The Twins shocking moves this week to trade 10 players, or 38 percent of their 26-man roster, may indicate the unlikelihood of announcing a new buyer any time soon. The player transactions, in which the Twins have received mostly minor league prospects in return for their trading big league players, has enraged Minnesota fans while lightening the payroll for ownership.
The franchise reportedly is at least $425 million in debt, believed to be among the higher totals in MLB. The Pohlad family presumably now feels at least some comfort today after lessening their financial burden.
It’s unclear whether the Pohlads are financially viable to sustain Twins financial losses for a long time if they choose. The club has been for sale since last year.
A former sports executive, writing on condition of anonymity, offered this take via email: “I am told earlier in the week, a sale is NOT close, contrary to some recent reports. The Twins need a huge cash influx to contend. Some potential owners have backed off because of the debt in place. (Also,) heard through my MLB sources that there is infighting internally amongst the Pohlad family.”
If a Twins buyer were ready to sign the final papers soon, why would the person or group be so foolish as to associate themselves with the Pohlad PR disaster? The selloff of players, including stars Jhoan Duran and Carlos Correa, has eliminated any chance the club had of making the playoffs as a Wild Card entrant. More important, the gutting of the roster— particularly what was one of baseball’s best bullpens–appears to have set the Twins back for at least a couple of years on the field and with the fanbase.
If the new owners are tainted with the label of misers, they will be DOA in Minneapolis.
Thud.
New ownership should want to message to players and fans that their regime and operation will be in sharp contrast to the Pohlads who have long been disliked by the public. By words and through actions new owners should have a honeymoon period that can be nurtured into a favorable long-term relationship with their employees and the public.
Ownership showing up even several weeks from now taking bows, following the disaster of moves this week led by Twins president Derek Falvey, will make them look like carpetbaggers.
Following the legacy of the Pohlad family should not be challenging. It will be two years this fall that the team, having built a competitive club that won the franchise’s first playoff game in 19 years, announced payroll would drop by a reported $30 million.
Carl Pohlad bought the team in 1984 from the Griffith family. With a nucleus of players mostly from the Griffiths, Minnesota won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. In the 10 years that followed the last World Series title, Pohlad–long known for his fiscal restraint– tried contracting the franchise after alleged attempts to sell it to out-of-town buyers failed.
The Pohlads pressed for and got their new ballpark, Target Field which opened in 2010. The expectations of fans and politicos was the club would spend more money on payroll because of their new playland revenues. The Twins have spent big money on some deals like for the now retired Joe Mauer and now traded Correa but the feeling in the town square is ownership hasn’t delivered.
As of today, the franchise is in a deplorable state with its patrons. A long-time ticket buy wrote this to Sports Headliners; “…They cut payroll but they’re also going to lose close to 50 percent of their season ticket holder base which is already at an all-time low for Target Field. If they are businesspeople, at all, they would know that that does not make sense business wise.”
Another Sports Headliners reader, who has decades of marketing experience, said this via email: “Good luck moving tickets the rest of the season. There might be more fans at a local Little League game than any game at Target Field in September.”
The way it looks now, the Twins are going to lose a lot of ticket goers this year and beyond. The season base might drop to something like 4,000 and a franchise capable of drawing 2.5 million fans a year or more could be headed for half of that or less.
And Twins fans are left wondering if their 10 players were attractive enough to find takers, why didn’t the club headed by Falvey and manager Rocco Baldelli have more success on the field. One fan asked via email: “Why aren’t they in first place?”
Another fan wrote: “It seems to me that Baldelli and his staff isn’t up to major league abilities.”
Lots of developments are coming down the road with the Twins. But as of today, not so many fans are that interested.
Been a fan since 1960 (and) remember the first (World) Series against Dodgers. Remember the good teams that fell to the Orioles, (and) remember the Billy Martin days. This is so sad. What would Tom Kelly say?
The GM is poor, blamed it on (Thad) Levine (front office exec) last year. Worse this year. Baldelli lost the team last year with some poor comments. New ownership could fix this. Clean out Falvey and (the) manager, sign a few free agents and fans would come back.
Great stuff, Dave. My thoughts are that they should have traded the manager and his staff first off.
David: Of note this week I noticed one particular item concerning the AL Central division, i.e. “the small market division.” Starting with the 1995 season (after the strike), these teams all have World Series appearances except our Minnesota Twins. Every. Cleveland has been to 3 World Series (winning 0), Kansas City has been to two World Series (winning 1), Detroit has been to 2 World Series (winning 0), and Chicago has been to 1 World Series (winning 1).
Teams find a way to build up and win, and the Twins find ways to stay “decent” and never go for it. The Pohlads never seemed to care to actually WIN a title, which was always strange to me. No one really knew what they were up to, and it never was embarrassing to them that even Kansas City found a way to make back-to-back World Series with a loaded roster (surrounded by terrible seasons of course). We never really got a straight answer, we got fibs and certain front office representatives holding their water always saying “no one wants to win more than the Pohlads.” It got stale, the new stadium effect wore off, and heck we never even saw little things like the trade deadlines done correctly to excite the fanbase during a stretch run. It was business as usual for ownership, and now we see the new business is tearing it down even further and destroying that 1% of goodwill they had left here.
Even the media, who by and large has been on the Twins side for decades (because they are treated very, very well over there) has made the turn and it’s fair game now. The hits are coming, the ownership is the joke of baseball across the country. What a weird final bow for our lads the Pohlads.
Several thoughts:
1) The debt owed by the Twins shouldn’t have much impact on the sale price of the franchise; the Pohlads will just walk away from the closing with smaller net sales proceeds. The seller owns the debt, not the buyer. Market conditions will set the price for the franchise, not the Pohlads needing more money to increase their net proceeds.
2) Given the odd business model of MLB, most teams typically do one of two things: a) Spend lavishly to contend for championships, or b), Scrimp on player payroll in order to eke out a small profit. The Twins have somehow managed to do neither; and
3) My overall take on this situation is this: When the Pohlads first announced their plans to sell the team, I didn’t think they intended to do it one player at a time.