseason, your head is going to spin. Other heads will roll. Some heads will just maintain a healthy tilt.