Tom Pohlad was officially announced as the Twins executive chair on Dec. 17, meaning not just that he’s the face of the team’s ownership, but in charge of, and ultimately responsible for, the team’s financial and competitive success.
It’s a plum gig, but it came with immediate feedback for the newest public face of the family that has owned the Twins since 1984.
“I did get a lot of voicemails,” Pohlad said, and the overall tenor of those calls wasn’t, let’s say, congratulatory.
That’s what happens when you’re named the captain of a listing ship; your first job is to get it back into seafaring shape. Until that happens, fan anger and skepticism will remain.
Since winning World Series in 1987 and 1991, the Twins have really only flirted with postseason relevance. After winning the American League Central and advancing to the AL Championship Series in 2002, they fell into a pattern of regular-season competitiveness and postseason incompetence. When the Twins won a three-game wild-card series in 2023, it snapped an 18-game postseason skid, the longest in major league history.
Because the Twins tanked down the stretch in 2024 and 2025, that skid remains the leading indicator of the team’s recent success. It was exacerbated last July when the Twins used the trade deadline to ship 11 veterans — 10 playing major roles on a team that still had a chance of making the playoffs — to other teams for prospects.
Fans were swift in relaying their displeasure, and nearly five months later, Pohlad — who took over from his brother, Joe, as the team’s executive chair — got a fresh earful. It wasn’t just voicemails, either. One of his first decisions was to call all 50 season-ticket holders who hadn’t renewed for the 2026 season.
“I had one guy hang up because they thought it was a hoax,” Pohlad said Friday as the Twins kicked off their annual TwinsFest fan event at Target Field. “I had to call him back and say, ‘This is Tom Pohlad.’ And let’s say, the response wasn’t necessarily kind.”
Tom Pohlad
Another responded with a text message that Pohlad characterized as “probably like, ‘Until I see a bigger investment in payroll, I’m not taking your call.’”
Pohlad isn’t giving up, though.
During TwinsFest on Saturday, he’ll sit down with 40 to 50 season ticket holders for what he called a “town hall” event.
He also traveled to Georgia to talk with longtime center fielder Byron Buxton and California to meet with veteran starting pitcher Joe Ryan. He was scheduled to meet with starter Pablo Lopez later Friday.
Those three are the undisputed veteran leadership in what has become a young clubhouse. Reaching out to them in person, Lopez said, is “a really professional move.”
“If that’s our leader, then I think we have to follow suit and keep those values in mind — connecting, making sure everyone is taking care of, making sure that you are meeting expectations … that you are turning things around,” Lopez said. “So, it starts at the top.”
But it’s going to take a village, of course.
New manager Derek Shelton inherits a strong, deep rotation that stretches into the Triple-A roster with Mick Abel and Taj Bradley — some of the spoils of the trade-deadline purge — but also a lot of young position players who struggled to score runs in August and September.
The trade deadline moves, and subsequent sacking of manager Rocco Baldelli after seven years, serves as a reset. “Not a rebuild, a reset,” Pohlad insisted, although offseason acquisitions have been few and uninspiring, so far.
The team brought on some minority investors for the first time this offseason in an effort to bolster coffers that were in the red, in part because of COVID-19 and the quick collapse of a broadcast model that relied on cable. Pohlad also acknowledged missteps, as well, such as not investing in the roster after winning a playoff series for the first time since 2002.
“We kind of tripped over ourselves, if you will,” he said. “And we certainly didn’t do a good job of communicating what we were going through, and what we were trying to accomplish.”
“We had a lot of time where we’ve had one good season, one bad season, one good season, one bad season,” he added. “That’s frustrating to a fan base, and it doesn’t communicate, in my opinion, that we have a strategy, that we’re just scattershot.
“We’re trying to build something different, something sustainable.”
If you don’t like what you see this summer, leave a message after the beep.
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