Twins CEO Jim Pohlad reflects on team's progress

It seemed like the time to ask Jim Pohlad how he enjoys being the chief executive officer of the Twins, a position he has held since he father, Carl, died some six years ago.

"It depends on what your day you're talking to me," he said. "Days where things are going really well, it's great. When things aren't going well, you feel bad and you feel pressure to try and make things better. Recently we have been going well. The last couple of games we haven't been firing on all cylinders, as they say, but it has been a good year so far."

Even though the Twins were swept by Kansas City this week and have lost five of the past six games, they are still tied with the Yankees for the second-best record in the American League.

Has Pohlad been surprised by how well they've played this season?

"I wouldn't say surprised," he said. "I think what we're finding out is when we play our best we're as good as anybody, whereas the past few years when we played our best, we probably weren't as good as anybody. It wasn't good enough. This year it appears to be different, so all we have to do is make sure we continue to play our best, or as close to the best as possible."

Was Paul Molitor his choice for manager from the time Ron Gardenhire was fired last September?

"We had three really great candidates, and it was a unanimous choice to select Paul from those three," he said. "I haven't known [Molitor] as well in the past as I do now, of course. Everybody knew and it was widely reported that he had a great baseball mind, but his ability to deal with people and the public is really what has been huge surprises. He's just really great in both of those other two areas."

Pohlad had a lot of praise for General Manager Terry Ryan.

"Terry has basically legendary status within the game, even though he's still participating in the game," Pohlad said. "He's a legend. Everyone acknowledges that throughout Major League Baseball. We're very lucky we have him, we're happy he's healthy [Ryan took a leave of absence in 2014 while recovering from neck cancer surgery], and I think we're going to have a future together for a long time."

How do the two of them negotiate how much they want to spend on contracts each year?

"A lot of people probably know the contract status of a lot of players, where they are in the arbitration scale, if they have long-term contracts," Pohlad said. "A huge amount of your payroll is set from year to year just by the nature of the particular player, so you do have a particular amount you may work with and go to and get additional players. That's how it really works; you know the fixed amount of your payroll and then decide how much incrementally more you want to spend. Terry was very aggressive in trying to get pitching this year, and that's what led to [signing] Ervin Santana, and what led to [Ricky] Nolasco and [Mike] Pelfrey in years past."

Pohlad also talked about how pleased he has been working with Twins President Dave St. Peter.

"We believe in promoting from within, and Dave started way down there in the ranks and managed to work his way up and prove himself," Pohlad said. "We're really lucky. That's luck when that kind of stuff happens — and not from Dave's standpoint, because he's really capable — but for us to be able to have somebody within the organization that could work their way up and prove themselves. It's a luxury because you know the person and so we're very lucky to have him."

With the MLB draft recently being completed, Pohlad said that while it would be fun to get more involved with player operations, he knows better than to meddle.

"I get briefed on it, for sure, but as much as I'd like to or any owner would like to inject their opinions in there, I realize the value of mine compared to the value of the baseball people is not very high," he said.

What about the Twins' drop in attendance, has that been concerning?

"It concerns us, but it's not just the fact of what we said about Target Field in 2010, it's the fact that the team didn't play very well in '11, '12, '13 and '14 that clearly had something to do with it, also," he said.

What are Pohlad's thoughts on the field in general, which his family always wanted to see built?

"I mean I love it personally, and I watch and look around and it seems to be that a lot of fans love coming there, but they also want to see a competitive team," he said.

Pohlad also was asked about the new movie directed by his brother, Bill, "Love & Mercy." The film starts Paul Dano and John Cusack, who both portray Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson at different points in his life.

"This was the opening weekend for it, so I'll be anxious to see what the box office results were," Pohlad said. "The reviews have all been pretty positive. It's amazing, and Bill has done a great job."

Gophers hockey coach Don Lucia has a contract through 2017, but some rabid fans wanted him fired after their up-and-down 2014-15 season.

However, I'm sure University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler would not permit this to happen, considering the good job Lucia has done over 16 years with two NCAA championships, winning the first two Big Ten titles and the last two WCHA titles before leaving that conference. So despite losing to Minnesota Duluth 4-1 in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year, he certainly doesn't deserve to be terminated.

Lucia recently added a fourth goalie to his roster in Rochester native Brock Kautz. Named the MVP of the 2015 North American Hockey League playoffs, Kautz had a .906 save percentage this season with the Minnesota Wilderness. Kautz joins Ryan Coyne, Nick Lehr and Eric Schierhorn (expected to come in from Muskegon of the USHL) as the group of goalies Lucia will use to replace the departed Adam Wilcox.

• In addition to the report here Wednesday about Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino's $400,000 raise, bringing his salary to $1.6 million for the 2015-2016 season, he will automatically get another $400,000 bonus if he is still coach in April 2016.

• Former Timberwolves guard Chris Carr has been named the new head boys' basketball coach at Minnetonka.

• Tyus Jones worked out for Kevin McHale and the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, and the word is that they could easily select him at No. 18 overall.

• Former Gophers football head coach Tim Brewster continues to have great success as the Florida State tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator under Jimbo Fisher, and he was rewarded with a $93,000 raise. He will be paid $433,000 next season. Brewster received the largest percentage raise of any of the assistants at 27 percent.

Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on 830-AM at 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. and on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. shartman@startribune.com