Neal: Did the Pohlads help the Minnesota Twins or hamper them in 40 years of ownership?

It’s complicated.

When Carl Pohlad purchased the Twins for $44 million in 1984, he was viewed as a savior

When the Pohlad family announced Thursday that it was looking into selling the team, folks acted as if they were being saved from low-budget baseball.

It’s hard to determine what the family’s legacy in the game should be, because there’s evidence over 40 years to support both views. Here’s mine.

The Twins won the American League Central last season and knocked off the Blue Jays in the first round of the playoffs, their first playoff series win since 2002. Fans were energized. A young core was coming together while established players in Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa made the lineup dangerous. They had the closest thing to an ace there is in Pablo Lopez to lead the rotation.

It was a good time to push more chips into the pot.

Add to the payroll, or just keep the payroll flat for 2024, and the Twins are still playing today. They probably draw more than 2 million fans during the regular season, and they are hosting playoff games. Making more money.

Instead, they announced they had to “right-size” the payroll. They reduced that payroll by $30 million, which gutted the fan base. The Diamond Sports/Bally Sports North fiasco didn’t help, but if you can’t push forward following such a terrific season, then what’s the point of being in the baseball business?

We didn’t know that, in recent months, family members were discussing selling the team. That means they were determining the franchise’s future while the Twins were solidly in a wild-card spot before their disastrous 12-27 implosion over the final weeks of the season. This has been a well-thought-out process that ended with the owners informing their stunned employees on Thursday morning of their intentions. It seemed like the franchise was headed into a third generation of leadership under Joe Pohlad. Now it’s not.

When the end is near, you think about the beginning. And that brings us back to Carl.

He purchased the team when its future in Minnesota was in question, so he kept Major League Baseball here. He hired a young and inexperienced general manager in Andy MacPhail, who then hired an inexperienced manager in Tom Kelly. The two 30-somethings won the World Series in 1987 and 1991 — still the last major men’s professional team to bring a championship to Minnesota. From 2002 to ’24, the Twins reached the playoffs 10 times.

The Pohlads contributed $203 million to the construction of Target Field and continue to fund upgrades that have made it one of the best ballparks in the game. During the lost COVID-19 season of 2020, they didn’t lay off employees while the Cubs laid off more than 100 and the Pirates froze pension plans. And the Twins upgraded their 401(k) plan afterward. They also donated money to fight racial injustice after George Floyd’s death and took down a statue of former owner Calvin Griffith for racist comments made during a speech in 1978.

But the family must admit to the self-inflicted damage it has caused through the years.

Carl Pohlad promised funds in the late 1990s to contribute to building a new stadium, only for it to be discovered that it was a loan and that he would be repaid. There was the willingness to sell the team to Don Beaver, who would have moved it to North Carolina if not for a failed referendum vote. Then there was the contraction threat in 2001 that tormented Twins Territory.

For all the good things the family has done through the years, it also will be known for making “total system failure,” “right-sizing payroll” and “business decision” its catchphrases.

If everything works out, there will be a new owner or owners in a year or so who will look at the market size and revenue potential and determine whether they can fund the team more than the Pohlads were willing to. Keep in mind that the Los Angeles Angels were for sale for five months before Arte Moreno decided in 2023 to keep the team. The Washington Nationals were for sale for two years before they were pulled off the market earlier this year. There’s no guarantee the Twins will be snapped up right away.

But the Pohlad family intends to move away from the business of baseball. Based on the events of the past 40 years, was their tenure successful or controversial?

My answer: Yes.