Byron Buxton after hitting his 30th HR of the season and his 8th to lead off a game (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One of Tom Pohlad’s priorities over his first month as controlling owner of the Minnesota Twins was personal phone calls to fans on a list of 50 people who have yet to renew season tickets for 2026.
Many of his attempts went to voicemail. One recipient hung up three times, assuming a prank, before replying to Pohlad’s follow-up text message with some pointed criticism about the direction of the franchise.
“Let’s say the response wasn’t necessarily kind back, but hopefully the effort counts for something,” Pohlad said this weekend at Target Field, where the Twins held their annual fan festival.
The Twins have a big hole to climb out of, as far as their relationship with the customers. Pohlad recently took the reins of the franchise his grandfather bought in 1984, replacing his younger brother as part of a new executive leadership structure created with the addition of three new investors who purchased non-controlling stakes in the club. He has vowed to tackle the organization’s recent slide head-on, already with a more public-facing approach to the role than his brother, uncle or grandfather took in their tenures as controlling owner.
The current disappointment within the fan base stems from the front office’s decision to pare back the payroll after winning the AL Central in 2023 and advancing in the postseason for the first time in 21 years. Pohlad pointed to several factors such as the pandemic and the collapse of the team’s regional television contract that hurt the Twins financially over the past five seasons and influenced that decision to spend less on the roster, but he fully acknowledged how much of the strain was self-created.
“In a lot of things we tripped over ourselves, if you will, and we certainly didn’t do a good job communicating what we were going through and what we were trying to accomplish,” Pohlad said. “You take that all together and it’s a recipe for a very challenging time. We’re trying to hit the reset button — not a rebuild button, but a reset button. Bring in some new energy, a different sense of urgency and accountability, and figure out what we want to do going forward. That, frankly, is how do we build a team that can compete and play October for a string of seasons in a row?”
Pohlad has also made a point to connect with the players, meeting in person recently with center fielder Byron Buxton and starting pitcher Joe Ryan and planning a conversation with starting pitcher Pablo López this weekend at the fan festival. All three of those All-Stars were prominently bandied about on the trade rumor mill since last summer, when the Twins dealt 10 players during the week leading up to the deadline.
But while the payroll is still significantly down from recent seasons, the Twins refused to trade their top trio and made some modest investments in enhancing the roster by signing veterans Josh Bell, Victor Caratini and Taylor Rogers.
“The one thing I told the front office, ‘I would like to be a part of this rotation going forward,’” López said, adding: “I want to be part of a rotation that can really let people know how far a pitching staff can take a team.”
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