Souhan: Pohlad family selling Minnesota Twins is good, but what comes next?

No one is happier than me that the Pohlads have decided to sell the Twins.

I’m just happy for a different reason than most.

The loudest voices in local fandom and media are thrilled because the next owners will undoubtedly spend more and thus win more, and will never consider threatening to move the franchise. That’s the dubious premise.

I’m thrilled because the Pohlads selling could clear the air of the most illogical and simplistic conversations surrounding a complex sport.

The median angry Twins fan has used the Pohlad name as a one-word, one-stop shop for answers to every problem.

Rookie misses a bunt sign? Pohlads should have spent more on players. Or coaches. Or signs.

Highly paid players get hurt? Why didn’t the Pohlads sign injury-proof players?

The Pohlads’ reputation for cheapness, which was earned by Carl, tainted every move the team made. Genuine analysis was always shouted down by the mob.

Why did the 2024 Twins collapse?

The mob says “The Pohlads didn’t spend enough money.”

The numbers say otherwise.

The 2024 Twins collapsed mostly because a handful of young hitters choked in September, and the Twins’ highest-paid players didn’t do enough to compensate for their failures.

Royce Lewis’ slugging percentage and OPS in September of 2024: .255 and .500. In September of 2023: .612 and 1.022.

Those splits for Ryan Jeffers in 2024 vs. 2023: .246 and .463; .574 and .943.

For Eddie Julien: .204 and .361; .432 and .828.

In 2023, those three performed like superstars while carrying the Twins into the playoffs. A year later, they performed like amateurs while contributing heavily to the Twins’ collapse. Their performances in neither year had anything to do with payroll size or free-agent aggressiveness.

I don’t care who owns the Twins. My barely existent professional relationship with the Pohlads soured in 1994, after I harshly criticized Carl for laying off lowly paid employees during the players’ strike.

But the notion that the next owners will immediately and consistently produce better on-field results is a hope, not a plan.

Owners are like lottery tickets. The next one may change your life, but you’d be foolish to count on it.

I’ve been doing this long enough to remember two Minnesota owners in particular becoming folk heroes.

Their names: Norm Green and Red McCombs.

Green moved the North Stars to Dallas. McCombs stripped the Vikings for parts once he decided to sell. They were both horrific owners who played well to the crowd, something no Pohlad has ever been able to do.

The next Twins owner will likely be a megalomaniac billionaire. Billionaire, because that’s what it takes to become a primary owner these days. Megalomaniac because that’s the personality type that keeps trying to achieve world dominance after making their first $2 or $5 or $10 million, when most of us would retire and wonder how we could ever spend that much in a lifetime.

One thing is certain: The modern Pohlads had no interest in moving the team. They kept Target Field pristine and were supportive of their top employees.

The next owners could want to move to Portland or Vancouver, and while such a move is highly improbable, even the suggestion of owners blackmailing taxpayers for ballpark improvements, or a new ballpark, would be abhorrent.

For every ownership group like the current Wilfs who are responsible and patient, there is a Peter Angelos (who ruined the Orioles), a John Fisher (of the Oakland/Sacramento/Vegas A’s), an Art Modell, who moved the old Cleveland Browns to Baltimore.

The next owners will be successful business people who think they want to be in the spotlight are likely to look at the Twins’ payroll and diminished local media revenues and make many of the same decisions the modern Pohlads did.

If that happens, and we all wind up back in the same conversational continuum, remember that you can still blame all of this on … well, you know.