Minneapolis – It had already not been a great start to the week for Minnesota Twins fans. Their short road trip to Yankee Stadium had begun as it always has for decades, dropping bad losses to a team they are 44-125 (.260) against since 2002.
On Wednesday, the news every Twins fan had been dreading since the Pohlad family announced they were exploring a sale of the team on October 10, 2024. The Pohlad family has decided not to sell the team. Instead, they will retain principal ownership, with two more limited partner groups joining in on the ownership shares.
Ten months have passed since the announcement, and six months since the lead buyer, Justin Ishbia, backed out of the deal to establish a long-term plan to eventually take over ownership of the Chicago White Sox from Jerry Reinsdorf. The worst-case scenario had become true for Twins fans. No matter who the Pohlads later announce as their new ownership partners, they’ve broken their trust and credibility with the fan base.
After the Twins ended their 18-game losing streak in the postseason on October 3, 2023, it seemed as though the ship had finally turned course from the iceberg of dread ahead, even though they followed it up with a nine-game losing streak the next day.
However, that was just one iceberg on a path that still had many more ahead. And this ship seems to have been sinking ever since the Houston Astros eliminated them from the 2023 postseason.
The first indicator was at the MLB GM Meetings in early November 2023. Minnesota Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey told the media that the team will cut payroll. The primary impetus was the expiration of their TV contract with Diamond Sports Group (the former owner of Bally), resulting in a loss of approximately $54.8 million.
Fans were displeased with this news, and the off-season remained quiet. Then, weeks before spring training, the Twins traded longtime second baseman Jorge Polanco to Seattle, and their biggest free agent signing was first baseman Carlos Santana. Fans’ tempers were cooled for a bit until Twins chairman Joe Pohlad did a radio interview with 830 WCCO’s Jason DeRusha at spring training that year.
That interview has become well-known to Twins fans as the “right-sizing payroll” announcement. When DeRusha asked Joe Pohlad if the team would spend any more money on bigger-name free agents, Pohlad almost gave him an answer that sounded like a yes, but then sidetracked himself, saying the team was “going to live pretty much where we’re at right now.”
Within just six months of winning their first postseason series in 21 years, the Twins cut payroll from $160 million to $130 million, and fans were not optimistic about their chance to return to the postseason in 2024.
For a while, though, things didn’t look as though they’d be affected by payroll cuts. The Twins played out most of the 2024 season in postseason contention. They had a 12-game winning streak, thanks to a magical, gross-looking sausage, and had a 70-53 record in mid-August, despite no additions at the trade deadline However, the day they failed to complete a four-game sweep of the Texas Rangers on the road, on August 18, marked the beginning of the team’s on-field collapse.
They went 12-27 down the stretch, going from having playoff odds up to 90% to missing the postseason entirely. Pohlad made his last appearance with media members on the final day of the 2024 regular season.
A reporter asked if ownership would lower payroll even further going into the off-season. He never confirmed on the record that day that that would be the case, but several Twins officials later confirmed that they would not decrease payroll from $130 million, which was where it was at the season’s end.
Then, a week and a half later, the Pohlads announced that they’d begin to explore a sale of the team, and fans had hope for a better future. It’s no secret that their business decision, dating back to the mid-1990s, to keep payroll down by exploring a team contraction and not adding more payroll as revenue increased from a new ballpark, had deterred many fans’ faith in their baseball-making decisions to bring another World Series back to Minnesota.
The exploration of the sale brought many fans hope that a new ownership group, one willing to put more than $160 million into the team’s payroll and not suddenly subtract it by $30 million a year after making the playoffs, could do that. Ishbia looked as though he’d be that man over the off-season. His name frequently appeared in reports as the frontrunner to purchase the team.
That was until Reisendorf and Co. offered a higher ownership stake for Ishbia than what he currently had with the White Sox in spring training. Ishbia balked at Minnesota’s offer and pursued purchasing the White Sox instead.
The Twins have underperformed for most of 2025 on the field, and so too have the explorations of the sale. The Pohlads set their asking price at $1.7 billion, the same as the market value of the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays, both of which have been sold recently. Unlike those franchises, though, the Pohlads had around $425 million in debt attached to their asking price, which has appeared to disinterest any potential buyers.
So, with no buyers lined up and the team accumulating a 4-8 record out of the All-Star break, the Twins executed a fire sale at the trade deadline. They traded away Jhoan Duran, Chris Paddack, Griffin Jax, Randy Dobnak, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart, Danny Coulombe, Harrison Bader, Ty France, Willi Castro, and Carlos Correa, shedding approximately $27 million in payroll for the rest of the season.
The fire sale has crushed fan morale even further than their 9-18 record in June. Now, two weeks since the fire sale began, the worst-case scenario for this fan base has come true.
Downsizing the payroll already crushed fan morale, which prevented the team from adding above-average players they could have used for a postseason push in 2024 or this year. Now, the family that once sought to remove the team from the league or relocate them to North Carolina is holding onto them after years of disappointment, having not invested their money in a competitive baseball team.
Fan morale reached its apex in October 2023. Two years later, it has sunk to its lowest point in 25 years. If the Pohlads choose to retain ownership of the club long-term, fans will likely react negatively, given their management of the Twins since they made the playoffs two years ago.
Minnesota’s attendance indicates a decline in fan morale. Only five of their 57 home games on the season (so far) have reached attendance above 30,000. Minnesota’s attendance is in the bottom third of the league, and fans will likely decline to renew their season tickets and subscriptions to Twins.TV will probably lapse. All are indicators that fans no longer trust team ownership.
Even now, they have announced new ownership partners but chosen to withhold their names. If they announced who these two new partners in ownership were immediately, it might salvage a sliver of fan trust and morale for them. But not even providing the names makes the situation worse. It’s a continuation of ambiguity from the Pohlads, giving plenty of reason for these Twins fans to have more reasons to distrust them.
If these new ownership partners are willing to help put the Pohlads and their own money into the team on the field, and finally change the course of this sinking ship to reach port. Then, let this off-season be the moment of opportunity.
But if the status quo doesn’t change and the payroll remains in the bottom third of the league simply because they are unwilling to risk losing money while television rights transition from cable to digital, then don’t be surprised if Twins fans stop believing in this team on all sides of the field.
They’ve had every opportunity to change course and turn things around for the better. Instead, the Pohalds have chosen the safe route, cutting payroll and leaving the fan base hanging. As a result, the Twins could see lower attendance showing up this weekend for a reunion of the last remaining members of the 1965 AL Pennant-winning Twins, or Corey Koskie’s team’s Hall of Fame induction.
The brief moments of nostalgic fondness won’t be a significant enough distraction from the established distrust and fear the fan base has for the franchise’s future.
The Pohlads’ unwillingness to invest in the team or sell it has already cost them the fan base’s morale in just 21 months. They may need more than 21 to regain the morale that was present when the team won their second game against the Blue Jays on October 4, 2023.