Jim Souhan: Pohlads should have spent more, but not because of Target Field

Jim Souhan, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Aug 5, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — Twins fans are right to be disappointed and even disgusted.

They are right to question the judgment and commitment of the Pohlad family, which has owned the franchise since 1984.

In the wake of the Twins’ historic player purge — nine trades in which 10 major league players departed, including stars Carlos Correa and Jhoan Duran — it’s easy to complain about a franchise with a publicly funded ballpark that is damaging its own ability to compete while saving ownership money.

Where fans are often wrong is when they connect the existence of Target Field with a perceived guarantee that the Twins will always win or even be competitive.

That’s illogical. The Twins never promised they would win or always be competitive in a new ballpark. How could they?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a beautiful publicly funded stadium. As do the Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies and other teams that have not won a World Series in the past two decades or remained competitive on an annual basis.

The Twins receiving Target Field didn’t elevate them but rather put them on a level playing field with other midmarket franchises.

I defy anyone to find a verifiable quote from a Twins official promising that the team would win and outspend its midmarket competitors if it had a new ballpark.

What Twins officials said was that a new park would help them keep their most valued players, which they have done. Target Field helped them pay for Joe Mauer, Byron Buxton, Pablo López and Correa, among others.

If you would like to be angry about the current state of the Twins, alter your aim. Instead of being angry about the existence of the beautiful ballpark in downtown Minneapolis, be angry about the people who have put the team up for sale.

I’ve always been loath to join the pitchfork brigade when it comes to the Pohlads, because blaming the Pohlads for everything often eliminates more intelligent and detailed discourse.

Many of the Twins’ biggest problems — injuries to their stars and slumps by key players such as Royce Lewis and Correa — have had nothing to do with payroll size.

That doesn’t mean we should let the Pohlads off the hook. Think of what they could have done for the city and their family name.

Carl Pohlad purchased the Twins for $44 million in 1984. He presided over Minnesota’s two most recent men’s major sports championships when the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991.

As late as 1992, the Twins were considered a model sports franchise.

Had Carl been willing to spend more of his own money to support a winner, the Pohlads could be, in Minnesota, what the Steelers-owning Rooneys are in Pittsburgh — a revered family name.

When coastal teams began outspending midmarket teams, Pohlad chose to stop competing.

The Twins held a fire sale in 1995, and by 1998 they were so hopeless that Pohlad played studio baseball — putting the cheapest team possible on the field.

By the beginning of the next century, Pohlad was offering the Twins up for “contraction,” a plan to eliminate the franchise.

In seeking a new ballpark, Pohlad pretended he had a buyer who would move the team to North Carolina (he didn’t) and that he was willing to pay for part of the new ballpark (fine print revealed that he was offering a loan that included interest).

Pohlad’s sons inherited the team and, along with executives Jerry Bell and Dave St. Peter, capitalized on enthusiasm over a newly competitive team and secured funding for Target Field.

The Pohlads should have spent more on payroll in the 2000s. One or two more sluggers or aces might have led to a World Series berth.

The Pohlads’ latest lapse in aggression arrived after the 2023 season. The Twins had just earned their first playoff series victory since 2002. The Pohlads refused to spend money to bolster the roster. That team ran out of gas in 2024 and collapsed in 2025.

That’s when the existence of Target Field should have made a difference.

The Pohlads could have been Minnesota legends in this town. Instead, they saved a few bucks.

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