I'm right there with you. Why anyone even beings to pretend the Pohald in charge is different than the last Pohald that was in charge, or the other Pohald that was in charge.

Fact is, the Pohalds are the Problem. Not the singular problem, but their back-tracking and refusing to sell the Twins was significantly worse for the organization than when the Pohalds screwed the team and back-tracked and decided they needed better cashflows from their $1.5 billion asset because they needed to pay property taxes on their massive estates. 

Tom Pohlad sucks. And I'm willing to say he sucks significantly more than Joe Pohlad did. Joe at least liked baseball. 

When was that one, right after the sweep of the Braves?  I have voted in that one a number of times this year and never seen Twins owner approval that high.  It's usually in the 10%-20% range.

The embarrassing string of articles on TD about how great the deadline was, how there are no more half measures, how we should celebrate this new era of Twins baseball!

The diehards were bought off with two solid relievers and a sub .500 record.  That's all it took.

Why would the Pohlads try harder when such minimal effort leads to gushing praise from their most loyal customers?

1 hour ago, MikeNC said:

When was that one, right after the sweep of the Braves?  I have voted in that one a number of times this year and never seen Twins owner approval that high.  It's usually in the 10%-20% range.

That poll result was this morning.

I firmly believe that anything above 5% approval for this ownership is borderline insanity.

32 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Why would the Pohlads try harder when such minimal effort leads to gushing praise from their most loyal customers?

This is actually my biggest fear for the fandom. That fans here won't demand a winner because they really don't believe it's possible to build a winner. So long as Tom answers "tough questions" from favored reporters twice a year and the Twins hover right around .500, most fans will just shrug their shoulders and say, "well, that's good enough for me."

2 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Tom Pohlad sucks. And I'm willing to say he sucks significantly more than Joe Pohlad did. Joe at least liked baseball. 

I always try to be fair - I don't know yet if he sucks as an owner or not. What I do know is that he already made a bigger blunder than Joe Pohlad ever did. Joe cut payroll at exactly the wrong time, and that diminished chances to win the following year. Tom ignored huge prospect return on player value, and that will diminish the team's chances to win for years and years to come.

Does he understand he made a massive blunder? Is he learning anything from watching how the best MLB teams operate? My guess is no ... but we'll see.

1 minute ago, LastOnePicked said:

I always try to be fair - I don't know yet if he sucks as an owner or not. What I do know is that he already made a bigger blunder than Joe Pohlad ever did. Joe cut payroll at exactly the wrong time, and that diminished chances to win the following year. Tom ignored huge prospect return on player value, and that will diminish the team's chances to win for years and years to come.

Does he understand he made a massive blunder? Is he learning anything from watching how the best MLB teams operate? My guess is no ... but we'll see.

Did Joe Pohlad make that blunder though? Or was it the Pohlad family ownership that forced that upon the Twins while Joe was the (feckless and media-untrained) figurehead?

Could have easily been Tom in a boardroom demanding the payroll cut with Joe being outvoted. 

All the Pohlads suck is the only conclusion we can make. 

Maybe there's a dog you can kick on your way in the door somewhere?

18 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

I always try to be fair - I don't know yet if he sucks as an owner or not. What I do know is that he already made a bigger blunder than Joe Pohlad ever did. Joe cut payroll at exactly the wrong time, and that diminished chances to win the following year. Tom ignored huge prospect return on player value, and that will diminish the team's chances to win for years and years to come.

Does he understand he made a massive blunder? Is he learning anything from watching how the best MLB teams operate? My guess is no ... but we'll see.

Whether or not it was a blunder (Tom's decision) depends on the actual goal. I believe their goal is to sell this team as soon as they can get the number they want. I think they're hoping that happens after the new CBA puts in place revenue predictability and consistency. And if that's the goal, I don't think Tom made a blunder. He did what he was supposed to do, and that's everything you've described...get as much of the fanbase back on board from a PR perspective as possible to help improve their sale number by saying nice words and making minimal moves.

I don't think Tom cares about the baseball blunder because he doesn't care about the baseball team. He cares about his portion of the sale. And he's improved his position there. He won't care about the baseball blunder until/unless he gets stuck with the team he doesn't want in a league without newfound revenue predictability for years to come and he sees that he shot himself in the foot by making a short-term play but getting stuck with the long-term consequences.

43 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Whether or not it was a blunder (Tom's decision) depends on the actual goal.

Fair point. I can only speak from my perspective as a Twins fan. For my needs/wants, it was a blunder,

5 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

The embarrassing string of articles on TD about how great the deadline was, how there are no more half measures, how we should celebrate this new era of Twins baseball!

The diehards were bought off with two solid relievers and a sub .500 record.  That's all it took.

Why would the Pohlads try harder when such minimal effort leads to gushing praise from their most loyal customers?

It was! It annoys me how twins fan are acting like we had a chance of the playoffs before the season! What were people expecting I mean it wasn't great, but I'd rather take a all star closer and some valuable relief additions then DFa pickups or better yet nothing at all. We all knew this was coming and somehow we can't even be happy that we did make these moves that we were even in playoff contention. We were incredibly lucky and we should be grateful.

16 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

I don't think Tom cares about the baseball blunder because he doesn't care about the baseball team. He cares about his portion of the sale. And he's improved his position there. He won't care about the baseball blunder until/unless he gets stuck with the team he doesn't in a league without newfound revenue predictability for years to come and he sees that he shot himself in the foot by making a short-term play but getting stuck with the long-term consequences.

This sounds about right.  The Pohlad goal is and remains selling the team for a price they believe they deserve.  In that effort Tommy has been about as successful as can be in at least treading water vs another 90 loss debacle.  His propaganda campaign has been really effective in convincing rubes that a season in which they are merely a few games ahead of last year's disastrous pace has been "different" somehow.    

Remember the "limited partners" and how that influx of cash was going to help the baseball team?  What ever happened to those guys?  Folks around here were really excited and swore this was going to help the Twins big time.  The Pohlads couldn't stop gushing about these guys.  What actually happened? Tommy started the season with a $100m payroll and we haven't heard a peep about the partners. 

Pay attention to what a Pohlad does, not what he says.  

The Pohlads make much more sense when you view everything they do or say through the lens of money.  To them the Twins may as well be a widget factory.